Hyacinth Growing Tips
Growing Hyacinths
- Hyacinths like brilliant drainage
- Hyacinth need full sun and a good baking during summer
- Feed with a potash fertilizer in early spring to help roots and bulbs.
- Plant between September and December. Christmas indoor bulbs need to be ‘prepared’ and planted as soon as available.
- Put an inch of grit in the bottom of a pot to help drainage and cover the top of the bulb with 3″ of soil.
- Deadhead and allow leaves to die down naturally.
- Propagate by dividing clumps in early autumn.
Hyacinth Tips
- Hyacinths can last for a fortnight in a vase. Add a drop of bleach to the water to prevent bacteria
- Blues and Yellows have the strongest scent but most varieties are well scented.
- Buy varieties with clear colours and deep saturated tones.
- Taller stemmed varieties generally look the best
- Avoid bi-colours that may be over bred.
I have seen these multiflowered hyacinths in florists shops but never thought to grow them from bulbs. When I saw one in B&Q bursting with 11 shoots from one bulb I parted with my money hoping for flowers on each stem. I have seen them called Roman hyacinths, Festival hyacinths and multifloras but they are to all intents and purposes a strain of the common Hyacinth.
My first large bulb was crammed into a dumpy 4 inch pot so I potted it up into a 6 inch to give the lax habit more space to perform. The speckled effect is naturally in my bulb and not a fungus. The single bulb is already dividing into several offsets and I will be curious to see how well they grow on for next year. In the meantime I await the flowers and scent with interest.
Double Hyacinths
Hyacinth ‘Crystal Doubles Mixed’ combines fully double blooms in the most elegant shades of pink and white with a wonderful springtime perfume. The densely packed flower spikes of these hardy hyacinths make superb cut flowers for a vase indoors.
Some Top Hyacinth Varieties by colour.
- City of Bradford or Sky Jacket – light blues
- Jan Boss – red or Pink Pearl
- Purple Sensation or Woodstock – deep purples
- Kronos, Ostara or King of the Blues
- City Of Harlem – yellow
- Aiolos – white
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