Many summer residents seek to grow hyacinths in their area, planting and caring in the open ground for which require a certain amount of time. In this article we will look at how to grow these beautiful flowers (even in those regions where the ground freezes in winter), when to dig up hyacinths, how to store bulbs, how to propagate a variety you like.
In early spring, as soon as the snow melts, green hyacinths sprout from the ground. This flower with a bewitching and pronounced aroma differs in all shades of the rainbow. Inflorescences in the form of tassels can be either ordinary or terry in structure, usually 20-30 buds are located on the peduncle.
Planting Hyacinths in the Ground: Choosing Bulbs and a Place for Planting
Perennial hyacinth is an onion culture, the size of the bulb may vary depending on the type of flower. Planting material is considered an adult by 5-6 years, when fully formed. A tuber is a scaly sphere with a kidney of renewal - it is it that affects its growth. By the 5th year, adult bulbs usually acquire babies that form near the bottom and are hidden under scales.
Hyacinth, photo of flowers:
When choosing tubers, you should pay attention to the following nuances:
- Terry bulb bulbs are often smaller, unlike their regular counterparts.
- To grow flowers in the open ground, the tuber must have at least 4 cm in diameter, a full-fledged active bud, and multiple scales. Elasticity and heaviness are indicators of a healthy bulb.
- The appearance of the bulb should be perfect - no damage, sagging sides, mold.
- On the lower part of the tuber (near the bottom), root primordia should be present.
- The bottom of a bulb suitable for planting should be about one and a half to two times smaller than the bulb itself (we are talking about volume).
The key to long and magnificent flowering is not only high-quality planting material, but also the very place for planting. You can break the flower garden near trees or bushes, but not very close to them. The place for plants should be calm, well lit by sunlight. The soil needs to be loose, if black soil or loam predominates on your site, then it is advisable to add peat to it in advance (you can also sand). Soddy ground or deciduous humus are excellent conditions for the development, growth and flowering of hyacinths.
As a fertilizer, organics give good results, but dung should not be used. If the soil is acidic (pH above 6.5) then it should be diluted with dolomite (limestone) flour. Hyacinth tubers do not like excessive moisture. If in your area groundwater runs close to the surface (closer than 0.5 m), you can’t do without arranging high beds. In addition, plants will have to provide a quality drainage substrate, as well as make a slight slope of the ridge - for better outflow of water during rains, spring snowmelt. With the advent of spring, high beds warm up faster by the sun's rays, hyacinths bloom much earlier.
When to plant hyacinths
An acceptable time for planting bulbs is mid-September / October. It should be borne in mind that if you plant a tuber too early, it will begin to develop, but will not tolerate winter, it will freeze. If you plant hyacinths too late, then they will not have time to take root and get used to the place - they will also perish accordingly. If you are late for boarding, then hurry up to the first week of November - this is the latest deadline. To do this, you have to resort to additional measures - to cover the planting site with fallen leaves, spruce branches or any other shelter to prevent freezing of the bulbs.
Can hyacinths be planted in spring? Often I see that gardeners ask about spring planting of hyacinths. Most likely this question arises if you bought or gave you a blooming hyacinth in a pot. What to do with the onion in this case? First, let the flower bloom. Secondly, the bulb should not be immediately transplanted into the open ground. Let the bulb ripen: reduce watering, leave the flower alone, wait until all the leaves turn yellow and begin to die. About a month and a half will pass. After that, release the bulb from the pot and leave it in a shaded place until September-October (the timing depends on the region). And then do as the tips recommend planting hyacinths in the fall.
Hyacinths cultivation in the open field
It is highly advisable to prepare the soil in advance - dig to a depth of about 40-45 cm and make the required additives (depends on the composition and condition of the soil). Limestone (200 g), wood ash (150 g), superphosphate (50-70 g), magnesium sulfate (10 g) or potassium (20 g) are added from an approximate calculation per 1 m² of land. So that fragile young roots are not damaged during planting, digging up the soil at the site of the future flower garden is also important. During bulb deepening, the soil temperature should be about 8-11 degrees, the distance between the tubers should be no more than 10-15 cm. If the flowers are planted in beds, then the row spacing should be about 18-22 cm. If you want different varieties of hyacinths bloomed at the same time, make sure that all tubers are approximately the same size.
Hyacinth, photo of bulbs:
The place under the future flower garden is mulched with leaves or some other suitable material, covered with a plastic film, to preserve heat. After deepening the tubers, the plot is sprinkled with sawdust or peat, and it can again be covered with foliage or coniferous spruce branches. Special covering material is excellent for these purposes. With the advent of the first days of spring, the protective coating can be removed to make way for pestilent hyacinth sprouts.
As mentioned above, the bulbs must be healthy, but if you are still afraid of fungal manifestations, you can pre-soak them in a fungicide solution.
The width and depth of the hole under the tuber should be equal to its two sizes - about 15-25 cm, a little sand can be poured on the bottom, and then the tuber should be buried bottom-down (about 13-15 cm). The onion is sprinkled with soil, which must be slightly tamped, then watered.
The root system of the plant absorbs moisture and nutrients from the earth in a radius of about 20 cm from the tuber - this should be taken into account. Small onions cannot be deeply buried, they should also be planted quite densely.
How to care for hyacinth
After the protective shelter is removed, the care of the plants will consist in weeding, regular watering, loosening the soil, applying fertilizing. Keep in mind that hyacinths are poorly related to the weed neighborhood. When the buds begin to set and the flowering time comes, fertilizing the soil becomes especially relevant. After hatching the sprouts, the flowers can be fed with nitrate (25-30 g per 1 m²).
The second stage of fertilizer follows during the period when the buds are gaining color. Now, in addition to ammonium nitrate, you can add potassium chloride (25 g) and a phosphorus additive (for example, superphosphate, 35 g). At the end of flowering, superphosphate and potassium chloride are added to the plot - 35 g of each product per 1 m² of area. Fertilizers process row spacings or spaces between flowers; watering should always be done after top dressing.
Hyacinths - how to care after flowering? Unfortunately, this wonderful period is fleeting, after the flowers have dried, the roots should continue to be saturated with moisture. To tubers well restored after flowering, watering and fertilizer should be in the first place. If you live in a “cold” region, then you can’t leave hyacinths for the winter, you have to dig them out - these are necessary measures for the further favorable formation of kidney replacement.
If you live in the Kuban, in the Crimea, in the north of the Caucasus, then the annual digging of tubers can be avoided, but only on condition of a very hot summer. It should be borne in mind that the bulbs left in the ground for the next year will yield much less flowers.
From my experience I can share this observation: I accidentally dug up several hyacinth bulbs, forgetting that they grew in my place. She didn’t dig in, as an urgent need to plant a rose seedling. And I forgot about them, leaving me to lie on the porch. Stumbled upon them only in the fall. Planted. And in the spring she was surprised by large peduncles, abundantly dotted with flowers that crawled out of the ground in this place. Other hyacinths also bloomed, but their flowering was much more modest, approximately the same as in the photo below.
When to dig up hyacinths after flowering
The optimal period is the last weeks of June - the first half of July, when the leaves of the plant become yellow and weak. The ground part of the flower is removed, the tubers are removed from the soil, washed with water and thoroughly dried. Next, we conduct an audit - we discard damaged (or with obvious signs of the disease) specimens. If there are undeveloped children on the bulb, they are separated and set aside for growing. Before storage, all tubers must be treated against diseases and pests.
Planting material, photo:
After all the manipulations, the bulbs should be aged for about 7-10 days in a well-ventilated place at an air temperature of +17 .. + 20 ° C. To do this, they need to be laid out on clean paper, and after the specified time has passed, hidden in paper bags. It is the period after flowering, as well as the processing and storage time of tubers that are the most important for hyacinths. At this time, acclimatization of planting material occurs, the scales dry out, the tubers are prepared for the summer period.
At a sufficiently high summer temperature, air access and moderate humidity should be provided to the bulbs (if the thermometer reaches + 30 ° C). About three weeks before planting, the temperature in the room with the bulbs should be lowered to +16 ° C - this will help them adapt before planting.
How to propagate hyacinths at home
Separately, it is worth considering reproduction methods, since tubers can produce flowers for two or three years, but they will not form children. For this, the bulbs need stimulation, it is carried out in various ways.
Hyacinth tuber bottom cutting
Even when landing on the site, the place where the largest bulbs are planted is determined. After the leaves turn yellow in the plant, the tuber is removed from the ground and immediately, without allowing it to dry, they arrange a “shower” under the strong pressure of water. During this process, old flakes are removed along with the ground. Next, the onions are laid out in one layer in a ventilated box, taken out to a shaded place, dried for about 7-10 days. After this time, using a sharp knife at the bottom, a wedge-shaped cut is made, in which the kidney and the donor itself are completely removed. The place of cut must be treated with crushed activated carbon.
After this operation, the tubers are laid out in a container, the bottom of which is covered with a layer of perlite. Bulbs should be laid with the cut bottom up. Next, the container is placed in a large plastic bag (you can use garbage bags) to create the required microclimate. At a temperature of + 30 ° C and high humidity, children will appear at the cut site, and after 2-3 months they will reach about 1 cm, acquire root buds and let out small processes. If the bottom was cut out in the first months of summer, then the tuber with children can be planted in the soil and covered with sawdust (or peat).
If time is lost, the tubers are turned upside down, placed in a container with soil, placed in the cold (refrigerator, cellar), and when spring comes, they are planted on the site.
After the hyacinths have faded, what should I do next? With the onset of August, these tubers are dug up (by that time they are already covered with children), they separate the children. By early September, the young generation of hyacinths is buried in the soil, covered with a 10 cm layer of mulch (sawdust, pine conifer, foliage, peat). At the end of the first wintering, the mulch layer is removed, but left in place after the second winter. In the third year, such hyacinths give color and delight you with a wonderful aroma.
Bulk flake propagation
Large tubers (approximately 5-6 cm in diameter) are cut into 4 parts, after which some scales are separated from the bottom, the “wound” surface is treated with crushed activated carbon. Then a container is taken, at the bottom of which perlite or clean sand is poured, you can also use crushed charcoal with ash. Broken flakes are placed in this container, then it is placed in a transparent plastic bag, reliably tied and aged for 2 months under not too bright light.
In this case, the air temperature should be approximately + 19..23 ° C, but in the second stage, which lasts one and a half months, the temperature should be reduced to + 16..19 ° C. During this period, several onions will be tied on the scales. Storage of young livestock is similar to the method described in the first method.
Propagation of hyacinths by leaf cuttings
To do this, wait for the period of the ovary flower stalks and separate from hyacinths by a pair of sheets, they need to be cut as close as possible to the base. Next, the leaves are treated in a solution that stimulates root formation (for example, “heteroauxin”) and is buried 3-4 cm into a container with clean sand (or perlite). This capacity, again, is enclosed in a plastic bag, tied and placed in a moderately lit place for a month and a half. Air temperature should vary between + 10..17 ° C, humidity - 80-90%. After this period, on the cuttings you can see the bulbous rudiments, and after 50-60 days - young roots and small leaves. Then the plants are planted on the site, each stalk subsequently gives 6-10 children.
Incision of the bottom as a way of propagating hyacinth
In this procedure, the donut is not removed, as in the first case, but is incised crosswise. On large tubers, a pair of crosses is made, on those smaller ones - one. Damaged places are treated with powdered activated carbon, then the bulbs are put in a warm room (+ 20..22 ° C) for 24 hours so that the “crosses” open. All further steps are similar to the recommendations described above. With this method of tuber stimulation, approximately 10–16 large young bulbs can be obtained.
In order for these spring messengers to please you with long flowering, splendor of tassels and an amazing aroma, you need to make an effort. Now you know how to grow hyacinths, planting and care in the open ground for which, although they are difficult, but they are undoubtedly worth the time and energy spent.