Hyacinth Heaven

Here hyacinths of heavenly blue, shook their rich tresses to the morn.

                                                      - James Montgomery, British poet born in 1771

January brings one of our favorite flowers to market. On our Arcata, CA. farm we have started harvesting big numbers of Hyacinth. Folks all around the farm seem pretty jazzed that it is Hyacinth season, so I headed out to the hoop houses to see what all the hub-bub is about.

As I poked my head into each house, trying to find the hyacinth, I saw big green tarps stretched out over black crates. My curiosity led me to enter the hoop house and pull up a corner of the green tarp. There I saw dozens of tiny green sprouts poking up from the soil, it was warm in the hoop house, but it didn’t have much of a flower smell.  The tarps are one of our secrets, we use these so that the hyacinth will grow taller.

Keeping the Hyacinth warm and toasty.

Talking with hyacinth fans, the first thing they mention is the fragrance. This surprised me, since it seems all through the floral industry people really connect visually to flowers first. Not that the scent isn’t a big factor, but you always see the flower before you smell it, unless you are in a dark room, or have your eyes closed (try this at home!).



Baby Hyacinths

Leaving the hoop house with the tiny sprouts, I entered the next one, where the green cloth had been removed, and the hyacinths were big, stout and mature. I slid the door closed behind me, and stepped into a warm fragrant paradise. WOW, what an amazing olfactory experience! So rich, yet not over powering, I started taking deep breathes to saturate my senses. The other part of the experience was the warmth, it being January in Humboldt County the temperature outside was about 45 degrees, windy and the air held a very sharp chill. This hoop house was a moist 80 degrees, with the heavy floral scent, I felt like I was in a tropical rainforest… maybe in Fiji. Was that a monkey bat I just heard? This was a sensory 180 and it was completely intoxicating. 

Fields of Green

The rows of green stems vary in shades, from dark green to near yellow. This is because the bulbs have been planted then rooted for 16 weeks in a dark cooler, within three days of being moved into the hoop house these sprouts will be dark green, as photosynthesis increases.  Some stems were just starting to show the clusters of bell shaped flowers which will soon develop stunning color and pungent scent. Others were just ready to be pulled. As they mature, the hyacinths don’t get “picked”, they get “pulled.” Our team gently pulls out the entire plant, making sure to leave the bulb attached. This will keep the nutrients flowing to the flowers, even after it has left the ground. We also do this with our soil grown tulips, however, with the hyacinth, we core the outside of the bulb off, and keep the center.  When your box of Hyacinths arrive they still have whitish stems, these are really not stems they are the bulb, so don't cut this off.   The bottom of this white bulb is called the “basal plate” and left on will double the vase life of the flower.

Here is the process of getting the hyacinth from the ground to the cooler:

Just Picked Hyacinth

Crates get stacked into the Bunching Warehouse

Team member Keith "coring" the Hyacinth

Team member Efyenia grading Hyacinth, by color and size.

Sun Valley Hyacinth, buddled and sleeved. 

A beautiful CA Grown Bouquet of fresh Hyacinth, ready for market.

 The back story of the hyacinth, like most myths, has a few different variations and is always a bit sad. According to Teleflora.com:

Legend has it the origin of hyacinth, the highly fragrant, bell-shaped flower, can be traced back to a young Greek boy named Hyakinthos. As the story goes, two gods – Apollo the sun god, and Zephyr the god of the west wind – adored Hyakinthos and competed for his attention. One day, while Apollo was teaching Hyakinthos the art of throwing a discus, Zephyr, in a jealous rage, blew the discus back, killing Hyakinthos with a strike to the head. Apollo named the flower that grew from Hyakinthos’s blood hyacinth.

In modern culture, the legendary rock band the Doors featured a pretty gloomy song titled “Hyacinth House” on their last studio album “LA Woman”. This song is not for the faint of heart, and is a very dark inward look into Jim Morrison’s mind, as he dealt (unsuccessfully) with the stress of his rock star lifestyle and the demands put upon him. Rock and Roll historians speculate that Morrison used the myth of Hyakinthos as an allegory for his inner sadness...I like to think Jim just liked the flowers.

From the “Language of Flowers” these colors can tell very different stories.

•HYACINTH General - Games and Sports; Rashness: Flower Dedicated to Apollo

•HYACINTH Blue - Constancy

•HYACINTH Purple - I Am Sorry; Please Forgive Me: Sorrow

•HYACINTH Pink - Play

•HYACINTH White- Loveliness; I'll Pray for You

Call your Sales Rep or talk to your wholesaler about getting some of fragrant colorful Hyacinths and check out our great Hyacinth Resource Page for more information and care and handling instructions.

Ahhhh, Hyacinth heaven,