As a horticulture student, I volunteered to start a horticulture therapy program in a psychiatric facility. My greatest pleasure was witnessing a chronically depressed patient giving a pot of flowering tulips they had forced themselves to one of their caregivers. The tulips were a breath of fresh air toward the end of a particularly cold and dark winter, the caregiver was thrilled and the patient was on the road back to health. While I realize a pot of tulips was not a miracle cure, it did provide a sense of empowerment and self esteem that had been in short supply in this person’s life.
Forcing bulbs is easy. It’s a way of bringing bulbs into bloom inside much earlier than if planted outdoors. The embryonic flower is already there within the bulb when you purchase it in the fall. In order to develop further, it needs a chilling period (“winter”).
Always use large, high quality bulbs [you get what you pay for: small bulbs yield small blooms and weak plants]. Pot up bulbs at weekly intervals over several weeks in the fall to give yourself the gift of flowering plants starting as early as January through to early March. Pot up extras for friends and relatives.
Use only a single cultivar in each pot. Different species and cultivars often bloom at different times resulting in a patchy display. Start with two to three inches of soil-less potting mix in the bottom of a clean pot (wide shallow “bulb pans” are preferred) with drainage holes. Next, place the bulbs “shoulder to shoulder” with their pointy sides up. With tulips, put their ‘flat’ side to the outside of the pot – this way, the largest leaf is produced to the outside as well, creating the nicest display. Cover with potting mix with the bulb tops just poking through. Water thoroughly and drain completely.
Label each pot with cultivar, colour and potting date. Mark a few dates on your calendar as reminders: the potting date, at four and eight weeks to check if they need water, and at 12 to 14 weeks to mark the end of the forcing period.
Keep the pots in a fridge or dark cold room at 2 to 4 C to simulate winter soil conditions. At the end of the chilling period, when the leaves/shoots are two to five inches high and the roots are showing through the drainage holes, place your pot in a cool (15 to 18 C) room until the flowers open. Then move it to a location where you’ll get the most pleasure from a flowering display. For longer bloom, keep the pot out of direct sunlight and away from radiators and heaters. The cooler the temperature, the longer lasting the bloom.
Not all tulip, daffodil/narcissus, hyacinth and crocus cultivars are suitable for forcing. Forcing bulbs are usually marked as such in your local garden centres and mail-order catalogues. The following are easily forced. There are many others.
Tulips (13 weeks chilling): Bellona, General de Wet, Apricot Beauty, Apeldoorn, Golden Apeldoorn, Gudoshnik, Atillia, Nigrita. Red Emperor, White Emperor, Orange Emperor, Yellow Emperor, Bing Crosby, Jingle Bells, White Dream, Princess Irene and Paul Richter.
Daffodils (13 weeks chilling): Dutch master, Gold Harvest, King Alfred, Unsurpassable, Barret Browning, Littlewitch, Carlton, February Yellow, Mount Hood, Dutch Master, Ice Follies, Tete-a-tete and the tiny Mimimus.
Hyacinths (most varieties force well - 12 weeks chilling): Bismarck, LInnocence, Ostara, City of Haarlem, Amsterdam, Pink Pearl, Delft Blue and Ann Marie.
Crocus (eight weeks chilling): Flower Record, Pickwick, Twinborn and Sieberi.
Sara is the author of numerous gardening books, among them the revised Creating the Prairie Xeriscape. And with Hugh Skinner: Gardening Naturally; Trees and Shrubs for the Prairies, and Groundcovers & Vines for the Prairies.
— This column is provided courtesy of the Saskatchewan Perennial Society (www.saskperennial.ca; hortscene@yahoo.com; www.facebook.com/saskperennial). Check out our Bulletin Board or Calendar for upcoming garden information sessions, workshops, tours and other events: Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, Canadian Prairie Lily Society’s annual bulb sale at The Mall at Lawson Heights (www.prairielily.ca).
