Time to check your seed stash and plan spring order
It is a good idea to check on the seeds you have saved and stored from last year's garden. Discard anything that is damp, diseased or moldy, and then determine what you need to order for the coming year.
Order plants and seeds now to help ensure the availability of the plant varieties you want to purchase. Consider varieties that are pest- and disease-resistant to minimize future problems in the garden.
• Paperwhite narcissus will likely require a cage or a ring of raffia tied around them to keep them from flopping as they grow. If purchased as bulbs, you can grow them in a shallow dish or a vase filled with pebbles rather than soil.
Put about 2 inches of pebbles in the bottom of a small vase or about 4 inches in a large vase. Arrange the bulbs close together and cover them with pebbles, with just their tips exposed. The weight of the pebbles helps keep them from falling to the side as they grow.
Finally, add water until the level reaches just below the base of the bulbs, but no higher. If the bases of the bulbs sit in water, they will rot. Discard the bulbs after flowering, but rinse and keep the pebbles for future forced bulbs.
You can also grow paperwhites in a pot with a growing medium. Your container needs to have a drainage hole in the bottom to avoid having soggy soil, which will cause the bulbs to rot.
Fill the container with a growing medium appropriate for pots. Leave enough space at the top to allow you to set in the bulbs, pointed end up on top of the mix. Finish filling the pot with medium while leaving the tips of the bulbs exposed. It will be easier to water the pot if there is a half-inch to 1-inch gap between the top of the pot and the medium. Space the bulbs close enough that they are almost touching.
Check the bulbs frequently and water thoroughly when the potting mix is dry, 1 inch below the surface but not more than once a week until the bulbs begin active growth.
• Tim Johnson is director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, chicagobotanic.org.