Paperwhites Revisited

 Last year around this this time we had blooming paperwhites. 

They bloomed between Thanksgiving and Christmas with nice, full flowers pods and ended with a beautiful display of tiny white flowers for our Christmas display.

In January, after the blooms were gone, we removed the bulbs from their pot, cut the stems back to about two inches in length, and placed the bulbs in mesh bags and hung them in a dry, dark space where they rested for the year.

A few weeks ago I retrieved the bulbs from their resting spot and replanted them.  As you see in the picture above, they sent up new stems, however, the stems were markedly less vigorous than in the previous year.

So far this year, we have had one small flower emerge.  As beautiful as it is, I am doubtful there will be more.  I do not see any flower pods forming on any of the stem ends, so it's not looking good.  My research showed that you could get two or even three years from paperwhite bulbs, and indeed it looks like that may be true.  However, the flowering appears to become less with each passing year.  This seemingly being the case, I do not think I will save paperwhite bulbs for a second or third planting in the future.

Looks like I will be shopping for paperwhite bulbs over the weekend.  I will share with you one thing I have learned over the past year and that is, to make paperwhite stems more sturdy and to keep them from growing too tall, you should use a diluted solution of alcohol when watering.  When I plant the new paperwhites I will share all of this with you.