Gardening 2: Winter Pinks

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I only knew of Water Hyacinths that spread on Kukkarahalli tank in Mysore and the struggle to keep it at bay. But this is the Hyacinth that brought beauty to my kitchen window in winter when the view of the garden was really bleak.


I had chosen my shrubs with care so that atleast some of them kept their leaves in winter. But being a new garden none of them were big enough to cover up the bare skeletons of the others. The vegetable patch was ofcourse a sad sight. So I covered the window sill with a lot of indoor plants. But my special favourite was the Hyacinth.

I followed instructions from the book and filled the container with water and placed the bulb in the bowl at the top and kept it in the dark garage for about a week. As the holy books of gardening promised, there were roots and a small shoot within a week. Once the shoot was about an inch tall I placed the container in the window. Within a couple of weeks, the flowers appeared and the beautiful scent filled the room. The best part was that once the flower dried up I placed another bulb which had been resting in a bag and in a few weeks enjoyed another bloom!