Hyacinthus orientalis
Hyacinth
Common names: Garden hyacinth
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Pot size
- from 2 l
- Lifespan
- Perennial
- Hardiness
- Hardy down to −12 °C
- Water need
- Medium
Photo: Rasbak · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
The hyacinth captivates in March and April with dense flower spikes in blue, pink, white and violet and an intense sweet fragrance. It is suitable for beds, pots and pre-culture in a glass on the windowsill. In the garden the flower heads become looser and more natural from year to year.
Care instructions
Plant the bulbs in September and October about 15 cm deep in well‑drained soil at a sunny spot. Wear gloves when planting, as the bulb skins can irritate the skin. Allow the foliage to die back after flowering. In heavy, wet soils the bulbs may rot; a drainage layer of sand in the planting hole helps.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
PlantingSep–Oct
HarvestMar–Apr
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
sandy, loamy, humus-rich, well-drained
Hyacinths need loose, humus-rich and above all free-draining soil, because waterlogging makes the bulbs rot. It is best to improve heavy loam soils with sand and ripe compost; a neutral to slightly acidic soil is ideal, and slightly chalky soil is tolerated too.
Feeding
Light feeder
Months
Mar, Sep, Oct
When planting in autumn (September to October), work ripe compost shallowly into the soil and you can mix in a little horn shavings, so that the nitrogen is available slowly until growth starts in spring. In spring, as the leaves emerge, rake in a little more ripe compost lightly if needed. If you work in compost every year, you can do without further feeding, because oversupply comes at the expense of flowering.
Overwintering
Leave the bulbs in the ground. They survive the winters of Germany, Austria and Switzerland without protection and even need the cold in order to flower. Just make sure drainage is good so that they do not rot in winter wet, and after flowering let the leaves die back before you cut them off.
Propagation
Methods
- Offsets
- From seed
The most reliable way to propagate hyacinths is by offsets (bulblets): dig up the bulbs as soon as the foliage has died back completely in early summer, and carefully separate the small daughter bulbs from the mother bulb with your fingers or a clean knife. Take only offsets at least 1 cm across. Store them dry and cool over the summer (about 10 to 15 °C) and check occasionally for rot. Plant them in autumn (September to October) about 10 to 12 cm deep, 10 to 15 cm apart, in a sunny, free-draining spot. Expect offsets to take 2 to 3 years to reach their first flowering. To produce more offsets, in autumn you can cut a deep cross into the base plate of a healthy, plump mother bulb with a sharp, clean knife. This encourages the formation of several daughter bulbs. Propagation from seed is possible, but very lengthy: leave the flower spikes in place after flowering until the seed capsules are brown and dry, collect the seeds and sow them in the same autumn in pots of free-draining seed compost. Place the pots in a bright, cool spot (about 10 to 15 °C) and keep the compost evenly moist. Several years pass before the first flowering (often 4 to 6). For results true to variety, offsets are clearly the better choice, as hyacinth varieties vary greatly when grown from seed.
Companion planting
Good neighbors
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
For your garden
Grow Hyacinth yourself
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