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Indoor and Forced Bulbs
On This Page
Here, you’ll find discussions of the following subjects beneath each of the following titles:
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- Bulbs for Indoor Color and Foliage
- The Best Bulbs for Indoors
- Other Bulbs for Indoor Use
- Decorating with Indoor Bulbs
- Bulbs as Decor or Accents
Bulbs for Indoor Color and Foliage
While bulbs are widely used in landscape plantings, many enjoy them indoors for their flowers and as beautiful foliage houseplants.
Their welcome color and exquisite fragrance are a vivid antidote to winter’s gray skies and snow-bearing winds.
The Best Bulbs for Indoors
Choose from many types of bulbs for your indoor displays. Each has its own attractions. Most popular are spring blooming bulbs that flower indoors in the short days of winter.
Many cold-hardy bulbs can be forced—coaxed into bloom at times other than their usual habit would permit—creating bouquets of living plants and cut flowers. Among the spring bulbs suited to forcing are crocus, daffodil, freesia, grape hyacinth, hyacinth, narcissus, and tulip.
More rarely seen spring bulbs round out this group of forced bulbs, including bluebell, lily-of-the-valley, snowdrop, snowflake, starflower, trillium, and the lovely, shamrocklike wood sorrel.
Don’t forget summer- and autumn-blooming bulbs. They also are common as houseplants throughout the year.
Some bulb species bloom in repeated waves, interwoven with periods of relative dormancy. These include autumn crocus, cyclamen, miniature dahlia, gloxinia, summer hyacinth, lily, dwarf lily-of-the-Nile, Mexican tuberose, and windflower.
Other Bulbs for Indoor Use
Another choice for year-round indoor enjoyment are tropical bulbs and evergreen bulb species. They include colorful foliage plants as well as those loved for their flowers. Provide them warmth, ample sunlight, and, for some species, moisture and humidity conditions like those found in their native regions.
The tropicals and evergreen bulbs include amaryllis, tuberous begonia, caladium, florists’ cyclamen, perennial ginger, Amazon lily, orchid pansy, and squill.
Decorating with Indoor Bulbs
Every room of your home becomes more welcoming with bulbs as a floral focal point.
Bulbs are ideal for household use because many adapt well to container living.
Bulbs as Decor or Accents
As you begin to plan for indoor bulbs, select varieties that are compatible with the color scheme of your room or decor.
Bulbs tend to flower in bright colors, though there are many that are either white or a muted pastel.
By planting a series of pots over a span of several weeks in autumn, bulbs produce beautiful blooming flowers throughout fall and all winter long. Choose display locations that receive full sun while the bulbs are on display, or assist their growth with artificial lights during periods when the room is dim or dark.
You’ll also need a cool, dry storage space to store the bulbs before and after they bloom [see: Curing and Storing Bulbs].
For decorating a room with living bulbs, consider the scale of your bulb planting and how it relates to your room, table, or shelf.
A cozy corner near a window, while ideal for flat containers filled with diminutive crocus, would cramp a pot containing a dozen large tulips.