Encourage early spring blooms
Bring spring indoors by forcing early blooms in winter, writes Kerry Carman of the NZ Gardener.
Ican never resist the urge to make spring come early by using a few tricks to make winter seem shorter and thumb my nose at Mother Nature.
Yes, I do know some of the season’s coldest days are still ahead, but what spirit does not lift at the hopeful sight and scent of spring blossoms and bulbs offered from winter’s chilly heart. Pure joy!
The secret is the art of gentle persuasion commonly known as forcing – a brutal word. I much prefer ‘‘encouraging’’, describing the process by which spring blooms and blossoms are teased into early flower for indoor enjoyment.
Bringing spring forward is an ageold tradition based on the principle of bringing life into the house at the darkest time of year.
The Victorians went to great lengths to preserve autumn’s bounty, drying, pressing and preserving almost everything that grew.
Encouraging the early blooming of fragrant flowering bulbs is one longheld tradition I do follow. In late summer, I buy bulbs of hyacinths, jonquils, crocuses, grape hyacinths and other small treasures to pot up for winter pleasure. (Over the years, I have enjoyed fossicking in antique and op shops for suitable containers and have gathered a much-loved collection of vintage pots and vases for this purpose.)
Apart from the welcome scent shock and delight provided by the bulbs, a regular habit is encouraging branches into early bloom or leaf. Not long after the shortest day, I head outside to gather these for use in indoor arrangements.
Timing is important as picking earlier than mid-june tends to fail. This is because the plants’ hormones and bud development have simply not advanced enough.
I carefully select those with the most advanced buds and prune judiciously, mindful not to spoil the shape of the bush.
Various methods for forcing branches are described by experts, often involving specially darkened and temperature-controlled rooms and swathing in plastic sheeting – none of which I have found necessary in the home environment.
I simply split the stem ends to assist water absorption. I put them in a bucket of very hot water, placing them in a darkish corner of a warm room – never in bright light. I also add
a few drops of household bleach to keep bacteria at bay.
Changing the water for a fresh cold drink once a week, it is not long before I am rewarded by delicate blossoms, trembling catkins or a tracery of fresh green leaves. These look fabulous alone or may be enhanced by the addition of toning winter camellias, early daffodils or a few supermarket roses or tulips.
Easy and favourite subjects include flowering currant (Ribes
sanguineum), whose usual acid pink September blooms emerge pearly white or palest pink indoors. Also, the silvery-grey furry catkins of pussy willow, prunus and flowering quince (Japonica or Chaenomeles), along with alder, birch and corylopsis for their wobbly lambs’ tail catkins. Forsythia has become another favourite since I discovered older, more graceful forms than the stiffbranched, strident-coloured cultivars mostly seen today.
Once known commonly as cloth of gold, forsythia has not been served well by the hybridisers. Overlarge, aggressive yellow blooms of types such as ‘Beatrix Farrand’ have had too much to say in our gardens for far too long. Earlier forms are to be found in old gardens with smaller, softer lemon flowers on delicately arching branches such as the species
Forsythia suspensa or the hybrid ‘Lynwood’.
One way to identify these older varieties out of season is by their foliage, which tends to turn black before it falls in winter.
After the flowers have finished on your forced branches – and they can last for many weeks – most continue on into leaf which, in the case of forsythia, forms a spring-like support for early daffodils in my old green glass jug.
Traditional practices such as these chime well with the modern emphasis on mindfulness and living in the moment. In my experience, the contemplation of beauty and nature is never wasted, bringing rest to the mind and solace to the spirit.
Bringing winter indoors and turning it into spring? Pure magic.