Wouldn’t you love to have gorgeous flowers blooming inside your home when it’s snowing outside? It’s easy!
Forcing spring bulbs is a terrific way to accomplish this – and now is the time to get started on this horticultural project.
Buy some bulbs at your local garden center – daffodils and grape hyacinths are particularly simple to force, though tulips, hyacinths, and many other “minor bulbs” also work well. Plant them
(densely, for best show) in a pot: use a fairly light soil and provide good drainage (pottery shards are good.) Water the pots very well, and place in a cool dark place (like a bulkhead or unheated garage.) Leave them there for at least two months (watering lightly perhaps once a month, if the soil is dry and unfrozen.) And – that’s it!
After this time (say, in snowy February or March?), start bringing the pots into the house. Place them in a warm sunny place and water well. In a few weeks you’ll have wonderful blooms.
If you don’t want to go to this effort, you can even more easily force paper narcissus (just in pebbles and water, with no cold treatment.) Or – just buy some hyacinths now and place them in the vegetable bin in your refrigerator (onions are bulbs too!). After a few months, you can force them in a hyacinth vase or other suitable container – a fabulous
and fragrant display to brighten up the waning days of winter.
