Forcing the issue
Having fresh flowers in the home whenever you want is such a great thing. It brightens any room and they smell terrific too. Keeping up with the high price of fresh flowers are downright difficult. It is pretty shocking to walk into a flower shop and come out $200 in the hole. The remedy for that is to create that beautiful flower arrangement yourself.
One very beautiful concept is growing bulbs indoors, which is called forced growing. This sounds complicated but it is actually pretty simple and fun. You can pick out your own container and embellish it with whatever you choose, and make it as elaborate as you want. Once you learn how to grow bulbs indoors, you will want to do it all the time and even give them as gifts.
Supplies for Growing Bulbs Indoors
- glass container or flower pot with drainage (depending on what kind of bulb you use)
- bulbs (paperwhite narcissus)
- water
- glass beads or rocks or sand
- refrigerator
Forcing a Narcissus to grow indoors
This is such a lovely idea. I don’t know why I didn’t try this sooner.
Keep them cool
You can use any size glass vase and use more than one bulb if you like. Fill the bottom of the glass vase with glass beads or rocks about halfway, and then place your bulbs on top. Now in case you didn’t notice, the bulb has a circular group of roots on the bottom. Make sure that the area with the roots is covered in water only. Do not cover the entire bulb in water. Fill the vase with water until the water hits the bottom of the bulbs soaking the root area. Now place the vase in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 weeks. Check on it periodically to make sure the water level is still touching the roots. If not, add more water to root level. You should eventually see the roots shooting throughout the bottom of the vase around the beads or rocks.
Warm them up
After the 3 to 4 week period take it out of the refrigerator and place it in a nice bright sunny area so it can continue to grow and bloom. Once the buds bloom, take them out of the sunny place so the blooms can last a bit longer.
Now you have a beautiful flower arrangement and all you paid was a few dollars. You can get all of these materials at the 99 cent store, even the bulbs. I should know because that is where I do my shopping. If you get there on a good day, you can pick out all the good bulbs and vases and save them for making gifts for your entire family, or at least the family members you actually like, just joking. These would also make great table arrangements for your big family holiday dinners.
No matter how you use them, they will brighten your day at any season. Just have fun and enjoy the view.