Polk County Master Gardeners
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Hastening Spring
“Forcing” blooms ahead of their natural time always sounded pretty harsh
to me. I like “coaxing” much better. But whatever you call it, getting a
hyacinth bloom in January or tulips in December certainly brightens the house on
cold winter days. It’s also quite a bit of bother because it takes from 8 to 16
weeks and involves space in your refrigerator.
But you can have lots of spring blooms in the house early even starting now
if you have flowering trees that can spare a branch or two. I discovered this
when a friend gave me branches of flowering quince that were just beginning to
bud out. I was a bit doubtful, but dutifully took them home and put them in a
vase of water. Each day there was a new leaf or more red in the flower buds, and
within a couple of weeks there were beautiful flowers all along the stems.
When they began to fade, I looked around the yard and found a dogwood tree
with some damaged limbs. Sam (the taller member of this team) cut some of them
and we brought them in and put them in a nice, big vase with plenty of water.
We’ve watched them now for a couple of weeks and I’ve been fascinated with a
chance to watch dogwood blooms develop “up close and personal.” First the buds
began to swell and turn a beautiful shade of mauve. Then they broke open and
exposed the tiny green balls that become the actual flowers. Those lovely white
“blossoms” on the dogwood are really bracts. By now, the bracts are turning
white, and it looks like we will have dogwood in the house for several weeks
before they come into bloom outside.
Can’t wait to try redbud and some of the other spring bloomers. And next fall
I think I’ll even get brave enough to try coaxing some bulbs into bloom - if I can
make room for them in the fridge!
If you’d like some additional information about gardening, tune in to KENA
(102.1 FM) every other Saturday at 12:30 pm. Polk County Master Gardeners will
be presenting short programs about many different aspects of digging in the
dirt. The one coming up next will be Saturday, March 23, when Dayton Holman will
be talking about Azaleas.
By Barbara M. Tobias
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