Forcing amaryllis and muscari bulbs: An At Home Journal (Weeks 10 - 11)

Grape hyacinth blooms on bulbs grown indoors in water. Marbles kept the bulbs dry.Feb. 12:

Grape hyacinths (muscari) have bloomed in my living room, grown hydroponically from bulbs set atop marbles in water within a wide glass vase. I count 14 blossoms, with three more just starting to form. A few weeks back, I feared the bulbs wouldn't produce flowers at all.

Another cool thing? They actually have a sweet fragrance, too.

In a smaller glass vessel, three more grape hyacinth bulbs are also at various stages of bloom. These were slow-starters removed from the larger vase and relocated to a bedroom with a sunny, south-facing window. They have much shorter stems than those in the living room, but began to show florettes only a few days later -- even though it took them a lot longer to produce their stems initially.

Amaryllis: Two amaryllis bulbs I started at the same time as the muscari bulbs each have a lengthening stem with a swelling  tip that I hope will soon bear a large flower. Each amaryllis bulb, also grown in vases of water with marbles, has three or four additional bloom stems emerging. 

Feb. 6: 

I called Hans Langeveld at Longfield Gardens in Lakewood to talk bulbs again today. He gave some insight into muscari growth patterns. While he said he had never forced muscari to bloom indoors, let alone in vases filled with water, he confirmed that low light and temperature differences likely affected the growing bulbs. The living room bulbs were getting light through a small, high window, and so they stretched taller to get as much sun as possible. Those in the south-facing bedroom window were getting more sun -- and in a warmer room --  so they didn't need to work as hard.   

Grape hyacinth bulbs bloom in a sunny window. A flower is beginning to emerge from the smallest. Roots growing through green marbles in the glass container make the hydroponic arrangement more interesting.

Starting the bulbs indoors in December was likely also a challenge for the living room bulbs, he said. "You don't have a lot of hours in the day, that's why they stretched so much. Later in spring with longer days, they would look a little better."

Why are my grape hyacinth flowers on the sparse side, with a lot of space between the florettes and some at the top that have yet to open? Likely because I didn't chill the bulbs beyond the chilling they got from the supplier (that would be Longfield Gardens, which had sent the grape hyacinth bulbs, along with tulips bulbs, to be tested outdoors). 

"They are not really indoor forcing plants, technically," Langeveld said. He had told me previously that some growers prepare bulbs to be forced to bloom indoors with a longer chilling period that replicates winter. That was the case with the amaryllis bulbs, also sent by his company. But despite the lack of chilling, all the florettes opened on the sunny-window bulbs, but the blossoms still have a sparse look.

So, I deduce that the lack of chilling compromised overall flower development while insufficient sunlight, and perhaps cooler temperature, kept some of the living room florettes from opening.     

Solutions? Start earlier and later next year. Since spring bulbs start to become available in the fall, Langeveld suggested buying them early to plant in a pot that would stay in a cold, dark basement for three months to develop roots, much like they would be doing in the ground.

"When it is cold, they are still chilling," he said. "When you bring them up, they will bloom in a couple of weeks because they have already formed their roots, and are already planted in the pot."

In the recesses of my mind there was a vision of lifestyle and garden guru P. Allen Smith suggesting a similar basement planting for tulips in one of his books.

I remember the bag of tulip bulbs that I tucked away in my basement garage on Jan. 2, and I ask Langeveld how I might be more successful in my plan to grow them indoors. He suggests the same basement potting plan.

I remind Mr. Langeveld that I am not interested in dirt indoors, and he informs me that I can also start the tulip bulbs in water and keep them in the basement, lining the vases with marbles or pebbles for them to rest on, just as I had done to keep the amaryllis and muscari bulbs dry in their vases.

Sprouted tulip bulbs on the rocks, getting their roots on in a chilly, soon-to-be dark basement. One bulb's position was adjusted to keep it out of water.Langeveld also suggests checking the basement bulbs for sprouting. If they had sprouted, I was advised to get them in a pot or on water. "Otherwise they will dry out," he warned.

I headed to the garage to find my 'Suncatcher' tulip bulbs with the yellow sprouts of plants deprived of light. So, I hunted for more marbles and pebbles. One square vase already had large, smooth stones in its bottom. I filled two others with smaller, smooth stones gathered from various beaches along the Jersey Shore.

Everything is rinsed and dried, and three wide vases now hold tulip bulbs sitting on stones in water.

The winter bulb-forcing saga continues...  

 See more hydroponic bulb-growing posts in the Gardening section.

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