[upbeat folk music]
- Just because it's cold and snowy outside
doesn't mean we can't bring beautiful plants inside
to just feel alive and really to wake up our spaces.
It's our family tradition to do paperwhites.
Not only are they one of the easiest bulbs to forest,
but they smell beautiful
and they just bring a little bit of that spring
right inside the doors.
You just wanna start with a beautiful bowl.
We like to use clear bowls because you can see the roots,
and that's part of the beautiful art of these bulbs.
So I filled my bowl with a bunch of,
just random river rock that I found from just the back 40.
We just wash it up really nice
and then put it in here so it's not slimy.
And then I'm gonna take my bulbs,
and this is the part that I wanna plant down
because it's obviously the down part.
Maybe clean that bulb up a little bit.
Nestle it in my rocks, and this is something, you know,
you can do with your kids and your family
and hopefully make that a tradition in your own household.
Just to kind of make the winter go by a little bit better.
It's taken our family a little bit of getting used to
living in the Midwest after coming out here
from Washington state.
The first winter I moved here,
I thought there was no way I was gonna make it.
I couldn't believe that my blood was still flowing
through temperatures of 40 below.
I really didn't even think that really existed.
But once I finally got some long johns
and some winter coats and some actual wool socks,
things got a little bit better.
I'm gonna add a little bit more rocks in here
to stabilize the bulbs,
and these are just gonna also look really kinda neat.
And then, you're just gonna cover those with water.
You don't wanna cover all the way to the top;
you wanna leave about an inch or so
above the tops of the bulbs so you're not drowning them.
And then you can just put those in a sunny window,
and in about four weeks, they're gonna start blooming.
Here's my tip though,
this is one thing that my parents taught me,
is you wanna add a little bit of gin right to the pot,
and this is gonna make it
so that the paperwhites don't grow too tall and fall over.
They're gonna stop at just the right height
and look beautiful for a few weeks.
Also plant these every two to three weeks,
plant new ones so you'll always have fresh blooms.
[upbeat folk music]