Hyacinth

See Hyacinths for current horticultural and botanical information.

from the Victorian Gardener

Hyacinth (Hyacinthus) - The familiar garden Hyacinth is not generally included among hardy plants, though it is perfectly hardy, and when treated as it should be, most important. The parent of all the varieties, H. orientalis is as hardy as a Daffodil, and its varieties are scarcely less hardy. Hyacinths in the open air are generally the refuse, as it were, of the forced bulbs of preceding years, but even these make a good display in suitable positions. To have a fine bloom of Hyacinths in the open air, however, it is essential that the bulbs should be good and sound, and due regard paid to assortment of color, as tints massed by themselves are far more effective than a confusion of various colors. Late planting and deep planting both tend to defer the bloom, but make no great difference, and as a rule late bloom is to be preferred, being less liable to injury from frost. The shallowest planting should ensure a depth of 3 inches of earth above the crown of the bulb, but, generally speaking, they will flower better, be a few days later, and form stronger bulbs after flowering, if there is fully 6 inches of earth over the crowns. Hyacinths in the open air seldom require artificial watering, the natural moisture of the soil and the strength of the manure mixed with it being sufficient. When grown in beds they do not require sticks or ties; simply proper planting. After blooming, the bulbs, if intended to flower again, must be left undisturbed until the leaves wither or die. The bulbs should then be taken up, dried in a stack for a week or two, and finally placed in the sun for a few hours, the dry leaves being pulled off. Offsets should also be removed from the bulbs, and stored in dry sand or earth till the next planting time. Some take up the bulbs every year, but we have seen handsome beds that were not disturbed for several years.

Related Flowers

Hyacinthus Amethystinus

Hyacinthus Amethystinus - Though nearly related to H. azureus, is quite different, and flowers a month later and at a time when there is a dearth of flowers of this description in the hardy bulb garden. The great mistake with a bulb like this is to have two or three, or even a dozen, in a clump. Instead of the dozen, it should be grown by the hundred, and no prettier sight can well be imagined than a large sheet of this graceful Hyacinth, with its loose racemes of vivid amethyst flowers.

Hyacinthus Azureus

Hyacinthus Azureus - One of the earliest as well as the most charming of our early spring flowers. In the case of a dwarf bulb of this kind flowering so early, a handlight or bell-glass is simply placed over the clump on the approach of a storm, taking the cover off when all danger is past. The flowers stand any amount of frost without injury, and it is only the chance of their being broken with snow that renders a covering necessary. The bulb is whitish, round, an inch or so in diameter, producing in great abundance stolons or bulbils from the base; the leaves, in number from six to eight to a bulb, are broad, strap-shaped, glaucous, and deeply channelled; the flower-heads dense, conical, upper flowers sky-blue, campanulate, the lower deep azure blue, and larger than those of the ordinary Grape Hyacinth.

Hyacinthus candicans

Hyacinthus candicans - Galtonia.

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