Saturday, April 23, 2011

Springtime is Blooming!

Well, it has been almost 2 months since my first post, so as for my plan to post weekly...fail!  This has been a very busy few months.  I've had a lot of projects, papers and homework for school this semester.  Plus, I was a knittin' fool trying to finish the baby blanket for my sister-in-law's shower.  And being sick for 2 weeks didn't help me either.  But enough excuses - time for my second post!

I wanted to bring a little life into the house during the winter and early spring, while the grass outside is still brown and the trees are leafless.  So, I purchased some paperwhite bulbs, some small river stones and gathered up some pretty glass vases.


I filled the bottom of my hurricane and vases with a layer of river stones, and nestled the bulbs in.  I then added enough water to cover the bottom of the bulbs.



After about a week, I was excited to come downstairs one morning, and see this:


Yay!  The tiniest bit of growth!  This was a promising sign and I really enjoyed checking the growth progress daily.  A couple of weeks later, my bulbs looked like this:





And before I knew it, the first buds started to blossom.


And a few days later, I was greeted with these little guys:


And then...I went out of town for 10 days.  I was worried about my paperwhites not having enough water while I was gone.  So I gave them a little extra before I left.  When I returned home, I was greeted by a veritable jungle of very long green stems and several flower blossoms.  They were a bit out of control, and probably needed to be transplanted into soil.  But, as a novice at forcing bulbs, I kept them in their glass enclosures too long.  And, as a novice blogger, I neglected to take any more pictures!  And thus ends the story of my paperwhite bulbs!

I do plan to try this again next year, and hopefully successfully transplant these little beauties so they can continue to grow and flourish.  In other news, the bulbs that I planted outside have been blooming!  They are lovely and have survived some spring snowstorms and plenty of wind.  I'll try and get some pictures to post - they are so colorful and pretty!

Cheers!
Jenn

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