Spring is just a refrigerator away

Think spring. OK: think spring bulbs. For much of the United States (if you read and believe national magazines), tulips and daffodils are the harbingers of longer days and warmer nights. It’s not so much a phenomenon here in Florida, but folks still yearn for that all-American vision.

OK. So here’s how you do it. But remember this is a brief blaze of glory. I’ll explain along the way.

Cold-hardy bulbs — the aforementioned tulips and daffodils and many others, like giant alliums and crocus  — need a certain set of temperatures over a set period of time we simply can not provide in nature. But we can fool them.

Purchase your bulbs now, either from a reliable local nursery or mail-order, and begin preparing them for their winter slumber and eventual break from dormancy. This does NOT involve freezing; this involves chilling at a temperature around 35-45 degrees.

Plant them in individual cells (I like to use the flats formerly used for my grass plugs) in half vermiculite, half sand. Insert in a paper bag  — not only for cleanliness purposes, but to keep them dark — and store in the vegetable bin or lower shelf of your refrigerator. Yes, they will take a lot of room; this might be a good use for that extra fridge in the garage.

This could definitely hinder your holiday cooking plans, as the bulbs should be chilling in the fridge for three months.

The major caveat is to NOT store any other ripening fruit or vegetable in the same cooling unit. This includes (but is not restricted to) apples, potatoes, bananas, pineapple and pears. These foods’ ripening produce emits a gas called ethylene, and this causes the flowering structures inside the bulbs to abort, or not form at all.

After about 10 weeks of chilling, immediately (don’t let them warm up) plant the bulbs deeply — 8 inches is about normal for tulips, 4 inches for hyacinths — adding a light dollop (a tablespoon is plenty) of bone meal or triple phosphate at the bottom of the planting hole. Foliage should appear in a couple of weeks, and flower stalks will begin to appear shortly thereafter. The flowers of some of these bulbs are very short-lived: three days for tulips, a week for hyacinths.

Because we can not provide long, cool, dry conditions for them to continue to grow their foliage and build up bulb power for the next year, after the tulips, hyacinths and other cold-climate bulbs are finished flowering, dig them up and discard or compost.  Treat them as annuals. Occasionally, one or two will survive and possibly bloom again, but don’t count on it.

Some winter-blooming bulbs do naturalize here, such as the paperwhite narcissus, smaller cousins of daffodils and jonquils. These can be purchased at reliable nurseries and planted in the ground or in pots. I plant them in waves, so there is a longer period of bloom initially; the ensuing years, I enjoy them whenever they do bloom. You can also grow them perched on pebbles, coarse gravel or marbles in a dish of water. Keep the water level just UNDER the roots, or the bulbs will rot. They can be placed right close together. Provide a very bright (not full sun, or the water gets too hot) location to keep foliage short, and you will get flowers in about four weeks. After that, plant in the garden in a sunny spot (they take some shade in late summer). After the foliage yellows, cut it back.

Poinsettias
It will soon be the season for poinsettias, the signature “flower” of the Christmas season

The colored parts of poinsettias are not really flowers, but modified leaves called bracts that direct pollinators into the real flowers, which are yellowish, button-like apparitions in the center of the colored part. While usually downplayed, recent cultivars have blown up these yellow flowers so they become an equally flashy part of the poinsettia.

The University of Florida annually hosts a Poinsettia Variety Trials field day during which the public can view the hundreds — yes, hundreds — of new colors (lots of purple and pink and variegation) and cultivars and, if they wish, vote on their favorite. This year the public field day is Dec. 11 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and includes a plant sale by the UF Environmental Horticulture Club. UF is one of three universities (the others are Purdue and North Carolina State) participating in public-voting events each year. This helps the industry decide which color/form would be good to grow and promote.

The Field Day is free. Fifield Hall is at the northwest corner of Hull Road (the one that runs in front of the museums and Phillips Center from SW 34th Street) and SW 23rd Drive (which is the traffic light at Mount Vernon Apartments/Campus Edge condos on Archer Road). The greenhouses are in the back; there is plenty of parking

Columns Archive