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Forcing Bulbs
| By potting bulbs now for forcing, you can have colorful blooms
in your home from Christmastime until spring. Forcing is the process of
stimulating plants to bloom out of season. Bulbs can be planted in pots during
October or November to bloom from January through April.
Many popular flowering bulbs can be forced indoors, including
daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and crocuses. Most of these take 10 to 20 weeks
from planting to bloom. Paperwhite narcissus take only 6 to 8 weeks to bloom,
however, so they are the best choice if you want flowers sometime around the
holidays.
The key to success lies in the timing of each step in the
forcing process. Here's a simplified outline of the process: |
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To plant your bulbs, select
clean pots with drainage holes in the bottom. The pot should be at least
twice as deep as the bulbs to allow good root development, though it's
best to use a broad, shallow pot that won't tip over
when the plants get top-heavy after blooming. |
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Fill each pot loosely with a
lightweight potting medium, leaving space for the bulbs to sit in the
soil with their tips just below the pot rim. Do not compress the soil or
press the bulbs into it. Cover the bulbs with potting mix up to the rim
of the pot, then water. Watering will compress the potting mix enough to
leave headspace for future watering. |
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Put pots of bulbs in a cool,
dark place to prepare them for later leaf and flower growth. You can use
any structure – such as a root cellar, an unheated basement, an old
refrigerator – where you can keep the temperature between 35 degrees
and 50 degrees F. Bulbs can be cooled from 13 to 18 weeks, but stems
will be shorter on bulbs cooled less than 14 weeks and longer on those
cooled 15 or more weeks. For variety-specific information, check the
planting directions that came with your bulbs. |
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To force the blooms, bring the
pots out of the cool environment into warmth and light to trigger the
formation of leaves and flowers. For best results, give the bulbs a
temperature of 60 degrees F and direct sunlight. From the time you
remove them from storage, the bulbs will require another three or four
weeks to bloom. If you have prepared a number of pots for forcing, you
can bring out one per week to provide a longer period of blooms. |
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As the bulbs begin to surface,
remember to feed them with an all purpose fertilizer. Feed the bulbs
every other week to help them flourish.Rotate the pots regularly so that
all the leaves receive an equal amount of sunlight. To prolong the
bloom, remove the plants from direct sunlight when they begin to flower.
Keep the soil moist throughout the forcing period. |
| Note that paperwhite narcissus are best kept in a cool, but
not so cold, spot (50 degrees to 60 degrees F) in low light until they are
well-rooted and shoots appear – usually in two to three weeks – before
placing them in sunlight.
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