Water garden: Growing hyacinth indoors for fragrance and winter blooms

My blue bowl vase filled with fragrant hyacinths from bulbs grown on water.Spring hyacinth bulbs that I started in water weeks ago are now in full bloom in my living room.

They are filling the place with fragrance. I'm not sure if I like the fragrance, but the total sensory experience on the second snowy day this winter certainly brings a nice mood lift. It also helps that this hyacinth variety, 'Purple Sensation' is my favorite lavender.

This is the second year that I have grown spring bulbs indoors in vases with only water and marbles or stones.

The marbles or stones are placed in a vase or bowl with water added to just cover them. The bulbs are then set on top so their bottoms don't get wet. In glass vases and bowls you can see the roots grow, which makes this a fun project to enjoy with kids. Eventually, the rooted bulbs produce flowers.

The spring blulbs require a cold period, just as they'd have if they'd been properly planted outdoors in soil in the fall. 

I start the bulbs in my unheated basement, where they seem to be very happy, and then I bring them upstairs when they seem ready to flower.

So far, I've had success growing indoor flowers this way from bulbs for tulips (safe from the squirrels and the deer), amaryllis, grape hyacinth (muscari) and, this year, the full-size hyacinths shown.

There are several tulip varieties now well rooted in water in the basement, and I'll start more today to compare the difference in growth with those set on water several weeks ago.

Forcing hyacinths in water: Snowy day report

Forcing hyacinth bulbs in water. These were set in the bowl on Dec. 22 Forcing spring bulbs in water was so much fun last year that I decided to do it again.

I had not planned the blow-by-blow progress posts this year, but I shoveled 8 inches of snow (I measured) from my driveway starting at 7:13 a.m. I  finished at 8:33 just so I could go for a little drive on the Union County roads I knew would be cleared.   

Now it's 12:24, I'm back home, and the scene from my window looks like I never shoveled at all. So, here is an update on my bulbs. 

On Dec. 22, I put hyachinth bulbs on marbles in my blue bowl/vase. I put them in my unheated  basement and covered them with very loosely woven burlap cloth. Over the weeks they developed the roots shown, and grew robustly without light. Last Monday (Jan 18), I decided to bring them upstairs because their tops were already touching the burlap and some leaves had dark tips. I wasn't sure if they were being injured by the fabric, so I took it off and put them in the usual place near a sunny living room window.

They've greened up nicely. Here's what they look like on a snow-covered day.  

Hyacinths being forced in water. They are shown above with one month's growth.

Indoor garden: forcing grape hyacinth (muscari) in water

Kimberly L. Jackson

My experiments with forcing spring flower bulbs in  water  began on Dec. 4, 2014 when I filled a round blue bowl-type vase about a third full with clear glass marbles, poured in enough water to cover the marbles, and set about two dozen of the small grape hyacinth (muscari) bulbs on top of them.

They were in my living room, which stays on the cooler side, between 55 to 60 degrees, as a little-used room. 

About five of the bulbs didn't sprout as quickly as the others, so I took those out and put four of them in a square vase with green marbles in the window of a sunny bedroom that was about 68 to 70 degrees on average.

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Indoor garden: Forcing tulip bulbs in water

Kimberly L. Jackson

Last winter I had success with growing three types of bulbs -- tulips, grape hyacinths (muscari) and amaryllis -- in plain water.

In each case, the bulbs were supported in vases of various sizes by marbles, smooth stones or faceted acrylic gems.

I got the idea from iBulb, the Dutch flower-bulb-promoting organization, which had a picture of larger hyacinths growing on smooth stones in shallow vases. 

I decided to try it with the three types of bulbs mentioned.

What follows is a streamlined guide to my process, which was mostly experimental with some guidance from the Lakewood, New Jersey bulb supplier Longfield Gardens, which provided my bulbs.

1. PREPARE THE GROWING MEDIA

Start with clean vases and fillers. Use a weak bleach solution (2 teaspoons of bleach in a gallon of water) to clean vases and to soak all stones, marbles or other fillers for 10 minutes. Rinse well and dry.

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Indoor tulips in water: In bloom and safe from deer

The indoor tulips I've been growing in water opened today, bringing the effect of a wild-looking spring garden into my living room.

Unlike the grape hyacinths and amaryllis, the tulips didn't get weekly photo updates. (Did anyone miss them?) They were sort of like the second child: you love the kid, of course, but having already experienced all the "firsts" you forget (or are too exhausted) to record every milestone the second time around.

Like the grape hyacinths I grew previously, I was concerned the 'Suncatcher' tulips in water would not bloom. They had lived in my basement garage since December to get the chilling required to replicate winter in the ground. In early February, I filled three glass vases of different sizes with smooth stones and water and carefully set the bulbs on top. I brought them all up from the basement on April 3. They were tall, pale shoots that looked surprisingly healthy despite weeks without sun. I set them outside for a day hoping to green them up. It worked, but the stems and the leaves that grew from them still don't have the deep green color of tulips grown in the ground.

From memory, here's how they developed. The bulbs had already sprouted when I arranged them in the vases with the water level just touching their bottoms. After a few weeks, full, cream-colored roots that resemble miniature ramen noodles began to emerge. The sprouts grew thicker and taller, the wavy roots grew down between the rocks to get water.

Blue mold, a type common to tulips and other plants, attacked while the bulbs were in the basement. I swabbed it off one of them with a weak bleach solution on a cotton swab, but didn't have time to do the others.

One of the bulbs that produced a bright yellow flower edged in orange has a severe case, but apparently wasn't affected by the mold it is hosting. It's actually the same mold that is used to make penicillin. I'll be removing it, however, because it's probably not a good idea to risk having the mold spores released into my living room.

The plants are also exceptionally tall. When I brought them up from the basement, most were about 10 inches in height. Undoubtedly, it's from stretching to get some of the sun coming through a distant window. In the two weeks they've been near a sunny window, the tallest has grown to 18 inches. Not ideal, but still a pleasure to see. 

Beyond the happy feeling of success, the best thing is being able to enjoy my tulips without worry about the neighbohood deer making a meal of them.