Small Ways | Forcing Hyacinth
Simple. Reachable. Doable. Small ways. They pack enough punch to change your world, or your day. Or maybe, simply and gloriously, they’ll change your moment. Small Ways is a series about small objects, small gestures, small touches. Small ways for living well.
Quite simply, it’s hyacinth and grape hyacinth bulbs, jumbled together and forced to life in a tray of watery pebbles. Quite remarkably, it’s an experience that’s changed my life. Those are big words, I know, but that’s simply how it is. And because this amount of joy should be experienced by the thousands, I thought I best pause everything and tell you all about it.
It began last fall when I bought a bundle of bulbs from my local nursery, fully intending to pot them in soil and tuck them away in our chilly larder for a cold stretch before bringing them into the house early in the year, where they could warm in the sun from the window and sprout into bloom in early spring. This was the plan because this is how you force hyacinth. Or so I thought. How easily I assume things can only be done one way (or maybe two - sprouting single bulbs in special vases was a far off option, if I had the vases). Like the wildlife we are, we follow the same path, do the same things, think the same way.
But, as it sometimes goes, the bulbs were never potted. They spent the winter in the cold of the larder in their mesh bags. A few weeks ago, as I was pulling spent narcissus from the tray of pebbles they’d been growing in, I wondered, Could I do the same with my neglected hyacinth bulbs? I’d never tried. Never seen it done, either, as far as I could recall. Turns out, I could. They could. And what was a fail turned into the most exquisite tray of blooms that brought unexpected joy.
Do, please, pause for just a minute. Go right now to your calendar, flip forward to fall, and write: Buy hyacinth and grape hyacinth bulbs. Because next spring, I want you to experience this, too.
It’s so simple. Purchase your bulbs, and put them, in their mesh bags, into a cool, dark (but not freezing) place. Sometime in February or March, begin looking around your house until you find a tray or saucer of some sort that will hold water. It should be at least a couple inches deep. Fill it with small pebbles (found at any garden store.) Wiggle the bulbs into the pebble bed, just barely, flat end down, as many as you can possibly fit. Fill the tray with cool water just until it reaches the bottoms of the bulbs, and set the tray where it’ll get ambient sunlight (it doesn’t need to be direct).
Now, these bulbs? They’re heavy drinkers, so you’ll want to top them up every day. You’ll be surprised how quickly they pop out of their papery layers. They’re cheery and happy-go-lucky and bloom like everything (oh, and the fragrance!). If they get a little tipsy and tumble over (or out), just sit them back upright in the pebbles and they’ll happily not remember a thing. The hyacinth will bloom just ahead of the grape hyacinth, which is just delightful. When the blooms are spent, take garden snips and cut the flower stalk off, down near the leaves, and leave the leaves and bulbs happily in the pebbles. They’ll supply greenery and support for the grape hyacinth when they’re in full bloom. Together, they create an incredible, continuing parade of blooms lasting over a couple weeks, just when you need it in early spring.
In other words, they’ll change your life.