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| Wednesday, January 10, 2007 |
| Get my flowers drunk? |
 For Christmas I received a very nice Narcissus bulb kit. Recently, when visiting my house, my Mother saw the bulbs and said "Don't forget to toss a shot of Vodka into your watering can." I thought she was joking. But just to be sure I did a quick search and found this post to support my Mother's crazy instructions: Tipsy Narcissus Forcing paperwhites for the holidays is a lovely tradition. However, they have long, very slender stems that tend to flop over and look less than tidy. Well, the Flower Bulb Research Program at Cornell University actually did a study on this. It seems that switching water for the hard stuff at a certain point in the forcing process makes the stems shorter and sturdier, while keeping the flowers just as big and fragrant as usual. Forcing is done by putting the bulbs in a shallow decorative container filled with enough pebbles to stabilize them without covering them, adding water, and letting nature do it's thing. If you replace the water after about a week with a diluted solution of alcohol and water ( 1 part of your spirit of choice to 7 parts water), your stems will be 1/3 shorter, but your blossoms will be just the way you like them - fluffy and full of good smells. Well, once again I have not followed my Mother's advice. So, for now, the bulbs are sober. They have been rooting for two weeks - does this mean it is too late? Does anyone have any experience with this? |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 3:40 PM *
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| 2 Comments: |
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Well, apparently the vodka doesn't kill them so what's the worst thing that can happen? I'd say normal-length stems and a wasted shot of vodka. If I had the hooch in the house, I'd still give it a try.
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I say give it a try now. Why not? You'll know for the next time. And since you have more than one, you can divide them and have a control group and experimental group. Post your lab results here please. Your final grade will be dependent on a photo. :-)
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Well, apparently the vodka doesn't kill them so what's the worst thing that can happen? I'd say normal-length stems and a wasted shot of vodka. If I had the hooch in the house, I'd still give it a try.