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Cooperative Extension Service |
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Agricultural
Experiment Station |
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Dale Bumpers College
Division Home |
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| Dustin Blakey County Extension Agent - Agriculture |
Jesse Bocksnick County Extension Agent - 4-H |
[Dustin Blakey] While I prefer using soil - I’m more comfortable with growing in that, and I like soil’s ability to hold water and air so the roots don’t rot - you have another option with growing any bulb you want to force whether it be paperwhites, hyacinth, or crocus, and that’s to basically grow it in water. [See Part 1 for information on planting in soil.]
What you’ll do to do that is you need some kind of vase. [Dustin picks up clear vase] For the purposes of this demonstration I have a clear vase. Personally, I prefer to use something that’s opaque. It’s going to take about a month for this process to go on, and sometimes you water can get kind of algaed, but we’re going to use clear for this.
What you need is something to hold up your bulbs. Water water is going to be in here, but the bulbs will have a tendency to fall over so you need something to raise them up, and to keep them from falling over when they get tall. I’m using florists’ gravel - it’s attractive. But you can use marbles. You can use acrylic that looks like glass, pretty much anything is OK.
Go ahead and fill it about this tall; [container filled about 2/3 full] I’m not going all the way to the top right now. Then it’s just a matter of putting the bulbs in here. Obviously, pointy end goes up. Now I’ll take a little more of this and drop some more in just to help hold them up once they start flowering.
You’ll notice I didn’t put it all the way to the very top. When these begin to grow and start to flower, our house tend to be a warmer temperature than this plant likes and as a result they’ll grow pretty tall and they might fall over. By having them below the rim, the rim of the glass actually helps to hold the plants upright.
And this, essentially, is all you need to do. You have the gravel in here. Make sure the bulbs are facing up and then you’re going to add water. This is the tricky part with raising them in just water. If the bulbs are covered with water, they’ll die. The only part of the plant you want to touch the water is the root system. Obviously there’s no roots right now, so the water needs to come up to the base of the bulbs. So it’s important that when you plant these that they are all very level and there’s not one deeper than the other. Go ahead and add your water. [Dustin adds water to the container] I’ll get down here and make sure I’ve gotten it pretty good. I think I can add a little more in there. And that’s all there is to this.
Here are some hints for growing paperwhites in vases: [Slide showing hints] First, you can use activated charcoal in the bottom of the container that will help keep the water clear. You can find activated charcoal in aquarium sections of the pet store or a discount store. Second, be sure to check the water level every day. The water will evaporate. Third, keep bulbs above water or they will rot.
[Dustin with bulbs planted both in soil and water containers] Growing on paperwhites is really easy, there’s not much trick to it. They want cool temperatures. Generally they want to be forced on at about 60-65 degrees. Now, our house tend to be kept closer to 70 [degrees], and as a result, these will be taller than we would like to see. The warm temperatures will make them stretch so they’ll be much taller than we’d like. It may be necessary in that case to put a stake in and tie them. And of course, we planted this one a little deeper to hold it up.
The first thing you’re going to want to do to establish a good, strong plant is to take and put these in a dark, cool place like a closet, maybe even your garage. Something that’s about 50 degrees constant temperature and doesn’t get a lot of light. I’ve got a closet here at the office. I’ll put them in there for a week and then bring them out. [Dustin places containers into a closet]
Paperwhites can really add something special to your Christmas floral display. Poinsettias are wonderful, but sometimes it’s nice to have something to go with it, and this is a great project that you can do with your kids. It takes about 4 weeks from the day you plant it until you have flowers. Some varieties will be much faster, maybe a week shorter, some may take a week longer.
Now if you’re wondering what to do with these bulbs after you’ve finished forcing them, you need to throw them away. This type of bulb is not hardy in Arkansas and you’ve pretty much depleted it of energy so throw it away and buy some new ones.
[Title slide - For more information contact the Cooperative Extension Service dblakey@uaex.edu]
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