When I was younger, my friend Allie’s mom always had the loveliest flowers blooming in their house in the middle of winter. When Allie moved back north last winter, she started up the tradition again and had a little spring oasis in her house. So it got me thinking…
In the middle of the darkest time of year in the Arctic, when it’s -40 with only 2-3 hrs of light, there’s nothing quite like having fresh flowers in your home to give you some hope of warmer times to come.
So this year I got organized. I raided every Home Depot and Canadian Tire I came across on my last few trips south and brought back some 30 bulbs with me. Oh ya!
So what kind of winter bulbs are best? Well, Amaryllis is always a holiday show-stopper with its big red (or pink or white) blooms, but you have to plant these really early. I got mine into soil around late-October, and they are just blooming now in January (they missed the holidays, but I forgive them).
Amaryllis blooms
My lovely paper whites.
Then there are Paper Whites (narccisus papyraceus). Oh lovely Paper Whites. They’re a relative of the daffodil (narcissus) but are way more amazing. As I’ve recently found out through some holiday reading, Paper Whites have some very special qualities no other flowering bulbs have.
What’s special about Paper Whites:
- They can be forced to sprout at any time, anywhere. No freezing. No prep’ing. Nada. Just give them some down-time and fertilizer between blooms, and they’ll keep going.
- You can manipulate their height with alcohol. Don’t you hate it when you have plants sprout in pots and fall over under their own weight before they’ve finished blooming (like my Amaryllis did this week)? By feeding Paper Whites a small amount of alcohol mixed into their water (1:7 ratio-ish), they won’t grow as tall yet will bloom for the same amount of time as usual, with no adverse effect. Mine prefer vodka but you can use rubbing alcohol or any equivalent.
- They require very little light to grow, and prefer shadier spots. This is perfect for Arctic gardeners looking for a mid-winter bloom in the dark.
The challenge with forcing most flowers (with exception to Paper Whites) is you need very precise pre-chilling time to trick them into thinking they’ve gone through a winter cooling before blooming in ‘the spring’. But if you cool them for too long, or too short, or outside of the optimal temperature zones, chances are you won’t get a bloom. This is why I heart Paper Whites.
I made my first attempt at forcing an Amaryllis bulb (from last year) this winter, with little success. Although Amaryllis’ don’t need a cooling time to be forced, they seem to be a little more finicky than Paper Whites, from what I’ve read. They also need more down-time than Paper Whites, so you may only get one bloom out of them per year, whereas Paper Whites will keep going with less rest time – or so other gardeners say. We’ll see how well mine do this spring, and hopefully I’ll have better luck next winter with my Amaryllis.
Here are some pictures of my bulbs this year. Let me know if you have any tips and tricks to forcing your bulbs.
P.S. Thanks for the inspiration Sheila!