Forcing an Early Spring

Isn’t it a wonderful thing to see fresh spring flowers like tulips and daffodils after a long, cold, dreary winter? You can have that feeling of spring inside your home months ahead of time, but you have to plan for it early.

Most spring bulbs require a chilling period of approximately 3 months before they will grow and bloom. This time is usually spent in our gardens under a few inches of garden soil and possibly a few feet of snow! As the spring warms up the soil, the bulbs send their shoots up to the surface.  We can trick Mother Nature into thinking it is spring by ‘forcing’ spring bulbs to bloom earlier by manipulating this process.

If you hurry, some of the garden centers still have bulbs left, and they are probably at a discounted prices, too. I was able to pick up 50 crocus bulbs yesterday at a hardware store, for only a dollar! I also have some daffodil bulbs in my garage that haven’t made it into the garden yet, so here we go!

What you'll need:

1. Pots – just about anything will do as long as it has good drainage. They need to be at least twice the depth of the bulb in order to allow for sufficient root growth.
2. Any commercial soilless potting mix or a mixture of equal parts of soil, sphagnum moss, and perlite or vermiculite. 
3. Spring bulbs of your choice - tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses, grape hyacinths can all be forced. (Amaryllis and paperwhites can also be forced, but they don’t require a chilling period.) When choosing bulbs, select them as you would if you were buying onions. Choose large, firm, fresh-looking bulbs which are unblemished and without any soft spots.

Planting:

Fill your pot with potting mix up to the point where the tip of the bulb will be even with the top of the pot when placed on top of the potting mix. Place the bulbs, root side down (the flat end) on top of the potting mix.

3 Daffodil Bulbs

Use as many bulbs as will fit into the pot without allowing them to touch. A 6 inch pot can hold up to 3 daffodils, 6 tulips or about 15 small bulbs like crocuses or grape hyacinths.

Added more potting mix and crocus bulbs.

Cover the bulbs with potting mix, without covering the tips. Water them in well.

Final top up and watered in.

Label and date the pots.

If you plan to mix different types of bulbs within the same pot, be sure the chilling and blooming times are the same for all bulbs. When planting in smaller pots, think odd numbers – three or five plants is more visually pleasing than an even number. If you want continuous blooms, plant several pots and stagger the times when you bring them inside to warm up.

Chilling:

The potted bulbs must be stored in a cool, dark place for the chilling period. Temperatures should be around 35 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 7 degrees Celsius). A refrigerator, cold cellar, unheated basement, attic or an attached garage are all ideal. If you chill your bulbs in the fridge, be sure to keep them away from apples, pears or other fruits which emit ethylene gas and will damage the bulbs, preventing them from blooming.

To plan your blooming times a general rule of thumb for beginning the chilling period is as follows:

• Begin in September for January blooms,
• October for February blooms,
• November for March blooms and
• December for April blooms.

More specifically:

• Daffodils:  12-15 weeks of chilling; 2-3 weeks to bloom after chilling.
• Tulips:  10-16 weeks of chilling; 2-3 weeks to bloom after chilling.
• Crocus: 8-15 weeks of chilling; 2-3 weeks to bloom after chilling.
• Grape hyacinth (Muscari): 8-15 weeks of chilling; 2-3 weeks to bloom after chilling.
• Hyacinth: 12-15 weeks of chilling; 2-3 weeks to bloom after chilling.

Throughout the chilling period the soil in the pots should be moist but not wet. Check them every other week and give them a bit of water if needed.

Forcing the bulbs:

After the appropriate chilling period, check the bulbs. When fresh shoots appear out of the tips of the bulbs, and they are at least 1 to 2 inches long (2.5 to 5 cm) they can be brought inside.

Warm the plants slowly. Too much heat and direct sunlight will cause lanky, weak stems which will droop over so place them in cool spot with bright, indirect light.

Once buds appear, the pot can be moved to direct light to encourage blooming. After the flowers open though, move them out of direct sunlight in order to prolong the flowering period.

After blooming:

Forcing bulbs to bloom uses up a lot of their energy and these bulbs rarely perform in future years. Toss them on your compost pile after the blooms are spent and buy new bulbs next fall.