Bulbs: New Hyacinth Bed for Spring 2010, 0 by chrisw99

chrisw99 wrote:
I planted my new hyacinth bed over the last 10 days. It includes 24 different varieties planted side by side. I chose a location on a raised terrace fronted by a stone wall. It is bone dry in the summer which hyacinths seem to like and it drains well--I also put a thin layer of pea gravel sprinkled with some bulb food on the bottom of the bed to take no chances with soggy bulb bases. Because we have gophers and moles I used heavy duty metal cages from Gardener's Supply Co that are about 12 in square and 5 in deep. I fit 2 varieties in each cage separated by a piece of hardware cloth so if I ever dig them up I can still tell which variety is which. The cages come with attached tops which I removed, because the 3/4 in holes are too small for fat hyacinth sprouts to get through.

The photo is of the first 6 cages that were planted. I left a couple of bulb package labels on them just for the photo so I would have a reference point to know what each variety of bulb looked like at planting time.
Starting at the top Left row in the photo the hyacinth varieties from L to R are as follows:

cage 1: Purple Sensation & Atlantic
cage 2: White Pearl & Blue Magic
cage 3: Roman Pink & Apricot Passion
Bottom left row:
cage 7: Dreadnought & Lady Derby
cage 8: Roman Blue & Odysseus
cage 9: General Kohler & Chesnut Flower (just at the right edge )

I'll post another message for the second set of 6 cages.
Chris