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Drooping hyacinths
i bought 6 hyacinth bulbs pre-prepared for forcing and planted them up. I kept them in the shed in cool conditions until the flower buds were through the neck of the bulbs. I then brought them inside to the kitchen windowsill (18-20C). The flowers have continued to grow but not vertically, they're drooping sideways. And the drooping is not towards the light, it's random. What have I done wrong ?
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They are so top heavy, I've never had upright hyacinths indoors and often not outdoors.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I stick wooden kebab sticks as stakes - cut them to shorter than the flower spike and put them close to the bulb, but without skewering it .....they get hidden by all the flowers
I do the same as Chicky , a stick and some fine thread to tie them up with.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Mine have been a lot better this year!
A thin wire inserted in the flower stem does the trick, I have done this in the past with good results.
Thanks for all the advice. The kebab sticks sound good although they're going to be 2-3cms away from the flower stem if I want to avoid skewering the bulb. I think that if I try hyacinths again next year I'll plant half the bulbs with kebab sticks and try the wire-in-the-stem approach with the other half.
Having said that I may not bother as I've been disappointed with the fragrance from this year's bulbs. My memory is of them perfuming the whole room but I've had to get really close to smell them. Its the same when I buy fresias, maybe they've out of them.
They do eventually get a bit floppy but I think it is caused by too much warmth. I find the dark blue ones have a rather unpleasant strong scent especially towards the end.