Replanting hyacinths

[Mildredandmaud]

Hello! I have had some lovely hyacinths given to me in a basket to display inside. The internet tells me I can plantbthem outside and they will flower next year. Everything I’ve read says to plant outside. Problem is though that I live in a flat and have no garden!
Can I just keep them somewhere cool and dark (I’ve read about forcing) and keep them indoors every year?

Thank you!

I wouldn't try forcing - I'd let them build up their strength again before doing that. Feed them until the leaves start to die down naturally, ideally with tomato fertiliser or some other high potash feed. Then pot them up into new compost and keep them in your coolest room (or out on the balcony if you have one). With luck they'll flower a little later in the spring, about May if I remember rightly. The flower heads won't be as dense as you've had this year, but you will still have the scent. This will all be experimental stuff - the advice is not to use them again indoors. Getting them back into growth and flowering seems to be triggered by them experiencing something that they regard as winter.

When they talk about forcing hyacinth bulbs, they're talking about bulbs that have already been pre-chilled, so they've had an artificial winter during the actual summer.

Great, thank you! Would wrapping them up in newspaper and keeping them in the fridge next winter be too extreme do you think?

I've just had some flower for the second year inside. I forgot them and they started to grow despite being completely dry. I watered them when I saw shoots. The flowers weren't as large, but it was still a nice surprise.