Submitted by ju1i3 on 3 March, 2013 - 09:52
Submitted by ju1i3 on 27 February, 2013 - 16:43
This red tulip has surprised me by actually blooming. On the left the flower looks trapped in the furled up leaves yesterday. Today I couldn't resist a little intervention and set the flower free (shown below right).


Below is Pussycat with this red tulip in the background on the windowsill (before I let it loose) with the tins of narcissus and pussy willows in the vase. The pussy willow branches were tight buds when I brought them inside. After a day or so the buds opened and the fuzzy flowers emerged. I love them and remember them from my childhood. We used to ride our bikes in the cemetary across the road to look for them.

Submitted by ju1i3 on 23 February, 2013 - 12:42
These narcissus aren't doing very much. These are my final indoor bulbs but don't seem very happy being "forced". I think they'll bloom when they are good and ready and not a day sooner. The 3 rose bowls on the left and the ceramic bowl in the bottom pic are narcissus minnow. I think the 5 tins may be tete-a-tete but I must admit I'm having trouble remembering what I planted where. I'll have to go back and look at my photos. 

Submitted by ju1i3 on 15 February, 2013 - 10:35
Because of time, space and bad weather, I've just been throwing the spent hyacinths into a pile outside. Now there's some warmer weather I can plant them in the garden. 
Somehow I did manage to plant them all. 75 spent hyacinths are planted, with only a few in a very poor state on the compost pile.

and from the other side

I found these in the cellar the other day. I had forgotten they were there.

I noticed that this purple sensation hyacinth bloomed again as well as the others I noted the other day.

Submitted by ju1i3 on 10 February, 2013 - 08:07
I definitely had too many vases to fill this forcing season but I can't resist buying more, especially these jewel coloured Victorian vases.


I sometimes wonder why people buy clear glass vases when the jewel-like colours of the Victorian vases are so beautiful.


Hyacinths are so easy to grow, especially compared to other bulbs. They want to grow no matter what. I found this bulb outside in my pile of spent bulbs sprouting a 3rd flowering stem after the first 2 have wilted. Below is the hyacinth bulb I cut in half to show the developed flower inside before it started growing. I stuck it in a pot to see what would happen and as predicted it started to grow. It has a stem growing which I'm sure will eventually develop a flower. These hyacinths are magic. Just stick them in a vase with water and they're soon rooting, unlike these crocus and tulips which are so hit and miss. I am still experimenting with them and through trial and error trying to figure out which varieties and what methods work best.

These small tulips rooted well at first and then all of this variety wilted without blooming. They were from the selection sold in the box (below) but the varieties are not marked.


Unfortunately the tulip on the left never bloomed properly although the flower is clearly visible in the still furled leaves. Why didn't it make that final lap? The tulip on the right has a very strange growth from the bottom of the bulb pushing the bulb right out of the vase. Is it a root-type growth or an additional stem? I can't tell. Below is another image of it outside the vase.



In contrast, this variety of tulip (centre, below) has performed brilliantly; the only ones in the box to bloom.

Submitted by ju1i3 on 31 January, 2013 - 10:03
Suddenly the tulips have burst into bloom. I did buy a box of assorted tulip bulbs but only this variety is blooming and they weren't named varieties so I don't know what this one is.


I think these truffle bottles are a great size and shape for forcing tulips indoors. Unfortunately I can't get hold of any more. They're very sought-after on ebay.
The clear vases to the left are a pretty good size and shape as well (more visible above).

All the flowers of this variety of tulip wilted before they bloomed. I'll have to double-check the package to see if they did name the varieties.

Submitted by ju1i3 on 26 January, 2013 - 14:43

I was surprised to notice today a stem of this crocus growing downwards. There's a famous hyacinth vase illustration that features a hyacinth bulb growing downwards but I'd never seen a bulb actually grow that way before.
Most of the tall hyacinth vases I have are hand-blown but I recently bought the two on the right below which are mould-blown, although they do have snapped off pontil marks. You can see the difference in the bases, the mould-blown bases being flat and the edges quite straight.


I haven't had much luck with this small bulb grower. One of the vases fell and shattered which surprised me as it's plastic and the small tulips in the vases are dying although they have good root growth. I don't know what went wrong there.

Submitted by ju1i3 on 24 January, 2013 - 19:21
These are just about the final hyacinths but the first (and probably only) crocus in a vase as it escaped the squirrels. I also had a crocus in a small pot. The hyacinths have been spectacular this year although all too brief. Last year they were rather disappointing but it does prove my theory that the weather affected them. Obviously the weather for this year's was better and I've had better blooms to prove it. I'll have to do some analysis on which varieties/suppliers performed best.

Submitted by ju1i3 on 19 January, 2013 - 13:02
Lovely to share bulb forcing with the readers of the BBC website.

Submitted by ju1i3 on 15 January, 2013 - 08:35
I've been so wrapped up with the hyacinths recently I haven't been paying much attention to the small bulbs. All desperately needed topping up with water when I checked them a few days ago. None are blooming yet. These are mostly new varieties for me so I'm not even sure if they willl bloom. None look even close to blooming except the lone crocus that survived the squirrels. Not watering them enough probably didn't help!

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