Forcing Bulbs Indoors

Indoor Blooms From Bulbs

Want to have gorgeous blooms inside in the middle of winter? Start growing spring bulbs in the fall. Growing bulbs indoors is easy and fun, and takes up very little space. Creating a fake short winter is the trick. Make bulbs think it's winter by placing them in a refrigerator, a cool closet, or even in a foam cooler place on a patio or balcony. This causes them to grow sturdy roots and start to sprout in preparation for spring.

Good Soil is Important

You can make your own potting soil, or use any commercial organic potting mix. It's easy to do.  Use 1 part sterilized potting soil, one part perlite, and 2 parts peat moss. Mix these three things together well. That gives you a clean, porous, moisture retaining, nutrient filled potting soil.

Unsterilized soil from your outside garden because it may contain bacterial or fungal pathogens that could infect the plant roots, so it's better not to use it.

The Bulbs Need A Pot

Once you have your soil prepared, choose the pot you want to use and place a few pieces of broken crockery over the drainage holes. This keeps the hole from clogging up with compacted dirt, and also keeps the dirt from falling out during the planting process.

Now fill the pot half-full of soil mix. With the pointed ends up, place the bulbs in the container. Without actually letting the bulbs touch, plant the bulbs as closely together as possible. Put enough soil mix in to fill the pot, then the bulbs thoroughly from the top or immerse in a tub of water. That will settle the soil around the bulbs.

Time For The Dark Side

Snowdrops, daffodils and crocus all work well. You can use any early blooming bulb, however.  Many places carry good bulbs. For example, you can click here for Daffodils from Breck's, plus they have a lot of other beautiful flowering bulbs. It takes about 12 weeks to force these early bloomers. It will take longer for bulbs like tulips, generally about 16 weeks. The longer the bulbs are in cold storage, the taller the flowers will be.

If bulbs aren't left in storage long enough, the result is smaller plants and sometimes flowers that start to grown then die.

The Bulbs Need Light.

When it's close time for the bulbs to start blooming, begin checking the pots occasionally. Fine white roots coming out of the drainage holes, and/or shoots 2 or three inches above the soil, are signs to take the pots out of cold storage.

At this point, the bulbs should be placed in indirect lighting for a while before moving them to direct sunlight. Be carefuly not to allow the soil to dry out.

It's best to first move bulbs to a fairly cool location if possible, such as an unheated entryway or closed off back bedroom, where the temperatures are in the ’50s, before moving them on to the heated areas of the house, and into more direct sunlight.

A New Lease On Life.

Cut the flower stems off after the blooms die if you wish to reuse the bulbs. The leaves gather nutrients for the bulbs next year's blooms, so be sure the foilage has plenty of sunlight to continue to grow.

Leave the leaves on after the foliage withers. Store the bulbs with leaves still intact. Place the pots of bulbs 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 a second go round 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.