The £50,000 flower
... that’s what one hyacinth once cost. But you don’t need to spend a fortune to enjoy them
IN THE late 1990s, I was a young reporter on a horticulture magazine. My memory of some of the stories I covered is patchy, but I clearly recall the moment I discovered that three hyacinth bulbs had been sold for a staggering £150,000.
Of course, they weren’t any old variety. ‘ Midnight Mystic’ was the world’s first black hyacinth, one of the holy grails of the plant kingdom. At the time, black flowers were highly popular, so a British seed company paid a small fortune to acquire the parent bulbs from their Dutch breeder.
The variety was launched to a fanfare of publicity at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2005, and the initial stock of 25,000 bulbs sold out. These days they are more readily available. They still don’t come cheap, although £5 for a bulb is more reasonable.
You don’t need to spend a fortune on hyacinths to enjoy their sweetly scented, showy flowers in spring. Three to five bulbs of most varieties are available for less than a fiver.
More than 50 varieties are available in Britain, with flowers in shades of white, yellow, pink, orange, red, blue and purple. Don’t get outdoor bulbs mixed up with heat-treated ones which are designed for growing indoors – these have been ‘ programmed’ to f l ower earlier than normal. The pots of hyacinths available at Christmas time are from these specially prepared bulbs.
Native to Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, hyacinths ( Hyacinthus orientalis) were well known to both the ancient Romans and Greeks. In fact, we have Greek mythology to thank for giving us the plant’s common and botanical name. According to legend, the god Apollo was in love with a Spartan called Hyacinthus, who died in an accident involving a discus. Grief-stricken, Apollo made flowers spring from the blood he shed.
Hyacinths arrived in Britain at some point during the 16th Century, with herbalist John Gerard the first to mention growing them in 1596. They were at their peak of popularity during the Victorian period but, sadly, very few from that time have survived.
One that has stayed the course is ‘L’Innocence’, a variety from 1863 with large white flowers spaced evenly along the stem.
Dating from 1935, ‘ Carnegie’ boasts a broad spike with closely packed white flow- lowers, and ‘White Festival’ produces up too six slender white stems from a single bulb. For my money, the best blue varietyy is ‘Sky Jacket’, whose large, pale blue blooms clothe dark stems. In the pink to red range, ‘Pink Pearl’ has fat spikes packed with shell-pink flowers with narrow petals, and ‘Fondant’ boasts pastel-pink flowers with a darker stripe. Only the brave will be daring enough to try yellow or orange hyacinths such as ‘ City of Haarlem’, a heritage variety with spikes of highly perfumed soft primroseyellow flowers. Planting hyacinths is easy. Dig 4in- deep holes with a trowel, spacing individual bulbs about 3in apart. Set them with the pointy part facing upwards, twisting the base gently i nto the soil. They’ll do best in fertile ground, so mix some bonemeal into the soil before covering. Take care with hyacinth bulbs. The scaly outer skin sheds tiny, needleshaped crystals containing calcium oxalate, and can cause an itch, rash or allergic reaction. Wear gardening gloves when planting or wash your hands once you’ve finished. The compact shape of hyacinths makes them excellent in containers. Arrange five bulbs in an 8in pot using bulb fibre or multipurpose compost – they can be placed closer together than those in the ground. Water well and place in a sheltered spot, either in full sun or semi-shade. Once buds appear in late winter or early spring, move pots to a prominent place to enjoy them.