CHRISTMAS is midwinter, a time when all of Nature is wisely dormant. One of the ways humans persuade themselves that life continues just below the surface is by bringing flowering plants to the dining table and the windowsill when all around is dark and silent. But if we are to persuade living plants to bloom in the shortest days of the year, we will need to resort to some polite deception and even then the plants won’t put up with it for long.
Bulbs are a classic way of doing this. That deception is most commonly practised on hyacinths, which are ‘prepared’ for winter flowering by being potted and covered with
