Thread: Grape hyacinths
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Old 21-03-2003, 02:56 AM
Hussein M.
 
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Default Grape hyacinths

On Wed, 19 Mar 2003 22:47:42 -0000, "Michael Berridge"
wrotc:

I am going to be doing a major throw out of muscari this year, they are,
as has been said so invasive, and they eventually get so thick that the
plants are very small and almost never flower. I removed about 100 bulbs
last year, and you can't really see where I have been. So its major dig
up time this year.


I actually don't have the same antipathy to the plant that others seem
to share. Blue haze. My only reservation is the one you point out; the
fact that established clumps seem to give up producing flowers and end
up a tangle of green worms. For many plants stress prompts flowering
rather than the easy life so I have considered shearing them to ground
level after flowering.

No doubt you don't need to be told that the best way to stem the
flood (I think they seed quite freely as well as expanding
vegetatively), is to do it while they are still in the green and
before the flowers go to seed.

In my soil (which is admittedly quite light and friable), a gently
fork prod under the plant or clump - but only to loosen the earth,
followed by grasping the greenery and coaxing the whole plant/clump
out of the earth is the only way to ensure that you have removed all
the bulbs in a particular area. Thankfully, when green, the leaves are
sufficiently firmly attached to the bulb to make this possible. If you
wait until the plant has died back and retreated into its bulb, trying
to fork sift the soil to remove the rather small bulbs is really a
lost cause.

Hussein
Grow a little garden