Blogs

The forcing season is over so I am organising my vases. After sitting at the table on the patio it doesn't take long for the cats to start coming. One task is making sure the vases are properly labelled.

I have updated the Vase Shapes page including unique hyacinth vase shapes in the front row:

and some modern hyacinth vases

Some hand-blown hyacinth vases have a unique shape, not sure this shape even has a name. It is a bit different from the classic short squat shape (see previous blog entry). Nice kick-up and snapped off pontil mark. Great purple colour, not as dull as the usual "amethyst" Victorian glass colour.

I haven't bought a vintage hyacinth vase all year so far on ebay. I did see this brand new one (from Ravenhead Naturals) and was curious what it would be like. I show it here in comparison with the most common shapes/sizes of vintage vases. The teal vase in the centre is about 19 cm tall and the new clear one on the left is about a cm shorter at about 18 cm tall. I don't have a hyacinth bulb handy to show it with one but it does appear to have a good opening size to grow a hyacinth in which I will be doing later this year and will report back at www.gardenwithindoors.org.uk.

I knew I would be tempted to buy some more vases. I thought it would be interesting to compare the green one in the middle with the cobalt blue one on the left which I've had for a while. They are certainly very similar but not an exact match. The green one on the right doesn't sit quite right, a bit wobbly which makes me think hand-blown but no sign of a pontil mark on the base.

bases of the new vases, I guess the pontil mark on the right vase is polished or covered in some way, also no kick-up as I would have expected