A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 Hyacinth Troubles

Okay, so I'm not a very experienced gardener at all, and I am having particular troubles with a hyacinth I purchased.

It did nicely for the first 2 months after it first budded from the bulb, it then flowered - smelled wonderful, and looked great. Now that the flowers are dead it does not look so lovely anymore, nor does it smell as nice!! I was wondering if there was anything to do to persuade it to flower again?? Do I prune the old flower stem off?? I'm not sure at all what to do with it... I quickly checked the other areas of this website, but thought this would have a much more precise and prompt response!!

Thank you for any help you may have!!

Beginner Gardener,
Joe

Hyacinths are spring bloomers and only bloom once a year. They won't bloom again now, till next year.

After the first year, the blooms won't be as full, but will still be nice. I think I've read that you can cut off the blooms every other year to promote fuller blooming on the alternate years, but then you have no blooms the year you cut.

And yes, go ahead and prune the old flower stalk off.

I just noticed that this was in the houseplants forum. If you like, you can plant hyacinth outside. They will survive the winter and come up again in the spring. They like full sun, but will do well under trees as they bloom before the leaves come out. If you decide to plant them out, they should be hardened off for a week before planting outdoors as otherwise they will get a bad case of sunburn. Set them out for an hour the first day and increase by an hour each day. After a week, they should be sufficiently acclimated to the outdoors.