final hyacinth bulbs, small species tulip bulbs and muscari bulbs

Beginning of October and I'm down to the final 4 hyacinth bulbs. The Bloms Blue Eyes bulb in the front looks terrible but I'll plant it and see what happens. I bought this hyacinth vase recently.

species tulips are quite small bulbs so will fit in the Shorter and Son flower troughs, using Little Beaty, Little Princess and Red Hunter tulips

I planted the cat and mouse pot with a hyacinth bulb and also the blue and white biscuit barrel in the pic above.

Marks and Spencer has thrown down the gauntlet! They are selling some crocus vases with muscari bulbs labelled as one of the few bulbs suitable to grow on water. I have not seen muscari grown in vases. In fact, I have attempted to force them in compost and my conclusion was muscari will not bloom one day earlier indoors than out and in my experience earlier outdoors than indoors. I now have to try muscari in vases for myself. I am using my crocus vases which seem to be an appropriate size.

the bulblets need to be removed from the bulbs before they will fit properly in the vases

I assume muscari are like crocus and tulip bulbs, in that they need to be sitting with their base in water.

a week after I started the muscari above, I decided I had to buy the M+S set to try it out

the back of the box

these M+S "muscari" vases are recognisable as crocus vases sold on ebay, vases filled with water, bulbs on top and into the cellar (10-10-2016)

these vases (or the mold/mould used to make them) are so old they say "Product of EEC" on the base (the EEC became the EU in 1993, 26 years ago)

- UPDATE  February 2018 -

This does NOT work. Muscari will not bloom growing on water alone. Marks and Spencer refuse to hear any complaints about this product. They refuse to provide any evidence that it works. They refuse to investigate further as I don't have the product code. I didn't really think I needed to save that. It's so obviously a Marks and Spencer product. It was on sale again this past Autumn (October 2017).