Named after a Laconian youth the beloved of Apollo the God, whose death was engineered by Zephyrus (the west wind). The distraught Apollo caused the Hyacinth to arise from his lovers blood, carrying in its flower the letters AI, meaning woe.
Hyacinthus orientalis is native to Apollo's homelands; Greece and Asia Minor.
It was a very popular bulb in the 16 th. century especially in Holland and England and buyers were prepared to pay very large prices to have them.
They are very easy to force into early bloom by putting them in the fridge for a few weeks (not the freezer), best in the arrea with your vegetables. But make sure that they don't end up in the salad or the cooking pot by mistake.
Then take them out and plant them in pots or in the ground in a cool and dark area until the new shoots are visible.
All garden hyacinths come from Hyacinthus orientalis.
They have narrow, basil and often almost grasslike leaves without marginal teeth. The flowers are very fragrant and are very spectacular and showy. They are a stiff with a regular termimal raceme with each individual flowering stem with a narrow bract at the base. The corolla is bell-shaped and has 6 lobes or segments spreading or turned back. It has 6 stamens and the fruit is a three-angled capsule.
By the eighteenth century there were literally hundreds of varieties. Hyacinths rarely make offsets but you can propagate them by cutting the base of the bulb to force small bulbils to grow. Be patient though, as these can take up to five years to flower!
The life cycle of a Hyacinth is about four years. It takes three years to get to full size. After this time, the parent bulb usually breaks down to smaller bulbs. In the single varieties, seed will set and ripen to a sizable amount.However, growing from seed, you will have to wait about five years for the bulbs to mature but you may get small flowers after three.
Check out these web sites on Hyacinth: "http://www.gardenguides.com/flowers/bulb..."
This one is on home forcing of bulbs: "http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/hil/hil-8507.html"
Good Growing , until next time.
Ixia King. Bill Richardson
Have a look at my Ixia page:"http://www.angelfire.com/ri/ixia"
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