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Planting bulbs for indoors

TadsTads Posts: 210

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may I please seek advice about which bulbs I can plant for the plant troughs I now have on my bedroom windowsill? I like only white flowers.  So I am thinking in terms of snowdrops, or crocus perhaps or even hyancinth  ?  looking for ideas & tips on planting soil, etc ???? 

 thankyou ???? 

Tads ???? 

Posts

  • i would grow white hyacinths there. You're a little late to buy the prepared bulbs which are especially for growing indoors, but you may still find some. 


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • TadsTads Posts: 210

    oh dear, just looked online, think I’m too late this year, better buy some ready grown when they come in. At least I will know for next year, to buy & plant August/September.  thanks for responding ? “merry Christmas”??? 

    Tads 

  • Kitty 2Kitty 2 Posts: 5,150

    Snowdrops are best "planted in the green", ie dug up and replanted after flowering.  Not sure that they would grow well indoors either image.

    I'd go with hyacinths as Dove suggests, highly scented, I love them on a windowsil.

    Dove, would mini narcissus like paperwhites work indoors? Or would it be too warm?

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190

    Paper whites are only for indoors, but do you know what they smell like?

    I bought them only once for my daughter my mum and myself, we all had to put them outside when they flowered.  Or is that just my family?

    i think indoor  bulbs have to be kept in the cold and dark for a while even if they are ‘prepared’, before being brought into the light, I don’t think you just plant them on a window sill in the first place. 

    Or have they gone off that Idea now, methods do change. 

    Some white pelagoniums would be good in the troughs, they will flower all year. Bulbs flower for just a couple of weeks indoors.  You could put three or four in each trough. 

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Joyce21Joyce21 Posts: 15,489

    White flowered Kalanchoe  You could sit them in their pots inside the troughs..

    SW Scotland
  • Kitty 2Kitty 2 Posts: 5,150

    Thanks for the smelly heads up Lyn, never grown them myself (is it that nasty cat pee stink some plants have?).

    I always did the cold and dark thing with hyacinth bulbs, usually kept in the cupboard under the kitchen sink at my mums ?.  Got lazy now I'm a grown up and buy the ready made pots with the green noses poking through image.

    As you say times and trends change. I saw some crocus bulbs with mini glass hyacinth vases being sold in the local supermarket. That's a new one on me image.

  • Mark56Mark56 Posts: 1,653

    The prepared hyacinths can be placed straight on the windowsill, mine are already coming up after purchasing in September. Think you will be too late for those now though & have to emulate 

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190

    Hi Kitty, I think it’s more like a dog poo smell. Whatever it was we all had to put them outside, they don’t grow again if you put them in the garden , so complete waste of money, for us. Others may like them. Seems they don’t do the cold dark for the bulbs anymore, I suppose that was only for Christmas flowering. 

    Last edited: 11 November 2017 12:20:18

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Some people love the smell of paperwhites ... some people hate it. 

    I think it's like the asparagus in your pee thing, some people can smell it, some people can't.  


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Kitty 2Kitty 2 Posts: 5,150

    Hmm...interesting.  My inquisitive nature is making me want to get some now to see how stinky they are image.

    ???

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