Bring a little spring to winter’s depths
With a bit of knowhow you can coax bulbs to brighten up the gloom of winter.
To leapfrog the dreary winter days, try forcing your spring bulbs to bloom early. With some clever trickery, you can speed up the flowering cycle of hyacinths, crocuses, tulips and daffodils. Forcing bulbs to bloom earlier than they normally would is not hard. The bulbs have all the energy they need to produce foliage and flowers. It’s just a matter of providing the right conditions for them.
Normally, a bulb planted in autumn will put out some roots in autumn, go dormant in winter, then resume growth in spring. But if you plant them indoors, put them aside for a couple of months, then bring them into light and warmth, they will flower a good deal earlier than their outdoor counterparts.
But before you start thinking you can get your bulbs to bloom way out of whack – in summer, for example – let me stop that train of thought right now. You might be able to, but you’re unlikely to get good results.
I put this question to bulb expert Paul Hoek of NZ Bulbs when a reader asked me if she could force hyacinths for her daughter’s wedding at the end of April.
‘‘It’s not possible to do this with New Zealand grown bulbs as they need a good warm rest period in summer and then are planted in March/April. No amount of forcing will have them flowering at the end of April, four months in advance of their normal time.’’
But Hoek says it could be done using imported northern hemisphere bulbs, which is what commercial growers do to get hyacinths flowering from Mother’s Day onwards.
‘‘To do this, they’re planted in November and given the winter they would normally have in Europe by storage in large chillers. By April they’ve had enough winter in the chillers. When they come out, the bulbs think it is spring and start to flower.’’
But Hoek says you need a controlled chiller to do this, as there is a temperature regime to be followed.
‘‘It’s not just plant and bung in the fridge,’’ he says.
But you can plant a hyacinth bulb indoors now for earlier blooming than if you otherwise planted it in the garden.
Place the bulb in the neck of a hyacinth vase (or a jar with a narrow neck) and fill the vase with water to just below the bulb. Add a quarter of a teaspoon of florist’s cut flower food to provide nutrients as the bulb grows.
Place the vase in a cool dark spot for eight weeks. The bulbs must be kept cool to allow development of the flower bud.
Check your hyacinth weekly. The water level needs to remain just below the base of the bulb (not touching it) to encourage root growth. Top up if necessary.
After eight weeks, bring the vase out into a dimly lit place. Then slowly (over a period of three weeks) bring the vase into stronger light and a warm position (not more than 18 degrees Celsius).
Four to six weeks after bringing the vase out of its cool, dark spot, your hyacinth will be in full bloom.
For crocuses, plant the bulbs in small flowerpots. Place a layer of gravel on the bottom of the pot, then fill with potting mix. Depending on how big your container is, plant one bulb or several, 5-8 centimetres deep and 8-10cm apart. Water the container, then move it to a cold, dark space for six weeks. Then move it to a sunny spot in the house. The crocuses will bloom in about three weeks time.
For tulips and daffodils, the bulbs still need their chilling period. Plant the bulbs in pots, and place them in a cold spot – even in the fridge – for 8-12 weeks. Then bring the containers into a room between 10C and 15C with bright, indirect light for two weeks.
When the shoots are about 5cm high, move the containers into a sunny location where temperatures are about 20C. They will then flower within a week. You don’t have to worry too much about these temperatures though. If it’s cooler, the flowers will simply take longer to appear.
After you have forced any bulb, you won’t get much more from it. You can plant it in the garden, but it will take a couple of seasons before it flowers again, if at all.
But forcing bulbs can brighten the winter days, and it’s a fun activity. You can even plant your bulbs successively – once every 10 days or so – so that you can have a long display in winter.
Visit Jane’s blogs: sweetlivingmagazine and flamingpetal.co.nz.
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