Name:   Hyacinthoides hispanica aka Spanish bluebells, or wood hyacinths

Type of Plant: A late-spring blooming bulb. There are white, pink and blue flowering varieties, but the blue is probably the most popular. This plant grows and blooms well in full sun to part-shade.

Why I Love This Plant: I love how this plant seemingly comes out of nowhere to have bright green leaves and stems, with upright bell-shaped flowers in late May or early June in my region. I love how the bulbs multiply every year, making what was once a stalk or two into a showy clump in three to four years. And I also love how this bulb adds early color and flowers to perennial gardens by growing in between the later flowering plants.

A Word to the Wise: This plant goes dormant shortly after the flowers fade and go to seed. If you want to have new plants appear without any effort, don’t cut the spent flowers or foliage down in late-June. Let the seeds fall, and the leaves shrivel on their own.

Buy these bulbs and plant them in the fall. One bulb become the full clumps you see in my photos!

Hyacinthoides hispanica flower in late-May and early June in my region. They can be picked for bouquets, or just enjoyed in the garden.  I love the blue ones, but you can also find these bulbs with pink and white flowers.

Here is an example of a wood hyacinth that self-seeded in and among other plants. This young plant has only a few flower stalks, but in two or three years this will be a large and showy clump of flowers. If your wood hyacinths self-seed where you don’t want them to grow, dig them up early in the spring getting as large of a root-ball as you can, and transplant elsewhere.

Here you see the wood hyacinth and how well it blends in a spring garden.