Water-grown tulips and hyacinths at Wegmans stores

Tulip bulbs growing in water were being sold at a Wegmans store.Water-grown tulips at Wegmans: Bulbs growing in water seems to be the trend these days.

I was in a Wegmans store last week and saw tulips growing in water in large glass vases. There were also a few hyacinths, already in flower, growing in smaller vases of water.

(How to grow indoor tulips in a plain vase.)

On their website, the people behind the brand  Bloomaker proclaim themselves "the inventors of a new floral category."

In addition to the water-grown tulips, they also offer retailers similarly grown holiday amaryllis, hyacinth and daffodill bulbs. You can watch time-lapse clips of various arrangements as they grow through bloom. 

According to the site: "Long Life Flowers is a new home decor vase collection of flower bulbs grown only in water." The company promises that  the water-grown bulbs can produce  fresh flowers indoors for up to four weeks.

Part of the secret is a patented pin-tray system that keeps the bulbs above the water in their vases -- much like my marbles, stones or plastic "rocks" method.

Intriguing, but I resisted the urge to spend $20 on a vase of the tulips knowing that I had some tulip bulbs in my basement as part of my own indoor hydroponic bulb-growing experiments.     

I learned earlier this month that most bulbs need the long cooling period before they can be forced to bloom indoors. So, I put some tulip bulbs in the cold, dark  basement with the plan to leave them there at least 12 weeks to give them a "winter."

I hope to grow those bulbs in water, and even if am just starting them around the time they would be coming up outdoors, at least I might be able to enjoy them when and if they open. They'll be safer inside than my outdoor tulips where the usual scenario involves me finding only stems after their heads have been chomped off by area deer before they've had a chance to open.