Growing Bulbs Indoors
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Indoor Blooms
Spring flowering bulbs can bloom inside. Start the process of forcing bulbs in the fall for lovely winter blooms. It’s a lot of fun to grow bulbs indoors. It’s easy to do and takes up very little space. Creating a fake short winter is the trick. By placing potted bulbs in the refrigerator, in a cool closet, or in a foam cooler on a patio or balcony, they will think that it’s winter. By doing this, they will grow sturdy roots and start to sprout in preparation for spring.
Get The Right Dirt
To plant your bulbs in, any good commercial potting soil mix will do, or you can make your own soil mix. It’s a pretty simple task.Use 2 parts peat moss, one part perlite, and one part sterilized potting soil. Now, mix these things well together. These ingredients will make a clean, porous, moisture retaining, nutrient filled potting soil.
It’s better not to use unsterilized soil from your outside garden because it may contain bacterial or fungal pathogens that could infect the plant roots.
Pick A Pot
Choose the pot you want to use after the soil is ready, and place a few pieces of broken crockery over the drainage holes. Place it so the soil can’t fall out during the planting process, but with enough free space to allow water to still drain out the hole.
Begin by filling the pot half-full of soil mix. With the pointed ends up, place the bulbs in the container. Place the bulbs as close together as possible, but don’t let them actually touch. Add enough soil mix to fill the pot, and water the bulbs thoroughly from the top or immerse in a tub of water - this will settle the soil around the bulbs.
It Takes Some Time Now
Crocus, daffodils and snowdrops or any other early blooming bulbs work well. You can find these bulbs at many places. Just as an example,click here for Daffodils from Breck’s, plus many other gorgeous flowering bulbs. To force these early bloomers takes about 12 weeks. It will take longer for bulbs like tulips, generally about 16 weeks. The flowers will be taller if they are left in cold storage longer.
If bulbs aren’t left in storage long enough, the result is smaller plants and sometimes flowers that start to grown then die.
A Light Touch.
When it’s close time for the bulbs to start blooming, begin checking the pots occasionally. Once there are shoots 2 to 3 inches above the soil and fine white roots emerging from the drainage holes, it’s time to bring the pots out of cold storage.
At this stage of development all bulbs should be placed in indirect lighting for a while before moving them to direct sunlight. Care should be taken to prevent the soil from drying out.
A gradual transition works best, so move the bulbs first into a location that is still fairly cool if possible, a fairly cool location if possible, such as an unheated entryway or closed off back bedroom, where the temperatures are in the ’50s. Then move them on into the heated areas of the house and into more direct sunlight.
Once Inside, Lots More Outside.
After the blooms die, if you want to reuse the bulbs,cut the flower stems off. Give the foliage plenty of sunlight to allow continued growth. This gathers nutrients for the bulb to bloom next year.
Leave the leaves on after the foliage withers. Leave the leaves on the bulbs and store them in their pots in a cool, dry place until they can be planted outside. Since being forced to bloom inside weakens the bulb, don’t try to make it blooom a second time inside. Any bloom from forcing bulbs a second time would be small.
After bulbs are planted outside, in a year or two they will sync in with the natural seasonal schedule. Then they will start making a gorgeous display of blooms at the appropriate time.
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