Forcing Spring Flowering Shrubs: How to Bring Color and Life Into Your House in The Dead of Winter

       Between the warmth and sharing of the holiday season, and the first splashes of yellow and white of spring daffodils, there is a flat, sort of dismal period of nothing happening in the garden.  Skies are snow laden and heavy in the mountains, and on the coasts we are inundated with rain.  To add a splash of color this spring, this is the time to bring cuttings of flowering shrubs indoors for forcing. 

      Branches should have had at least six weeks of cold weather, at least in the low 40s.  Splinter the ends of the branches you cut. Place them for a rest overnight in room temperature water, a large sink or bathtub is needed here if the branches you choose are very large.    Next day place in room temperature water in a bucket and change water twice a week.   Keep then cool, and on the dark side until you see color emerging.    Then its time to arrange them into a cascading bouquet and place the colorful display  in cool moist room. 

      Some shrubs you might to try to force:  Alder, Andromeda, bridal wreath, spirea, with beautiful pink and white flowers.  Cherry, pussy willows (in a dry vase); crab apple, daphne which has a super sweet scent, dogwood , early rhododendron, and flowering almond.  Quince  has delicate salmon pink blooms, a knockout.  Forsythia, with its fresh yellow bellshape blossoms, hawthorn, beautifully colored with a haunting scent, horse chestnut, magnolia, has knockout flamboyant flowers, and mock orange  brings its sweet powerful scent.  Then there are peach, pear, plum, spicebush, and witch hazel with its exotic blooms.  If you have any of these in your yard, give it a try, and hasten the onset of spring with these lovely natural bouquets.