{"id":2292,"date":"2017-12-19T07:11:39","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T15:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2292"},"modified":"2017-12-19T10:57:33","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T18:57:33","slug":"general-kohler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/general-kohler\/","title":{"rendered":"General Kohler"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo courtesy of Vanessa, Old House Gardens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Somewhere out in my yard, General K\u00f6hler lies sleeping peacefully under a light blanket of snow.\u00a0 I expect he is snoring, or would be, if he were not a hyacinth bulb waiting for the earth to warm up next spring.<\/p>\n

These days merchandisers frequently name plants according to purported ease of cultivation\u2014\u201cOso Easy\u201d and \u201cHasslefree\u201d roses, are two good examples.\u00a0 Back before the Internet was around to warn us that most of our heroes\u2019 had feet of clay, breeders and merchandisers named plants after worthy men and women.\u00a0 This tradition gave us \u2018President Roosevelt\u2019, a red peony, and \u2018Sir Winston Churchill\u2019, a daffodil.\u00a0 Douglas MacArthur, war hero, Medal of Honor winner and thorn in the side of President Harry Truman, may have died in 1964, but lives on as a pink rose.<\/p>\n

\u2018General K\u00f6hler\u2019, the hyacinth, was named in the spirit of \u2018Douglas MacArthur\u2019.\u00a0 Like MacArthur, General Johan Harmen Rudolf K\u00f6hler\u20141818-1873–was a military man.\u00a0 Unlike the twentieth century warrior, K\u00f6hler was not lucky enough to die peacefully in his own bed.<\/p>\n

K\u00f6hler was born in the northern Dutch city of Groningen only three years after the Battle of Waterloo.\u00a0 Not much is known about his early years and education, but he was an officer, which, in those days invariably meant that he was a member of the Dutch upper class.\u00a0 He was in the infantry, which is sometimes a bit less prestigious than the more romantic cavalry, but K\u00f6hler excelled and eventually attained the rank of general.\u00a0 A surviving portrait shows a resolute-looking individual with an impressive head of white hair, a full mustache and a tiny goatee.\u00a0 He is wearing the Cross of the Dutch Military Order of William, which was given to individuals<\/p>\n

who showed exemplary valor on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

K\u00f6hler may have had abundant valor, but his luck ran out at the age of 55, when he led a military campaign at Aceh on the island of Sumatra in present-day Indonesia.\u00a0 The Dutch forces, protecting the European government\u2019s interests in the area, were routed by an army of Acehnese.\u00a0 The Dutch troops were forced to retreat and their general was killed in the process.\u00a0 General K\u00f6hler was buried in a cemetery in Jakarta.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Photo courtesy of Mike, Old House Gardens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the time of his death, K\u00f6hler was probably a hero in his homeland, which accounts for the fact that only five years later, in 1878, patriotic Dutch breeders introduced a beautiful double hyacinth named in his honor.<\/p>\n

And what an honor it has proved to be.\u00a0 Double hyacinths have gone in and out of fashion since the first ones appeared in the late seventeenth century.\u00a0 By K\u00f6hler\u2019s time, the doubles, with their lavish arrays of colorful petals, were all the rage.\u00a0 After a period of eclipse in the twentieth century, the opulent bloomers are making a comeback, with some of the mainstream vendors even offering a few new varieties.<\/p>\n

The General\u2019s hyacinth is medium blue-purple, with each petal striped down the center in a slightly darker shade.\u00a0 It has the divine, sweet smell characteristic of all hyacinths and in its first year after planting, the individual flowers are tightly crammed on the thick, upright stems.\u00a0 I generally take the advice of Scott Kunst, former owner of the Old House Gardens nursery, and insert a short stake right next to each plant.\u00a0 No tying is necessary, but the stake allows the \u2018General\\ to stand at attention with no risk of sagging due to fatigue, top-heaviness or inclement weather.<\/p>\n

Hyacinth flowers tend to be more loosely clustered when they bloom in the second or third season after planting.\u00a0 This is also true of \u2018General K\u00f6hler\u2019 and other doubles.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mind this, but if you are adamant about hyacinths looking the same year after year, you can treat them like annuals, lifting and discarding the bulbs after they bloom and planting new ones every year.<\/p>\n

Like most spring-flowering bulbs, hyacinths like a sunny, well-drained site.\u00a0 They will also do nicely under deciduous trees, because the hyacinths bloom before the trees are fully leafed-out.\u00a0 Plant them towards the fronts of borders or in containers.\u00a0 Since fragrance is one of hyacinth\u2019s greatest attractions, group the plants near walkways, patios and other places that people gather.<\/p>\n

The original General K\u00f6hler was a hero who died in a retreat.\u00a0 Perhaps his memory is redeemed by the fact that his Dutch-bred namesake, the \u2018General K\u00f6hler\u2019 hyacinth, manages to defeat the forces of winter, returning every year to conquer the spring garden.<\/p>\n

It is too late this year to enlist the \u2018General\u2019 for your garden, but make a note wherever you put ideas for next year.\u00a0 You can obtain the bulbs from Old House Gardens, 4175 Whitmore Lake Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48105; (734) 995-1486<\/a>; www.oldhousegardens.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Print catalog $2.00.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somewhere out in my yard, General K\u00f6hler lies sleeping peacefully under a light blanket of snow.\u00a0 I expect he is snoring, or would be, if he were not a hyacinth bulb waiting for the earth to warm up next spring. These days merchandisers frequently name plants according to purported ease of cultivation\u2014\u201cOso Easy\u201d and \u201cHasslefree\u201d … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,5],"tags":[150,1784,1785,259,238,1783,1256,186,1782,367,272],"class_list":["post-2292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-winter","tag-blue-flowers","tag-double-hyacinth","tag-dutch-bulbs","tag-fragrant-plants","tag-garden-history","tag-general-kohler","tag-heirloom-bulbs","tag-heirloom-plants","tag-hyacinth","tag-plant-names","tag-spring-flowering-bulbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2292"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2298,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292\/revisions\/2298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}