G YOUR QUESTIONS ARDEN centres will now be selling prepared hyacinths which have undergone heat treatment to bring them on early.

Buy the biggest bulbs you can find and plant them in containers, putting broken tiles or crocks in the bottom and adding a thick layer of moss in the bottom of the pot to stop stagnant water from accumulating. You can also plant them in specially-prepared bulb fibre with good drainage to improve your chances of success.

Place the bulbs close to one another but not touching, with their crowns just visible above the surface. Take care with watering if you use bowls without drainage holes, which you may want to stand on furniture at Christmas without staining the surface.

With all indoor bulbs, they need to fill the container with roots before the leaves start to grow, which will take between 10 and 14 weeks and is best achieved in moist, dark, cool conditions. Keep the bowls of bulbs in a spot where the temperature does not rise above 7-9C, such as a garage or frost-free shed.

If the temperature goes too high during this period, the leaves will emerge too long and lanky. If the root system isn’t able to develop, you may not get flowers.

After planting and watering, wrap the bowls in sheets of newspaper and put them in the coolest shed or room, or place them outdoors against a north wall, covering them with 15cm of composted bark, sand or soil, in a procedure known as plunging.

When the flower shoots start to emerge and are about 3cm long, bring them into the light but still keep them cool and check the compost, which should be moist but never waterlogged.

When the flowers start to colour and open, bring them into a warmer atmosphere in the house, at around 18C. If you have planted up a few containers, stagger bringing them in to prolong the flowering period. The ones in the cooler environment will remain quite happily at an earlier stage until they are exposed to more warmth.

Forcing bulbs doesn’t come without its problems. Central heating can be an obstacle as it shortens the life of the flowers. It helps if you can place the containers outside from time to time to give them a breath of cold air, and it may prolong flowering.

You are also likely to have to stake them with pea sticks and string.

Good containers for hyacinths include wicker baskets which you can line with plastic, or big china wash bowls. Another good idea is to plant each bulb in its own individual pot, around 1cm wider and 2.5cm deeper than the bulb.

That way, when the flowers start to open you can select all those at exactly the same stage to be put – pot and all – into your chosen larger decorative container, which you can then top with moss for an authentic-looking display.

Good varieties for forcing include Hyacinthus orientalis Jan Bos, which is a deep-pink and the flower spikes are not so huge that they may stay upright without much staking, and the soft pink Anna Marie.