A Stroll Through the Garden: Start bulbs in the fall for color in the winter

I was at the pool last week and one of my friends asked me about what we did as a business. I was in a business with my brother and my parents. We took care of plants in restaurants, businesses and in people’s homes in five counties. We also rented plants to be displayed at big events. You may be able to see some spectacular pictures of some of the events we did. They were all hard work.

We also wanted flowers for our restaurants on a regular basis. Our business helped restaurants develop a clientele of people coming in to see what was in bloom on a winter day. Over the years as we did that people would comment favorably about how a flower brightened a gloomy day.

This might be a little early for having bulbs to force in winter or early spring, but a stronger root system will make a healthier plant. The main reason you start earlier is that the bulbs need to start setting roots. If not, you will be out of luck trying to force them in the winter.

If the bulbs have 6 weeks of 48 degrees temperatures for your bulbs, you should be fine for the most part for root growth. One of my teacher friends at the pool told me how she taught children about growing peas in little cups and reminded me of this propagation idea a year ago.

When we take our tree down after Christmas, we also lose all the color that we had in our living rooms. As a landscape designer, I do my best to have color in my yard all year. Bits and pieces of color are how I try to overcome my winter day blahs. For most gardeners, these shows of color are not as exciting as having something in bloom.

Our plant rental business many years ago promised some of our clients something in bloom all year long. This gave us a particular advantage when it came to exciting options for our clients. Over the years one of our clients developed a particular clientele that would come in once a week to see what we would have in bloom in the restaurant. We had worked on any number of ideas to get blooms, but one of my favorite methods of getting color into the design is forcing bulbs to come into bloom. As a normal thing, I did push the envelope on procedures in forcing bulbs.

How to force bulbs into blooms

Here is a step-by-step process to force bulbs to come into bloom. You can vary when you would want to bring cold-treated bulbs as hyacinths; you have to see how well the hyacinth set root. The longer the bulb has had an opportunity to set root, the better the chance to remove the bulb and plant in the soil for the next season.

You need to allow the bulbs to have a chance to set root for a number of weeks prior to freezing temperatures. It's one of the keys to getting the bulbs to grow. For a guide, you can go to astrollthroughthegardenbyericlarson.blogspot.com.

Step one in forcing bulbs is planting your bulbs in a large enough pot to give your bulb a chance to grow with a standard sort of potting soil. Water the bulb after planting. I did put some leaves around the pots to provide some minimal protections for some years and straw other years. For this step you must also plant the bulbs early enough to set root. Each plant will have its own set of requirements for setting their roots.

After at least six weeks of freezing temperatures outside and a minimum of four weeks to allow the roots to set for most bulbs, you should be able to bring your pot with the hyacinth indoors as a rule. Don’t bring the pot into a warm room right away. The process is called hardening off by placing your pot in a cool room for at least one week in temperatures of 50 degrees in a sunny window. At this point you should be able to see some growing action. We shall talk more about this project in weeks to come.

If you don’t have a cooler room, you can use a hot frame. Hot frames are insulated, heated and do not take up extra space. What is exciting is that you can use one-half of the box for normal winter crops and then, as you harvest your winter crops, you could set in bulb pots with the hyacinths in the spaces were those other crops were located and then into your house.

If you have any gardening questions for me, you can e-mail me at [email protected]. I shall to the best I can in answering the questions for you. Hope you are able to enjoy some form of gardening this week around your house. Remember fall is here and winter is coming but only lasts for so long. Comments are welcome.

Eric Larson of Jeromesville is a veteran landscaper and gardening enthusiast and a founding board member of the Ohio Chapter of Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Here's a way to force bulbs into early blooms and add winter color