At this time of the year, a trip to your local florist shop or greenhouse is always a delight for the senses. The star attraction now, besides the spring bulbs, are the enchanting branches of flowering shrubs forced for indoor use. These wonderful flowering branches, which often seem quite prosaic while still on the bush, seem positively exotic when brought inside, and become even more so when you arrive at the cash register! You’ll find the price of these beauties is astronomical – not because of any difficulties in bringing the branches into flower, because of costs associated with transporting such a delicate and perishable commodity to market. But transportation isn’t an issue if you grow your own, and you can fill your home with hundreds of dollars of blooms for mere pennies if you simply include a number of forcing shrubs in your garden.

Even the gardening tyro has probably seen the most commonly forced shrub, the Forsythia, at one time or another. At my house, we always used cut branches of Forsythia to make our Easter Egg tree, and one of my fondest annual memories as a child is going out into the garden with my mother to choose just the right branches from which to hang the decorated eggs. Forsythias in fact are so easy to force that they are almost foolproof -- simply cut a few branches anytime after January, bring them inside and stick them in water. They generally are so eager to perform, that given enough time, not only will they flower, but they will sprout leaves and root as well. There are however, a whole host of other wonderful forcing candidates, (see the table below) that while perhaps not quite as simple to bring to bloom, make up for any added difficulties with a bonus of interesting flowers, many marvelously fragrant.

The trick to forcing branches indoors is twofold. First, the branches must have had a sufficiently long period of dormancy before you bring them indoors. Generally speaking, anytime after the end of January will yield good results -- the closer you are to the shrubs bloom time, obviously the shorter and easier the process will be. Secondly, you need to make some attempt at duplicating indoors the natural weather conditions found outside in early spring. Most critical is sufficient moisture and humidity-- the blossoms must not be allowed to dry out at anytime during the process or you will succeed in producing nothing more than a few dried out twigs.

So once you have chosen suitable branches (suitable here being defined as a branch at least a 12” long, having a large number of recognizably fat flower buds, and not belonging to part of the shrub where removal would harm the plant’s overall appearance), cut the branches flush to the main stem with a very sharp pair of shears, and immediately bring them inside and place them in a tub of warm water, completely submerging the branches for 24 hours. Then remove the branches, and place upright in a water-filled bucket somewhere where the temperature will remain between 55-65, in bright, but indirect light. Higher temperatures and direct sunlight will only succeed in desiccating the branches and reducing bloom quality. The idea here is that you are trying to replicate the cool moist conditions of springtime. Depending on the species you choose, and how far advanced the season is, the process can take anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks. You will need to keep an eye on the water too, and change it if it becomes foul. Re-trimming the base of the branches to freshen the cut is helpful as well. Another florists' trick: don’t wait till the buds have opened to arrange the flowers. Do it just before the buds burst, thereby preventing the delicate flowers from being damaged in the process. The forced flowers will last just as long as they do outdoors -- generally 2-7 days, depending on the variety. Moving the arrangement to a cool spot at night – or lowering the room temperature – will lengthen the flowering period.

You may think that this sounds like rather a lot of fuss for a few flowering branches – that is until you try it. The first time you walk into your house on a cold, wet winter's day to find your apple or almond branches in full bloom, filling your entire home with heady scent and dreams of warmer days to come, you’ll  be hooked. From then on your only problem will be finding space to include all these beauties in your garden – which on the scale of gardening dilemmas, is a deliciously challenging problem to have.

Table adapted by the author from one issued April 1988 in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture by the Cooperative Extension, University of Nebraska, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources

This is an updated and expanded version of an article that I originally wrote for Country Living Magazine. For a complete archival list of my columns for Country Living, click this link. For more interesting projects like this one, be sure to check out my new book, the Victory Garden Companion. Photo above courtesy of the Victory Garden Companion.