Frankenbulbs
I decided to see if I could grow bulbs that were bi-coloured, I bought one pink, one white and one blue hyacinth bulb and cut them in half exactly on the growing tip. Next I taped different ones together so I had a blue-white bulb, a pink-white bulb and a blue-pink bulb. I will continue to check up on them and change their water every week. I could not find out much about grafting hyacinth bulbs online even though Charles Darwin mentions it in one of his books! See below for a quote.
"...bulbs of blue and red hyacinths may be cut in two, and that they will grow together and throw up a united stem (and this I have myself seen), with flowers of the two colours on the opposite sides..."
Darwin, C. R. 1868. The variation of animals and plants under domestication. London: John Murray. 1st edition, second issue. Volume 1. (darwin-online.org.uk)
Here are some hyacinth bulbs that i have cut in half and taped together. I am trying to get different coloured petals for when the bloom, I have also taken pictures of them every week to show their progress in growning.
Week one:
As you can see the success rates in growing roots vary among the bulbs.
Week three:
The petals have start to come through nicely but only on two of the plants and even then they are lopsided.
I have noticed a bad sign for these stitched together bulbs, I did some research on what these signs meant and found out that they were infested with fungus gnats. I think this is bad news for my bulbs and maybe a sign that they are rotting/moldy. At the end is my summary of what fungus gnats do.
Week five:
See below for a slideshow of my observations and results
Conclusion:
This was not a successful experiment overall. I found out that the bulbs do not easily grow in half and those that do, were bent over towards the cut half. Perhaps with a really sharp knife and cutting it exactly in half at the growing point it might have been more successful. One white half had a suspected blue flower but it was not clear if this was attached or not.
Fungus gnats:
Unfortunately, my hyacinth bulbs along with other plants in my house, have been infested with fungus gnats, indicating that they are dying because they are growing moldy. In this paragraph I will cover what fungus gnats are, what they look like and how they contribute the eco-system. Fungus gnats are little flies that survive off many types of mold on various things such as moldy paper, moldy house plant soil, moldy food so pretty much mold on anything and anywhere. Below is a close up of one of these gnats.
Fungus gnats have almost no beneficial contribution
towards the eco-system because they slowly kill plants and spread infections
and diseases. The most worthwhile thing they do is being prey for spiders to
eat. Luckily we have bought some traps to counter them.
(above is a close-up of one of the fungus gnats in our house)