The best part of spring is when all the bulbs you planted start emerging from the ground, painting your yard with color after a long grey winter. Unfortunately, you have to wait six months for those to bloom—but if you’re impatient like I am, you can actually grow those flowers indoors, starting now. The idea is simple, and you don’t have to be a seasoned gardener to pull it off: You can place bulbs in a pot or glass vase and allow them to bloom inside, like a living bouquet. Once they’ve bloomed, the bulb is spent, so you can toss it or compost it. (You can try to save the bulb to replant it, but I’ve generally found this to be an unrewarding endeavor.)
Perhaps you’ve seen these arrangements in the pages of Pottery Barn or the aisles of Trader Joe’s. The good news is that you can purchase inexpensive bulbs and get the same effect for much less by doing it yourself. You can get bulbs almost anywhere this time of year, from major bulb retailers online like Eden Brothers to your local garden center, Home Depot, or even your grocery store. If you see a bag of bulbs on sale, grab them for this purpose. If you can find pre-chilled bulbs, that’s even better, since it means you don’t have to wait until winter for your blooms (more on that below).
When you force bulbs, you’re tricking them into thinking it’s spring by keeping them inside. The key to this working is to mimic outdoor conditions by exposing them to cold for a few weeks. How long they need that cold depends on the type of bulb (and amaryllis and paperwhite narcissus actually don’t need to be chilled at all). You don’t want to chill your bulbs in your fridge, because you likely have fruit in there, and ripening fruit releases ethylene gas, which will tell the bulbs to grow. The best place to chill your bulbs is outdoors or in your basement. You can chill them already planted in your pots or leave them in the paper bag they ship in.
How to plant indoor bulbs in pots
Most bulbs prefer to be planted in a pot in potting medium. At your garden center, look for soilless potting mix, which does a great job of holding onto moisture while allowing for optimum drainage. When choosing a pot, you’ll need three to four inches of growing space beneath the bulb, in addition to the height of the bulb itself. When you’re ready to plant the bulbs, allow the roots of the bulbs to rest in warm water overnight. In the morning, add the three to four inches of potting medium to the bottom of your pot, then place your bulbs in, pointy side up and roots down. You can plant the bulbs as close together as you’d like, even touching. Cover them with more potting medium, leaving the top inch of the bulbs uncovered. Tamp down the potting medium with your fingers—you want it to be pretty well compressed to hold your bulbs in place when they grow flowers. Water the potting medium until all the soil is moist, which means that when you have a fist’s worth in your hand and squeeze it, the medium sticks together, but no water squeezes out.
How to plant indoor bulbs in glass vases
There’s a second method of planting for bulbs like hyacinths. They can be planted in tall glass vases, rooted only in pebbles or glass marbles, which makes for quite a display. You’ll still want two-three inches of marbles or pebbles under the bulbs, but instead of covering the bulbs, you’ll add just enough to cover the roots of the bulbs, anchoring them. Fill the vase with water only covering the roots, no more.
Alternatively, you can buy small vases specifically for forcing hyacinths. You place the bulb on the top of the vase, and fill it with water to the root level.
How to chill your bulbs
In either case, now you take the potted bulbs and expose them to the cold for the right amount of time per the list below. The ideal temperature is around forty degrees, and during the cooling period, you want to be sure to check moisture levels of the rooting medium or water (for hyacinths) every few weeks to ensure the potting medium is still moist.
I like to set calendar alerts for each of my pots, so I know when to go rescue it from my garage. By that time, you should see small shoots for each of the bulbs, and you know it’s time to bring them inside and continue the forcing. Your potted bulbs will want to stay around sixty five degrees for this part, and you still want to check for moisture of the potting medium.
How long to chill these bulbs:
Anemone: 8 weeks
Crocus: 8 weeks
Snowdrops: 10 weeks
Hyacinth: 12 weeks
Dwarf Iris: 10 weeks
Daffodils: 15 weeks
Narcissus : 15 weeks
Tulip: 14 weeks
How long the blooms last will vary by flower, but you can generally expect them to bloom for a few weeks.
How to care for spent bulbs
When these bulbs bloom, they are single blooms, so you don’t want to cut them. If you do, they won’t grow back. Once the flowers start to die back, you can try to plant the bulbs outside, but I’ve generally had little luck with this, as bulbs can be finicky. If you’d like to try it, cut off the stem of the bloom above the leaves, but you must leave the leaves. This is where all the bulb’s nutrients are stored. Allow the soil in the pot to dry out completely. Dust off the dried bulbs, and store until fall in a cool, dry place. You can plant them outside once the summer is over.