garden withindoors

couple more tulips have bloomed today, the one on the left has mutliple buds - I've never had that on a tulip before

my first tulips (Little Beauty) in bloom

I bought some unprepared hyacinths (Woodstock, Marie and Ibis) and put them in the fridge for 6 weeks to prepare them myself so they were later  than everything else. One Woodstock is in bloom (below) and the remaining ones are in the pots pictured below that.

These are some of the final hyacinths: Marie and Woodstock I prepared myself.

This is the small crocus from the photo above.

This is the Marie hyacinth from the amethyst vase above. No wonder it's so small, the roots are miniscule. I don't know why.

I see the Marie bulbs are quite a dark colour (in the golden syrup tin), quite distinctive from the Woodstock.

These Woodstock are incredibly thin and the buds quite small. They are all like that so obviously naturally so.

My City of Haarlem hyacinths, probably as much as they're going to bloom. Why do I try this variety over and over again? It never works, much as I hope. Why do the suppliers bother to prepare them? They never work!

The two tall hyacinths on the right are Sky Jacket. They are generally quite tall with thin flowers, compared to the Delft Blue on the left which is a fat full flower. Notice the secondary stem. That was a bulblet I hadn't noticed until it bloomed. To the left of that is a white Carnegie hyacinth. To the right is a Bristol green vase I bought quite late, too late to grow a hyacinth in this season.

After seeing the flower bricks on Antiques Roadshow yesterday, I was inspired to push the hyacinth vases to one side, buy some inexpensive flowers and have a go at arranging them in my (reproduction) flower bricks. I did not know which were the best flowers to use and how many of each but in this case I was limited by availability and budget. This time it's red tulips and purple iris.

The stems are much too long. I've had to force myself to trim them even more. It's painful

but I see they do look better. One flower in each hole I think would be too much and wouldn't even fit.

The holes in the Winterthur brick are smaller, too small for the tulips and irises. The greenery that came with the irises just fits.

I need to see how the iris look when in bloom. I'll probably have to shorten them even further.  I've filled all the bricks with water (through the larger central hole). I think that's a good number of tulips in the Culpeper brick.

I have not been able to find any period examples of flower bricks with flowers (eg paintings or illustrations) but from my experimentation I think less is more, the smaller the better with flower size and not every hole needs a stem in it. I will try other kinds of flowers and post results here.

a couple days later and the iris are in bloom, I think they are too big for the "vase" and overwhelm the flower brick, I will look out for other flowers to try

My hyacinths are looking spectacular. I notice that some of the Delft Blue hyacinths are darker than others, with a really intense purple colour. I guess they get lighter with age.

Aren't hyacinths naughty when a pair of vases has two such differently-sized flowers?

All of the hyacinths in my Tye vases finished early. As I was putting them away I noticed one felt much heavier so I decided to weigh them. They should, in theory, all weigh the same if they are being moulded with the same mould, but they don't. I guess different amounts of glass are put in. Left to right, they are 403g (amethyst), 453g (green), 397g, 477g, 370g (all 3 cobalt blue). They are all the vases that are impressed "Gt Charles St, Birmingham, GPTye" to the base, none with the date (4th November 1850?).

above is my first crocus

This hyacinth, on the left below, has straightened up just in the last few days (see earlier photo below). I think this page proves that Delft Blue is "the" hyacinth variety for forcing - or my favourite anyway! The only downside is it doesn't bloom for Christmas, it's 2 or 3 weeks later, but it gives reliable, excellent results.

This hyacinth is still bent at a 90-degree angle.

these bulb bowls and pots have been a great success this year

I think these are Delft Blue

I incorrectly said I though these were Blue Star hyacinths but they can't be because I only bought 3 of those and put them in vases so these must be Delft Blue.

I think these are Delft Blue

Finally some large Delft Blue purple hyacinth blooms, in a SylvaC pot.

Broste Copenhagen jack-in-the-pulpit hyacinth vases. Not sure which variety these are.

Cranberry hyacinth vase with Delft Blue hyacinth bulb.

The bulblet in the first photo below is surprisingly well-developed but still needs to be removed  (see next photo) to allow the main stem and blooms the best chance.

Hyacinth bulb bowl (from Past Times) on the left, crocus bowl on the right.

Biscuit barrel used as a hyacinth planter. It would be nice if the hyacinth wasn't bent over at a 90-degree angle. Sometimes they do that, sometimes they staighten up on their own.

These are the last vases out of the cellar. Some don't look that ready, even after all this time, but I figure if they aren't ready now, they're never going to be. I think that purple one in the middle and the small green one at the bottom have a certain variety of hyacinth - they have quite a different look- will check which ones. On the right in the pot are bulblets and some crocus.

This is the worst amaryllis I've ever had. It never bloomed properly, just shriveled up and died.

It's raining and cloudy and miserable but I wanted to photograph my bulb vases so I moved the table near the window, tied up the curtain not to block what little light there was and took a few photos. These were my fattest buds. They look ready to burst and that they will have fab blooms but I will wait and see because things often don't turn out as you expect. The small stems in the SylvaC pot are bulblets I planted. They will take a few years to develop. I've never managed to get any to maturity but those look promising so I'm hopeful.

a close-up of one of those fat buds above

The photo above and the one below illustrates possible problems with bulb bowls: the bulbs develop at different rates (the one on the left at the back above hasn't bloomed yet) and the bulb at the right front below doesn't match (the garden centre didn't put the correct variety in the correct bin OR the supplier didn't OR a customer returned it to the wrong bin).

My 3 cobalt blue Tye hyacinth vases with Blue Star hyacinth bulbs.

Anyone else watching the Great British Garden Revival? Gosh, Tom Hart Dyke talking about Victorians and bringing plants indoors and choosing regardless of what's in fashion and not a mention of forcing bulbs! He has his own "approved" list of what you should grow indoors and he doesn't include hyacinths.  signed, Disgusted

Until I bought this amber hyacinth vase, I'd never seen one in this exact shape - and I love it. The cup is more flower-like than similar vases, I would say tulip-like (unlike the similar amber vase below).

These just came out of the cellar (note there is some overlap with these photos- it was difficult to show them all in the same photo). This is the peak, for me, of the forcing season with about 20 coming out of the cellar on the same day.

This bud is huge. On closer examination it shows the beginning of 2 stems.

The bulb below wasn't sitting in the vase quite right. When I tried to straighten it I realised there was a bulblet, common enough, but I didn't expect it to be so developed under the water. I broke it off and planted it in a pot (photo to follow).

This is a close-up of the tins above. It's a shame they never bloomed properly. I don't like this variety generally. Its main advantage is that it blooms early, which it did, after a fashion. I think these may be another example of mislabelled bulbs as I can't imagine I bought so many! although I did not note the bulbs in the tins as carefully as I did the vases.

These two are ready to be discarded. The one on the left (White Pearl) never bloomed properly. The one on the right (Fondant) only half-bloomed.

Some of the amaryllis are in full bloom (2 of the 4) and they only took 5 weeks. One is not looking good at all (2nd from left) and the last one (far left) is not nearly as full  as the best ones. So somewhat hit and miss on these. For the price (£8.99 each) I want them all to be spectacular. Yesterday I rinsed out all the vases and put in fresh water. I also removed all the rotten roots. 

With limited space and a ridiculous number of vases and pots I have to be brutal and thin the hyacinths as soon as they've bloomed. So I will be discarding these today. Some never bloomed properly. Some are just past their best.

These are worth keeping a little longer.