Forcing Blooming Flower Bulbs

What’s Better Than Spring Blooms?

Gorgeous, scented, vibrant, cheery spring blooms from bulbs. You know who they are! Tulips, daffodils, hyacinth, grape hyacinth. All the pretties! Could there be anything better? The have wonderful fragrance and when cut in a mixed bouquet, look like something from a Dutch still life painting…swoon.

For the last two years, we’ve experimented with forcing spring blooming bulbs. I’ll be totally honest, last year was a total flop. It was a good try, but I didn’t do it right. I brought in bulbs early spring, plopped them into pots and watered away. They did sprout, but they didn’t perform like I needed them to and ended up totally failing. What a bummer! Well, this year, I learned the correct way to do this and now have loads of forced blooms to share with my friends, family and customers. I’m totally excited to add some cheer into people’s lives, especially right now with all of the isolation and social distancing happening. They’re a sure way to add some cheer.

Gorgeous rustic terra-cotta pots with forced hyacinth.

Crating: this year, instead of pulling bulbs out at the last moment, I intentionally potted them up in crates when they arrived in early November. I added a layer of dirt (about 5 inches deep) and gently pressed the bulbs into the dirt, leaving the top of the bulb exposed—I didn’t cover with dirt.

Watering: bulbs actually take a minimal amount of water. I maybe watered lightly every month. If the bulbs become too wet, they will rot. I did have a few hyacinth bulbs that ended up rotting. I took them out as soon as I saw it and tossed them in the compost pile.

Temperature: bulbs must be kept cold until you’re ready to allow them to bloom out. We kept out bulbs in our minimally heated shop space, near the front door (for extra cold). The space was kept around 40 degrees all winter long and this was enough to give the bulbs the ‘chill’ period they need in order to be force. They have to be kept at this temperature for at least 12-16 weeks. Our were actually in the chill stage from November through March, so much longer than needed; however, if I had wanted to pull them out earlier, I could have done that.

Potting: bulbs were placed in a deep clay pot. I placed about an inch and a half of pea gravel in the bottom, because the pots I used didn’t have holes in the bottom. This gives the water a resting place without the roots becoming too water logged. On top of the pea gravel, I placed about two inches of dirt, then added the bulb, roots down, into the dirt, filling in dirt around the remainder of the bulb. Water them in, lightly. On the top, I placed Spanish moss (shown above) and a tag from the farm. Voila!

Care Advice: water once a week, but not heavily. These bulbs don’t need a ton of water to produce their gorgeous blooms and we want to make sure that the roots don’t sit in water.

I also copied this same process for tulips, daffodils and grape hyacinth. Since the tulips are smaller, I added four bulbs into a shallow pot, again putting pea gravel at the bottom for drainage, and added a bit of pea gravel and Spanish moss on top. The tulips are pretty special, because they’re a fringed mix, which everyone absolutely goes gaga for. They’re just gorgeous!

If you’ve never tried to force bulbs before, I highly suggest it, even if you have failed in the past, like me. It was fun and encouraging to give it another go, seeing success this round. If you’re a first time gardener, you should also try this at home. It’s a simple process and you can find any of these bulbs at your local nurseries, and/or hardware stores in the fall.

Get Growing!

XX Jenn

Our Green Winter Oasis

The ground may be frozen and covered with snow, but inside our propagation house, it’s filled with lush, verdant plants. It’s our oasis while we wait for the spring to really start going. Can you imagine the warm, moisture rich, plant smell as you walk into this place? It’s the stuff dreams are made of!

What do we have growing right now, you ask? So much! Admittedly, we kept some of our dahlias from going into hibernation. We grabbed 10 tubers (or more) from each variety we wanted to build more stock from, potted them up and started the process as of November 1st. We’ve been taking cuttings all winter! Shown below is just a few of the cuttings that we have in the prop house. We have so many now, we had to send some to an overflow space. Just awesome!

If you’re curious about what I’m talking about, or how to do this, check out our YouTube video for more information: Taking Dahlia Cuttings

We also have tons of seeds started, but mostly seeds that can take a bit of cold. Flowers like snapdragons, statice, strawflower, and agrostemma are great for this. They don’t mind getting a little chilled, as long as there’s not direct frost hitting them. They’re perfect for early season, because we can stash them in our unheated greenhouses.

Some of the new seeds we’re trying this year are these hollyhocks. I’m in love with their pretty little frills and the colors are gorgeous. We’re planning on adding these by the Flower Cottage to add a cottage garden effect. I can’t wait to see how they turn out.

Another new variety of flower we’re growing this year is sapponaria. This dainty annual will add a little extra sparkle to bouquets we sell this year. I just love the airiness and pretty color it’ll add. From all indications, it’s going to be a smashing success, but you’ll have to tell us what you think!

Our friends, the Hong-Elder Boys, prompted us to try out love grass this year. We sowed the seeds and it’s starting to come up! It seems to be pretty slow growing at the moment, but I’m hoping to give it plenty of time to grow before putting in the ground.

Below is a picture of the seed starts in the prop house. We observed that seeds germinate a little more sporadically, because the temperature in there isn’t regulated as easily and can generally has a pretty wild fluctuation of temperature…anywhere between 65-85 degrees. The seedlings prefer to be around 70 degrees or so for best germination. However, I just visited the prop house again tonight and saw many, many new little seedlings popping up. I have to keep reminding myself to practice patience, which really isn’t be strong suit.

We’ve been starting seeds day and night and it’ll be this way until the end of June. It’s officially growing season time for our flower farm! I can hardly wait to have flowers again to bring into the house, share with friends, and to work with for floral design. Although it’s only been a few short months, it feels like forever ago that we had flowers.

Happy growing, our friends and feel free to let us know what special things you might be growing this year. We’ve already found so much inspiration in what people have shared with us already! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and for following along with us.

Jenn XX

How to Take dahlia cuttings

Christmas Season at PepperHarrow

Country Christmas Charm

The rolling hills of the countryside covered with a layer of fresh snow and our cozy little cottage all decorated for the holidays really sets the stage for our dreamy holiday season. We decorated our little flower cottage for the holiday to show it off and to also use it as a backdrop for photographers who have come out to shoot sessions with their clients. The inside is heated and all white washed with bead board walls, so it provides a gorgeous, neutral backdrop for any photo session. Isn’t it adorable?!

The front doors of the cottage were decked out with custom, handmade wreaths from the farm, filled with gorgeous winterberry and accented with buffalo plaid. They looked so good! Several customers who came out to the farm and a handful of people online tried to buy them. Lol! Um, yeah…my heart just about burst with flattery. It was a very sweet compliment!

The next big project we worked on was a large greenery installation at Dreiberge Coffee for Laura Wills Photography. Laura lined this up with me about a month and a half ago with a crazy idea for a ‘cascading greenery garland wall’ for her holiday mini-sessions.

She sent me a couple conceptual pictures, told me she trusted me and off I went to figure out how the heck I was going to pull it off. Admittedly, the idea of hanging heavy greenery off of a wall worried me a little, but luckily I had a few ideas about what to do (might have consulted a support group) and also had the master of engineering, Adam, to help me out.

Shout out to my hubby: he’s always the one that figures out how to pull of most of my crazy ideas from a structural standpoint. He’s really good at building things, so this comes as second nature to him. I only get a little annoyed when he asks me for exact measurements. For this particular install, he asked and I told him that I was estimating 75’, but that I wasn’t totally sure. Guess what though…this thing ended up being almost exactly 75’. Boom!

Below is a picture, captured by Laura, of Adam and I working together to hang the garland. It was so heavy, it look to sets of hands to hold it into place.

Photo by: @laurawillsphotography

All 75’ of this garland was hand-tied and took about 6 hours to create. It’s highlighted with plumosa, and red cedar, with the base consisting of noble, Douglas fir, and white pine. Can it be more gorgeous?

Here’s the finished, stunning product, captured timelessly by Laura. How many times can I gasp when I see this picture?

Photo by @laurawillsphotography

Of course my family had to jump in on one of the mini-session slots. Cute, huh?!

Photo by @laurawillsphotography

The following weekend, we did a pop-up Christmas market on the farm with my mom, who made adorable hand-made crafts. We did a hot chocolate bar inside the flower cottage, all decked out with the treats for visitors. It was a huge hit!

I loved seeing a ton of familiar faces, and several new faces as well. Can it be any better than getting to hang out with you mom and make wreaths all day? It was wonderful. We are so grateful for the support.

The finale of our on-farm Christmas season? Wreath-making workshops on the farm with incredible attendees who always make us feel amazing and dazzle us with their wreath making talents.

We set the event space up with the greenery and all of the extra sparkles that makes the wreaths ‘pop’. We light a fire in the woodstove and Adam puts a kettle on top to boil out the smell of Douglas fir and eucalyptus in the water. It smelled just like Christmas.

We loved using words like zhuzh (yes, it’s a slang terms for fluff) repeatedly and also hearing an attendee tell us she was making a ‘Lizzo’ wreath pure gold highlights that still have us laughing!

Now we’re looking forward to some downtime spent with our family. Happy Holidays to all of you!

Finished wreath and photo by: @sarajhouse

Planting daffodils for a natural look