forcing muscari

I took this muscari out of the dark the other day. It looks a bit different from the others, in that it's like the hyacinths, in that it looks like the bulge of the flower is out of the bulb. It remains to be seen what will happen with it. And maybe the bulge is just leaves.

I realised that might not be a Shorter and Son trough. On examing the base, best I could without turning it over, it doesn't say "Shorter". It does have a number. I'll have to wait until the muscari are finished to examine it properly.

close-up of that squirrel, which I think is so cute

Surprising results with some of the muscari. No buds on the vase-forced bulbs. The bulbs I put in the Shorter and Son trough with the squirrel on a quickly improvised combination of gravel and compost have flowers and more buds coming. I don't know what exactly they like about that. 5 flowers/buds out of 10 (so far!), 50% very impressive, especially compared with zero from the vases.

close-up of one of the buds coming

close-up of another bud coming

Stevens and Williams Princess vases on the right (with Fresco), 2 glassroots vases in the middle (lime green has City of Bradford, cranberry Delft Blue), other antique glass hyacinth vases to the left (cobalt blue and green with Delft Blue) with Charles I Britannia ceramic transferware  (with Silverstone) amongst them

hyacinths at their peak: Lady Derby far left, Caribbean Dream (fat dense flowers - wonderful) middle, City of Bradford right

the pic below, just 1 day later after the pic above, and the 3 flowers on the right have opened up and some of the flowers in the pot and bowls have started wilting

Close-up of those 3 on the right from above, that Ravenhead Naturals vase on the left supposedly has Skyline (must be Pink Pearl, loose bulbs at the garden centre got mixed up I assume), middle "Venetian" vase is from Sainsbury's unnamed selection pack, Hornsea Cirrus bulb pot on the right has supposedly Purple Star (looks way too pink for that).