The window looked out on a strip of front garden with a path down to the gate and neat little flower-beds on either side, where later roses and pinks and blue hyacinths would bloom.

Rose trees that promised a good harvest later in the year, and at present daffodils, early tulips, blue hyacinths--the last bed was partly edged with shells.

The room is filled with plants: tropical rhododendrons, begonias, daffodils, blue hyacinths, hibiscus, rosemary, dahlias.

But one of the most recent newcomers is the deep blue hyacinth called Blue Jacket.

A large basket filled with moss and growing hyacinths, white and blue and pink, stood upon a table in the window.

Inside, a faint whiff of disinfectant was almost overpowered by the heavy scent emanating from bowls of blue hyacinths.

"If you don't, you can put down blue hyacinths - and you'll feel better," he said.

He also felt bound to the blue hyacinths: "I hate them, but everyone loves the fragrance."

By the corner of the paddock near the keeper's cottage, I was reminded by some belated blue hyacinths of a time when I and Nettie had gathered them together.

Rectangular plots of blue, yellow, pink and red hyacinths allow Van Gogh to explore his interest in perspective.