Will they make it or not? Buying prepared hyacinths to grow them for Christmas is always a gamble and I never think it is worth recommending to beginner gardeners. This isn’t because I don’t like hyacinths – I love them. But it is a gamble whether they will flower in time for Christmas, they need planting early, they do need special treatment that is not always easy for people to provide and, the real killer blow, it is just as cheap to buy them in bud, just about to bloom, as to buy the bulbs.

To be in with a chance of flowers at Christmas you must buy prepared bulbs. They need to be planted by mid-September because they need ten weeks in a cool place, in the dark, to form roots and then a nice big fat bud, that resembles a chicory chicon, before they are brought into the light and more warmth. If you bring them into light and heat before the bud is big enough and the flowers are out of the neck of the bulbs you will end up with a bunch of flowers at the bottom of a short tuft of leaves like a mutant floral shuttlecock.

These shoots are not quite ready to come into the light and warmth yet – will they be blooming by Christmas? It seems unlikely

Buy the bulbs and plant them in October and they have no chance of blooming for Christmas – though they will flower in the New Year.

Keeping the planted bulbs cool and dark is not easy unless you have a shed or coldframe. Unless you live in an igloo, under the bed just won’t do! Mine were kept in an unheated greenhouse with a cardboard box over them.

No, nothing to do with Boxing Day

It looks a bit touch and go for mine this year. I deliberately bought varieties that are not commonly bought as growing bulbs in pots but I think they need at least a week more in the dark, just to be sure and one batch have hardly any  shoots at all so they will be several more weeks. So I may have one batch in bloom for St Stephens Day.

But I think I will buy a couple of pots almost in bloom, just to be sure.

Christmas flowers, Hyacinths, prepared hyacinths