Pushing Spring

It is hard for me to understand just how a flower can pop its head up and bloom at this time of year. It is cold..too cold for any sensible flower to even attempt to show itself. I am at a loss. Still, in the garden, the Paperwhite Narcissus has taken a notion to bloom. I know it usually blooms in midwinter but that does not make it any easier to understand. My Paperwhites are planted out in the garden and each year, I am pleasantly surprised as I near the spot. The sweet aroma of these small flowers greets me as soon as I pass through the arbor into their garden. What a delight to find something that seems to be heralding in the springtime! (Wishful thinking there as we are to get another few visits from Old Man Winter yet.) Just as an added note..Paperwhite Narcissus are one of the plants that can be forced to bloom indoors. Just place a layer of gravel in a dish that is about three inches deep. On top of the gravel, crowd a bunch of the bulbs (they love company!) with the pointed end up and surround with more gravel. Pour in enough water to just cover the base of the bulb..careful not to overfill as this will rot the bulb. There is no need at this point to have it in the sun, just check the water level daily. Do keep them rather cool..about 65 degrees. Once you notice tiny roots or a green shoot out the top, move to a sunny window. Soon they should put out buds and then the wonderful aroma when the buds open! Now..here is a weird tip! Paperwhites have a tendency to get "leggy" and fall over at times. Unlike humans, Paperwhites need hard liquor to stand up straight. I kid you not. We want our Paperwhites to be lushes! So since they love company and need alcohol..we will have a bunch of drunk flowers! A pub of tipsy buds! Seriously..to keep the plant from becoming to tall, you stunt its growth (so to speak) with alcohol. The trick is to keep the plants drunk! Once the Paperwhites reach about three inches tall, start adding a mixture of about 5% alcohol to the water. Use any hard liquor not wine or beer as there is too much sugar in those. Anyway, keep using 5% whiskey or vodka (you definitely will have to dilute this stuff and not use it straight) to give your plants a drink. This stunts their growth but not their blooms. They will just have shorter stems! Granted you will have to do a bit of math to figure the 5% but if you want straight Paperwhites it is worth the trouble. Do keep in mind that "proof" is not percentage. Proof is twice the percentage of alcohol by volume.

Some other sweet, little, early bloomers are the woods violets. I was planting cabbages the other day and came across a cluster of violets in the main vegetable garden. They were just blooming their hearts out in the middle of a chilly morning. Normally, I would not have them in this garden and I have no idea just when or how they decided this garden was home, but they shall remain. I do not have the heart to pull them out and discard them like trash. My dad used to have a rather large patch of the little violets back near his shed. Each spring he would stop mowing this area just to allow the violets to bloom. This patch was so brilliant that it could be seen several hundred feet away even though the plants themselves were only about four inches tall. A sea of blue blooms! My little patch in the garden cannot compare but maybe if I allow them to stay, they, too, will multiply into my very own "Blue Violet Ocean".