time to start forcing hyacinths

My bulbs were delivered this week, all 114 of them (!). Not much room on the table for the cats but they find a way. I put a bulb in each vase which I had filled with water to just under the bulb (the bulb mustn't sit in water). I put all the vases in my cellar in the dark. I'll start checking them in a few weeks.

I thought the hyacinth bulbs might not be very good this year after a summer of drought and heatwave but they look great. Scarecrow had to check them out.

Rocky, only Scarecrow and Rocky came came to supervise my bulb forcing this year.

Delft Blue, "the" haycinth bulb for forcing

Jan Bos hyacinth bulbs

Blue Eyes hyacinth bulbs

Aiolos hyacinth bulbs

Gypsy Queen hyacinth bulbs, I thought I'd used these before but I don't remember the silvery colour - love it

Blue Star hyacinth bulbs

Miss Saigon haycinth bulbs

Aqua hyacinth bulbs, a new variety I have not used before

Sky Jacket hyacinth bulbs

Sky Planet hyacinth bulbs, a new variety I have not used before

Caribbean Dream hyacinth bulbs, a large variety I buy to use in my largest  vases but this year the Blue Eyes bulbs look even larger

Pink Surprise hyacinth bulbs, a new variety I've not used before and the only bulbs this year that don't look very good, all are split and don't look very good in a vase so I've used them in vases where the shape covers them a bit

Socky came to supervise starting the final 15 hyacinths a couple days later