Thanks for helping to keep this hyacinth thread going with such good information, Judy. I think you're right about most commercial hyacinth bulbs being smaller these days. But there is no deceit or change of practice involved here. The really huge ones might still be available, but most retail commercial outlets now offer bulbs in the 15/16 or 16/17 cm range. The big 19+ cm bulbs were good for forcing, but they are a poor choice for the garden. They are simply too top heavy to stand up to wind and rain. On the other hand, it might be fun to have really huge bulbs of the grand double-flowered hyacinths. The small size bulbs at the other extreme, the ones once marketed as Cynthella hyacinths, disappeared commercially long ago. Marketing hyacinths must be a challenge: whenever the same thing is offered in various choices, it seems to me that the choices end up competing with one another. The bulb business is primarily a mail order business for many dealers, and shipping costs must be a serious consideration for hyacinth growers. Look at the math which explains the relationship between volume (and by extension weight) and circumference: it's little wonder that all the big commercial bulbs seem to be shrinking. When I was a teenager, bulbs of Fritillaria imperialis each came in a little box; each bulb was about the size of a small grapefruit. Nowadays the bulbs are more likely to be the size of a Meyer lemon - but they do bloom. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/