Brighter days with window sill hyacinths

The winter months are incredibly dull, and we are grateful for anything that gives us a little bit of colour or light in these sparse months when hardly anything grows at all. An interesting idea is to introduce a few bulbs into any relatively bright and reasonably well heated room in your house. Not only can they provide your rooms with some colour, but they also ooze a lovely perfume-like fragrance once the flowers open.

Photo taken by the author - all rights reserved.

You can buy complete sets including the bulbs, a flower pot and a small amount of compost (I had to add some from our own compost, the quantity was rather sparse). The most popular winter bulbs for indoor colour are paper whites and hyacinths. Depending on how advanced the bulbs are when you buy them, it takes two to four weeks until they start flowering.

If you are using one of these sets (e.g. available in DIYs like Homebase, B&Q, Woodies or Morris'), it really is fool proof. Just unpack the items, fill the enclosed flower pot with the compost and insert the bulbs according to the instruction whilst observing that they are not inserted too deeply in the compost, the crowns of the bulbs must still be well visible and should be above the compost level. Then simply place them onto a window sill and wait until the results show.