Those are fresh? Nice. I still have over half the yard covered in the devil’s dandruff, and it’s well below freezing every night.

Spring Preview: How to Force Flowering Branches to Bloom Indoors by Joy Yagid

You’re getting impatient for spring to arrive. You’ve had enough of winter. Time to move on! Time for spring to arrive.

Mother Nature, however, is on her own schedule. It varies from year to year and she won’t tell you if she decides to change things up with a late season cold snap. Because she can and she will. Don’t mess with Mother Nature. But you can go behind her back—you can jump-start spring by forcing flowering branches to bloom indoors.

Here’s how.

Forcing Branches Indoors

Cut flowering branches are long-lasting statement makers, suitable for any room of the house. A huge spray of apple blossoms in a large vase can be a focal point on your dining table, and a single magnolia bloom in a hand-me down porcelain cup and saucer on the kitchen counter can transport you back to your childhood.

To force branches indoors, make sure your pruning clippers are clean and sharp. Remember, you are not just picking a few branches for forcing, you are pruning the tree or shrub. If you only want a few branches, take them from inconspicuous areas and stay away from the larger main branches.

Once inside, place them in a clean vase filled with fresh water. Try not to place any blooms below the water level if possible and keep the vase out of direct sunlight and away from heat sources. Slicing or scoring the base of the branches will help the branches to take up more water and make them last longer. Change the water every few days.

One of the easiest flowers to force is forsythia. It’s as easy as cutting a few branches off the bush, bringing them inside and placing them in water. That’s it. Within a week, you’ll have happy sunny yellow flowers perking up your kitchen table.

If you’re lucky enough to have a pussy willow, you can do the same and have those furry little pussy toes and their delicate tiny yellow flowers in about two weeks.

Trees in the rose family—cherry, apple, crabapple, and quince—all can be forced inside and will take about four weeks to bloom. Stay away from the ornamental pears though, some of the varieties can have a very bad rotting fish like smell.

You can try other flowering trees, but some are more difficult than others such as lilacs. Lilacs tend to be more than a little picky and may wilt quickly. If you have a favorite tree or shrub that flowers, try one branch and see what happens.

And when the blooms are spent, don’t throw them in the trash! Check the branches for roots. One of the unmentioned benefits of forcing is propagation. You may have new baby plants. You can transfer them to a pot with potting soil and treat them as transplants.

https://www.gardenista.com/posts/how-force-flowering-branches-bloom-indoors/

It’s brutal up here on ‘The Frozen Tundra,’ too! Cold, cold, COLD all weekend, but then another warm-up. :)

Beau had a local raccoon hunt last night and the wind was sustained at 30 MPH and the temp was in the teens!

I’m half-afraid to check the (unheated) greenhouse this morning because lettuces and spinach seedlings were doing so well! They’re under a double cover, but it might not have been enough last night. Ugh! :(

Thanks to Mairdie for the timely topic suggestion! :)

Good advice.
I have some Bradford Pear ready to force.
To bad they smell like pee.
May wait and try a peach.

Plums are already throwing leaves on the Oregon coast. I was thinking of taking a couple of Ginko cuttings to try rooting them, though.

I used to light a kerosene greenhouse lamp on cold nights.
Ever try one?

We are having a couple delightful sunny days...before rain returns. Going to bring in some forsythia cuttings...which are beginning to bloom.

Morning everyone. Snowing like crazy and very windy. Feels like the last blast in March, we hope so. Daffodil greens are up and iris starting too (west Michigan). I don’t start indoor seeds til the beginning of April. I did bring in my begonias they had started to sprout in the closet. I am working on a green arrangement for Easter I will post when done. Need to dig some moss first. Many THANKS to Diana for keeping these threads going. I feel each year they become more important as it seems so many more are gardening. Our garlic has been growing through the winter, love to see the greens up through the snow. I’ll know pretty soon if my parsley experiment worked. Left a big patch in the ground. It still looks green and I hope it starts growing when it warms up. We have some forsythia down by the driveway entrance. I may just cut a few branches, it’s been awhile.

Critter cam caught a raccoon pilfering tomatoes last night. Picky eater, the bandit punctures many tomatoes, partially eats others, knocks a few on the ground, then lumbers along to the next vine. Grrrrr.

I have not. I’ll look into that. Beau is re-wiring the barn right now, so I and the chickens will have plenty of light once the coop is ready in there. I’m campaigning for electricity to my greenhouse soon thereafter! :)

If the adage 3 snows after the forsythia bloom is true, then it will likely be another month (or two!) before we get finished with freezing temps here (central Indiana). I don’t have forsythia, but my neighbor does, and so far, I don’t even see any green on it. Maybe by next week?

It snowed lightly here last night. The daffodils had already started opening, so those that did are in bad shape now. We have decided to take down the Bradford pear tree in the front yard. My husband says it’s a nuisance when he mows, and while the blossoms are pretty, they smell horrible. Came with the house. We have since learned that they are considered invasive, so it’s go time once we get a few higher temps.

So frustrating! Have you tried a spray of ‘Critter Ridder’ or the like? Can’t hurt, might help!

I swore this year I wouldn’t buy any new seeds.

Then Experimental Farm Network introduced a corn variety the rejects pollen from roundup-ready varieties! That would make it much easier to prevent cross-contamination with field corns. And of course, while ordering that, I had to check what else they had . . .

There went my spending money for the month!

Low 20s out there this morning and 56 degrees in my seed starting room, up from 48. Trays stay up around 70 in the little grow tent. New grow lights came in yesterday and they’re nice and bright. They’re longer than my original two so I’ll be turning them sideways. Still two lights per two trays and two 1020 trays is 21 x 21 but the tent is wider than deep. I’ll probably turn the old ones sideways too since the ends do push out on the door. The new ones would actually prevent me from zipping up the door.

I went on a few coon hunts including one windy night. Amazing watching someone shoot a coon out of the top of a tree that’s swinging back and forth a few feet. He may not have made it past the 7th grade but can shoot like a ..............

LOL! Never fails! :)