Hyacinth Time, Baby!

We’re still planting! The weather has been surprisingly mild, so I decided to chance planting the Yellow Hyacinth bulbs I’d gotten from Wedgewood Gardens. In fact, the packet does recommend planting all the way through November. Best not to wait until next year, now that we know bulbs can expire. And if we want blooms in spring, we need to get these babies in the ground for (new term!) vernalization, the facilitator required by some plants for flowering via exposure to cold. This process would make for a great Magic School Bus episode.

There was a narrow strip of weed barrier fabric, right in front of the porch, which I peeled back for planting. As with the iris bed, I dug into and mixed around the existing dirt, to freshen it up. No tenacious weed roots, but I did unearth some bits of trash such as a broken plastic spork and a small shard of glass. A solid reminder to wear gloves when digging around the garden. You never know what you’re going to find.

Snazzy rule of thumb I came across: for planting bulbs, dig the hole about three times as deep as the bulb is tall. This tracks so far with my limited experience, with the smaller iris bulbs being planted at 3” deep and these mammoth hyacinth bulbs going in 4” deep, based on packaging instructions. Further guided by the packaging, I dug the five holes at least four inches apart, and layered the bottoms with bulb tone. This bonemeal-and-organics plant fertilizer can be applied in different ways, but the technique I read that seemed to apply best to newly planted bulbs was to sprinkle it underneath the bulb. I later read that overfertilizing can ‘burn’ roots, especially if the fertilizer has too high of a salt index. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, I only read this factoid after planting and ‘eyeballing’ about two teaspoons of fertilizer per pit.

I must say, the hyacinth bulbs were surprisingly large, after handling iris bulbs. They looked like the lovechild of an onion and an elephant garlic bulb. Hard to resist chomping into. I daresay the squirrels might feel the same way. Of course Squirrel Deterrent Spray is as realistic as Shark Repellent Bat Spray, but luckily, I still had some leftover anti-squirrel wire mesh, and laid that down to help protect the bulb babies. My garden is turning into a cage.

A Purple Heart Haircut

While it’s strongly discouraged to prune in the fall and winter, my soul was compelled to do a little maintenance on the unfortunate-looking Purple Heart. I was able to easily pick off most of the dry, papery dead leaves, although I have not yet found a reliable method of handling the half-dead leaves, with just their outer tips brown and the stem-sides still alive. When I tried to peel one off, the whole stalk broke off and now I guess I have a surprise cutting for propagation.

I also caved to the temptation of trimming two shoots that had grown beyond the main plant mass. I applied the new-to-me pruning technique, cutting right above the node rather than right below, and at a 45 degree angle or less. With any luck, the houseplant won’t be too traumatized and can forgive my well-meaning impudence.