Rescued Hyacinth

Last April, I rescued a number of hyacinth bulbs from the parking lot of Friendship Park. They had finished blooming and been yanked to make way for the annuals display. With the "okay" from the park staff, I carried off as many as my buddy and I could handle and planted them that very night. My readers wondered…"Will they grow?"

I’m happy to announce that not only did they grow, they are blooming.


While the flower spikes aren’t as dense as they were the first year (freshly plumped up from the fields of Holland or someplace), I think they’ve done very well for bulbs yanked from their loamy homes, fried on a parking lot, and then planted in cruddy clay. The tulips haven’t done as well. I’ve spotted only a single sickly leaf poking up from the location in which I planted 20 or so recovered bulbs.

I didn’t notice a big hyacinth display at the park this year, but I’m going to take a second look because I love "free!"