CHESTNUT FLOWER
Back in October I plucked three hyacinth bulbs from the batch that I was about to plant in my garden and brought them inside. .It took all of ten minutes for me to fill three narrow-mouthed jars with water, perch the bulbs atop the containers and put them in the back of the top shelf of my refrigerator. That ten minute span included the time it took me to actually clear out a space in the refrigerator, not to mention counting twelve weeks on the calendar and putting an “x” on the late January date when I would check the bulbs and probably return them to the warmth of my pantry.
Now that tiny time investment is paying off. Like characters from a John LeCarre novel, my three bulbs have come in from the cold. My favorite, Chestnut Flower, was the first of the three to bloom and is now holding court, in all its fragrant glory, on my kitchen windowsill.
I love all hyacinths, but I especially love the double varieties like ‘Chestnut Flower’. I won’t divulge any names, but double forms of some flowering plants look like the untidy aftermath of an accidental explosion. Double hyacinths escape this fate. The double or sometimes triple rows of curving, backswept petals are waxy and substantial, attracting the eye rather than confusing it. The doubling of the petals appears graceful and purposeful rather than purely random.
‘Chestnut Flower’ must have reminded its breeder of the upright flower panicles of the horse chestnut tree. The hyacinth’s florets are soft pink with a darker pink stripe in the center of each petal. The thick flower stalk grows straight upward from the bulb; but while the individual florets are lush and full, they are not as tightly packed together as the florets on other double or even single hyacinth varieties. If you are one of those people who reject hyacinths because they appear too stiff and formal, ‘Chestnut Flower’ may just give you a fresh perspective.
Double versions of all kinds of plants have gone in and out of fashion over the course of the decades and centuries. According to Scott Kunst, proprietor of Old House Gardens, the double hyacinths enjoyed their greatest popularity from seventeen hundred to eighteen fifty. It’s possible that Madame Pompadour, celebrated mistress of Louis XV and renowned hyacinth lover, had double varieties among the many hyacinths that she had gardeners force to brighten up the late winter at Versailles.
‘Chestnut Flower’, introduced in eighteen eighty, came along too late for Madame Pompadour or the double hyacinth vogue. For all its beauty and great fragrance, its charms and those of its double-flowered hyacinth relations were eclipsed by those of single-flowered varieties. By the second half of the twentieth century nearly all hyacinths had been eclipsed by other spring bloomers; the hundreds of varieties available to Victorian gardeners swindled to relatively few.
Fortunately hyacinths in general and doubles in particular still have friends in horticultural circles. Mr. Kunst obtains his supply of ‘Chestnut Flower’ from one of the last Dutch growers to continue raising doubles. Alan Shipp, who, under Britain’s National Gardens Scheme, holds the national collection of hyacinths, has cultivated both rare and more common varieties since nineteen eighty-five. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Mr. Shipp has also acquired some antique varieties from Lithuania, where the old ardor for hyacinths never completely disappeared.
Perhaps it is the intoxicating quality of ‘Chestnut Flower’s’ fragrance that makes me want to know and grow a greater number of hyacinths–especially doubles. I’m going to read up on the subject as I wait for my other two forced hyacinths to bloom and my outdoor specimens to push up through the soil.
To get a little hyacinth intoxication of your own, buy an ordinary forced specimen at your local nursery or garden center. It won’t be ‘Chestnut Flower’, but it will perfume a whole room. A bit later in the year, buy some lovely heirloom varieties from Old House Gardens, 536 Third Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48103, (734) 995-1486 or www.oldhousegardens.com. Catalog $2.00.
Hyacinths have been out of fashion for so long that they are overdue for an American resurgence. As I look admiringly at ‘Chestnut Flower’, I feel like I’m on the cutting edge.