Growing the Mythic Hyacinth Plant
The hyacinth plant is that great combination of a plant that is both beautiful and fragrant, while also bearing a memorable mythic tale along with it. This combination puts the hyacinth plant in the same rank with the Narcissus, that other fragrant, mythical plant.
The Myth of Hyacinth
Hyacinth was a beautiful boy. So beautiful was Hyacinth that both the god Apollo and the West Wind, Zephyr, fell in love with him. When Hyacinth showed a preference for Apollo, however, the jealous West Wind could not stand it. Therefore, when Apollo and Hyacinth played at hurling the discus, Zephyr took one of Apollo’s throws and guided the missile so that it struck Hyacinth with fatal force. The boy fell to the ground, his blood staining the earth. However, Apollo would not let Hades, the god of the Underworld, take his beautiful friend. Instead, through his alchemy he transformed Hyacinth’s blood into a flowering plant so that every year the world might admire Hyacinth’s beauty.
The Hyacinth Plant
With a story like that, the beauty of the silky petals of the Hyacinth plant should not surprise us. The Greek myth probably refers to the purple petals of one type of the Hyacinth plant. The plant itself, however, has thirty varieties whose flowers range from white, to yellow, to blue, to purple.
People also know the Hyacinth for its wonderfully pungent fragrance.
Planting a Hyacinth Plant
The key to planting a Hyacinth is to choose a big healthy bulb. You know when a Hyacinth bulb is healthy through both a tactile and an olfactory test. First, you feel the bulb. If it has any soft spots, this is a sign of rotting and you should discard it. Once, you find a nice firm bulb, put it to your nose, and breathe in its aroma. If it has a rotting smell, this is also a sign of illness. Replace it and keep looking until you find a firm, pungent smelling bulb.
Most gardeners prefer to plant at least half a dozen Hyacinths, both to hedge their bets and because a short row of Hyacinths can be the centerpiece of most any garden.
You want to plant your Hyacinth bulbs in the fall, about six weeks before the weather becomes severe. Hyacinths require a period of severely cold weather in which they ready themselves for blooming by going into a “dormant” state. (If you live in a desert climate or in location with very mild winters, you may stand a better chance by placing you Hyacinth in the refrigerator to force dormancy and then extracting and planting in the spring.)
Prepare the ground by loosening the earth to a depth of one foot. You will only plant your hyacinth bulb at about half this depth, but you want to make it easy for the Hyacinth roots to take hold. Cover the surface above your bulb with a heavy coating of mulch to keeping the severe weather from soaking and rotting your bulbs. If the ground where you are planting your Hyacinth doesn’t drain well in winter, you may consider storing your bulb in a refrigerated area until spring.
The spring should initiate the first Hyacinth sprouts. By the end of summer, you should have a full bloom. In order to increase the probability of further sprouts the next spring, you should snip your Hyacinth stem and remove the flower (called “dead-heading”). Be sure however to spare some leaves. These will shrivel and die, but in the spring, they will help the Hyacinth to bloom again, returning from the dead to bloom again like its mythical moniker.