Growing hyacinths indoors for Christmas

You can have hyacinths flowering for Christmas, filling your home with their heady sweet fragrance in mid-winter. Just follow these simple steps now:

Plant hyacinth bulbs in September and there's every chance you could have a home filled with fragrance for Christmas and New Year. They're beautiful, delicate, scented, and easy to grow. You don't even have to use any soil!

How do I make hyacinths flower in time for Christmas?

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Buy specially prepared hyacinth bulbs for Christmas flowering

You need to use specially prepared bulbs if you want flowers in midwinter. Make sure you check this is what you are buying. They are heat treated which enables them to grow sooner and flower earlier. 

If you buy bulbs which have not been specially prepared you are more likely to be enjoying your hyacinths in the spring rather than the festive season.

How to grow hyacinths indoors in pots

First, half fill a pot with compost. I use compost from my garden compost heap. There are special bulb composts available but you don't really need anything too particular.

Sit the bulbs on top of the compost and then top up the compost leaving the top of the bulb exposed.

Leave the top of the hyacinth bulb exposed

It's up to you how large a pot you use and how many bulbs you put in each one. Because bulbs contain almost all of the food the plant needs to grow, you can pack them in tightly next to each other if you want, or you can plant them individually.

Add gravel on top of the compost, still leaving the top of the bulb uncovered. The gravel helps keep moisture in the compost, but away from the part of the bulb where it will start growing from. You want the moisture in the roots not the stem!

Mulch with gravel

Put your hyacinths in a cool, dark, dry cupboard and check them once a week. Add a little water if the compost has dried out. 

 Hyacinth bulbs in the cupboard

When there are some shoots growing well from the top of the bulbs, move them back to a light position, for example on a windowsill.

Just water enough to stop them drying out, and they should soon open up to reveal the developing flower buds, which will carry on growing upwards and then produce their smooth silky petals, before pumping out their strong fragrance across the room.

Hyacinth flowering on New Year's Day

How to grow hyacinths indoors without soil

You don't even need any compost to grow hyacinths. If you prefer you can do it using just a jar full of water. 

There are special hyacinth bulb glasses available which allow the bulb to sit in the top of the glass, with its bottom just touching the water, encouraging the roots to grow down into it.

So fill the glass with water to just the right height so that it just about touches the bulb when the bulb is resting in the neck of the glass. 

The water should just touch the bottom of the bulb

From then on the process is the same as for pots. Put the glass in a dark cupboard for a couple of weeks, until the shoots are growing. Then put it on a bright windowsill.

When shoots are growing, bring it back out again

You wont need to do anything else, as the roots grow down into the water. Just wait and watch and with a bit of luck, your flowers should appear just before your family and friends arrive for the Christmas party, dinner or whatever else you do to celebrate. 

Hyacinth in flower for Christmas

So what could be simpler? Don't hang around, get some bulbs and pots, or glasses, this weekend and get your hyacinths into a cupboard to get them started. Whether you grow hyacinths indoors with or without soil, hopefully you'll be smelling them by New Year. 

Good Luck,

Paul

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