Planting out spent hyacinth bulbs

[Roundaboot]

I bought one of those pots from M&S with hyacinth bulbs, for indoor use. The flowers are now finished and so I'm wondering if I can put the bulbs in the garden, and if so, do I do it now or wait until Autumn for them to flower again next Spring?

No advice, but I want to know this too!

Take of the dead flower head but don't remove the leaves. Keep watering and a bit of liquid feed won't go amiss as you want to build the bulb up again for flowering again. The leaves will be tender as they have grown in the warmth. Gradually get them used to being outside by putting out in the day and in during the night for a couple of weeks. If you have greenhouse or porch you could just put them in there. After a couple of weeks when they have 'hardened off', plant out in the garden. Don't forget to mark where they are!

While I am sure AlwaysGardening is absolutely right and gets better results, I tend to just let the bulbs die back in their pot and then get rid of the excess compost and put them in the shed till they get potted out again the next October/November, it's worked well for a couple of years. Bulbs planted out in our garden tend to rot, get massacred by snails or stolen by squirrels.

Thank you both! I actually bought another pot to replace the ones that have died so once they have finished I can try both methods

I just shove them in the garden when they have gone over. I usually forget about them so don't know how successful they are but I realised today I have lots of mini narcissus from last year coming up.

@WhamFantastic do you do that with all potted bulbs? I’ve used all of my good pots for bulb lasagnes 🤭 but I want to use the pots for summer plants when the bulbs are done. I don’t have masses of space to store things in the shed, so would prefer planting them out - but only if they stand a chance of growing again.

I chop off the tops, stick them in the ground (now) and they come up every time. I do it every year and have around 60 in the garden. I've never bothered with the inside / outside, slowly slowly method. Hyacinths generally don't care ime.

I just bung them in the ground when they’ve finished. There are lots of unexpected hyacinths all over the garden, so I think my ‘whatever’ method is quite successful.