Field of Science

Forcing some spring

It's definitely a late spring here in the upper midwest of the USA.  There isn't much you can do about it, but this may help.  Try forcing some flowering shrubs into bloom.  This time of year it's pretty easy to do because the buds have begun to swell and they're just waiting for a bit of warm weather.  In particular shrubs like forsythia are really, really easy to force into bloom.  Just prune off a few long branches that you probably needed to prune anyways, particularly if you're a terrible poodler of shrubs.  Put them into a big vase and it'll take about a week at household temperatures to get the buds to open.  Other shrubs might take longer, but this will help you get spring going a bit sooner.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A great shrub to force for a pickup is Cornus mas. A few stems in a vase and the world looks like a different place (otherwise I look out at a blizzard).