Help with planting Daffodils?

Our church recently invested in some Daffodil bulbs that we want to plant. We have an opening ceremony in about 5 weeks and we were hoping that maybe we could get some of the flowers to bloom.





Is there any way to "force" the flowers to bloom? I realize we would have to plant them in fall anyway before the first frost, but is there a way to plant them now and establish them so that they can at least bloom somewhat?

Help with planting Daffodils?
To force daffodils and paperwhites you would need to put your bulbs in a produce bin (with no apples in the fridge-due to a particular gaseous hormone they emit to bulb) for 10 to 13 weeks; they have to have chill! What I would suggest is going to a nursery and buying some colorful annuals and putting them about in small baskets or little interesting pots or hollowed out mini-pumpkins--they really look fabulous that way. Good luck on your opening ceremony. "I can do allllllllllllllll things!"
Reply:That's a great idea but I don't think you'll have time to do it. Looks like you'll need 6-8 weeks of cold temps, so even if you utilize the fridge, you won't have enough time. :-(





I attached a link below that talks about forcing daffodils.
Reply:You would not have enough time now. You could plant them now though and they will come up in springtime. They like a bit of cold and will perk up the early spring when almost nothing else in bloom.





Also they tend to repeat and will come up year after year. When you have passed about 3 years, you can divide them up (separate them) and replant for original sized blooms.
Reply:Daffodils, narcissus, and paperwhites are very easily forced in shallow moist peat or in special forcing vases that hold the bulb above water.
Reply:Five weeks is just way too little time to force daffodils. Sorry!


(and the forcing process takes so much out of the bulbs that they might take several years to recover to flowering size, if at all.)





An old bulb forcing faq, done for rec.gardens





http://groups.google.com/group/rec.garde...