If short, wet winter days leave you longing for the garden, look at forcing bulbs indoors. The bulbs add colour and beauty to your house and can satisfy your gardening itch. Hyacinths are one of the greatest options for indoor forcing. Their variety of colours and fragrant scent will help alleviate your winter blues. Forcing hyacinths is not difficult, but the plants do require special care to bloom and stay vibrant.
Place a thin layer of potting soil in the bottom of your planter. This layer ought to be deep enough so that when a hyacinth bulb is set with the root end, the cover of the wax is with the rim of the planter.
Set the bulbs on the bottom layer of dirt with the root end down and the pointed end sticking up. Plant one bulb in a 4-inch bud or three bulbs in a 6-inch bud. Bigger pots can carry as many bulbs as will match as long as the bulbs all sit straight.
Fill the planter with enough dirt to cover all but the top 1/2 inch of their bulbs. Do not add fertilizer to the ground or pack it down. Water that the planter and place it in the refrigerator or in a dark place that remains 35 to 45 degrees.
Keep the bulbs in the refrigerator for 13 to 15 weeks. Keep the soil moist, but not wet.
Remove the bulbs from the refrigerator and place them in a place that receives direct sunlight and remains at 60 levels. Keep the soil moist, but not wet. Within two to three weeks the plants will develop flower buds. If you keep your own hyacinths in a room which is warmer than 60 degrees, then the plants will increase too quickly, making them leggy and weak.
Move the planter to an area with bright light when you see the flowers appear. Moving the plants out of direct sunlight will allow the plants last longer.
Transplant the bulbs to your garden when the flowers and leaves have perished. The bulbs will blossom outdoors next year. Forced hyacinth bulbs shouldn’t be forced indoors again.