The beauty of spring can be yours in winter. How? By forcing bulbs indoors. This is easy, rewarding and fun to force several bulbs for early indoor color.

“Forcing” means you encourage the bulbs to grow and bloom earlier.You plant them indoors and expose to warm temperatures.This process brings the bulbs into bloom weeks before they would normally bloom outdoors.

There are several ways to force bulbs. The easiest one is Pebbles And Water.

Simply take a bowl, fill it with decorative stone and firm the base of the bulbs into the pebbles. Fill water up to the base of the bulbs so that it touches them. It’s that easy.

Potting Bulbs In Soil

Bring bulbs from your cold storage room. A good rule of thumb: when you see the shoots 2 to 3 inches and fine white roots emerging from the drainage holes, it’s time to bring the bulbs out of cold storage.

When you bring the bulbs indoors keep them in a room where the temperatures range between 50 and 60 degrees. If the temperatures are kept too warm the bulb foliage will get too tall and leggy.

Bulbs should be placed in indirect lighting and should not be allowed to dry out.

Since bulbs need moisture and perfect drainage, a mixture of equal parts peat moss, potting soil, sand and vermiculite or perlite is best. 

Plant them by mixing the soil thoroughly and moisten with enough water to a damp consistency.

Suggested plants for forcing: daffodils and paperwhites, hyacinths and crocuses, tulips, irises and amaryllis.

Paperwhites (Narcissus tazetta) are popular indoor plants for winter. Unlike other narcissus, paperwhites don’t require a chilling period, so forcing them is as easy as putting the bulbs in water and waiting.

The fragrant flowers bloom within about 2-3 weeks of planting, for almost instant gratification.

A problem with paperwhites, as with many bulbs planted in pots, is that they grow quite tall and all of their weight is at the top.

Researchers in the Flowerbulb Research Program at Cornell University have come up with an unusual solution to this top heavy problem: Alcohol.

When paperwhite bulbs are grown in a dilute solution of alcohol, the plants reach a height of 1/3 to ½ their normally expected growth – but the flowers remain normal size and last just as long.

Why they thought of giving their paperwhites a nip, I don’t know. But it appears that the resulting water stress on the plants is just enough to stunt their growth, but not interfere otherwise.

You need a mix that is about 5% alcohol. At a higher concentration (about 10% or above) the alcohol will damage the plants, so don’t overdo it.

To achieve that proportion, you can use isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) with water mixed at one part alcohol to ten parts water.

Or, you can use the good stuff, a “hard liquor” (typically 40% distilled spirit) such as gin, vodka, or whiskey. Mix together one part liquor and seven parts water to make a 5% solution.

Basically, the higher the alcohol concentration (within reason), the shorter the plants. So it is not critical whether you use 4, 5, or 6% alcohol. Just stay well below 10%, where growth problems become noticeable.

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Yours truly for a great garden with outstanding veggies and flowers.

Polly-organic gardener