Paper White love

Winter can sometimes be dreary when it’s too cold to go outside and those wintry clouds can press down on any mood.  To get out of the anticipated winter blues this year I tried forcing some Narcissus Paper White bulbs and I’m really glad I did.  It’s day eight of freezing temps that make Spring feel a long time away but the beautiful tiny white blooms planted at Thanksgiving are successfully cheering us up.  It was a amazingly simple to do, you can be sure there will be  blooms all winter here!  
I purchased bulbs at a local nursery then found a couple of great containers.  The containers are filled 3/4 full with pebbles gathered from the driveway.  Bulbs are snuggly placed on top of the pebbles and water added to just the top of the pebbles.  I read on a Google site that a 1-10 ratio of alcohol to water will stunt the height of the greenery without stunting the blooms, and intended to do that.  However, I had to be away from home a couple of weeks and relied on someone else to keep them watered.  The stems are rather tall, but have not fallen over so I think it still worked just fine.  I am going to try it on the next batch though.

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