ju1i3's blog

I'm fascinated by these vases. At first glance they appear to be a pair but on close examination although the design is very very similar, the base vases are quite different. One vase is much lighter and thinner than the other which is a typical cobalt blue heavy glass vase. The light one weighs 220g and the heavy one weighs 320g. The lighter one obviously chips quite easily and has chips around the rim whereas the heavier vase has no chips around the rim.

One of the hyacinths below was broken off so I've brought it inside and put in a vase. Luckily I had a newly purchased one handy! The scent is fantastic for such a small flower.

I've had a few weeks off from thinking about bulbs. All my bulbs had finished indoors and nothing was happening with any bulbs outdoors with bitter cold weather so I didn't have any thoughts to share here but now spring seems to have finally arrived and hyacinths are in bloom in the garden. I had also misplaced my forcing records for last year (luckily just found them) now must finish analysing them before I start thinking about what bulbs to buy for next year (the next forcing year starting in September 2013).

Last year I planted out some of the spent forced indoor hyacinths. This spring has been so cold they've only just bloomed, especially in the front garden which gets more sun, and just a couple so far in the back garden.

Obviously the flowers are a lot smaller and the florets quite sparse compared with their initial blooms last year, partially down to the weather this year I imagine.

This blog entry relates to both my garden withindoors and my garden withoutdoors so I'm going to put it at both sites.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.