Growing narcissus paperwhite

The sexy garage windowsill making an appearance again.  The sticks were going to 
have string put round them but the mother changed her mind and took them out.

I had not planned for this post to cover both the planting process and flowering, but since when did flowers pay a blind bit of attention to any plans you have for them.  Again like the hyacinths, I also did not have anything to do with the planting, but we do not need to cover that nap once again.  So the mother planted them in my absence.
I shan't go into great depths of how one sticks a narcissus bulb into some compost, or bulb fibre as is the case here.  I think I have more than covered the art of the bulb plant in my last few posts, and its not a vast topic to begin with.  I believe she buried the bulbs a few inches down, then placed the pot in the garage in the cool, under the same bit of newspaper that the hyacinths were under.  It was a bit of a bulb fest under there for a while.  Like all bulbs the period in the cool allows them to develop a nice wad of roots to support flowers later.

The narcissus flower bud beginning to swell up, but looking remarkably like a little pea pod

When about five inches of green shoots had emerged above the surface of the fibre they were placed in the light on the windowsill in the garage.  It was at this point that I had my first opportunity to get at them to take some pictures.  They may have only been outside in the garage but its not exactly easy to shimmy past the car to get at the pots.  Little flower buds had already formed even though there were still only a few inches of shoot showing.  I think the flower buds look a little like pea pods.

The flowers were pure white with contrasting ochre pollen, which was very nice,
 if you got near enough to see them 

Each stem has multiple flower heads, of perfectly formed, if small flowers

Then only a mere matter of days, not even a week later I think the mother had brought them inside as they were threatening to flower, and there is no point at all letting them do that in the garage.  Boy had I forgotten how much narcissus stink, in a good way, but an overwhelming powerful pungant pong none the less.  Unfortunately the father had just bought the mother a lovely bunch of stocks, which I did not appreciate as these are one of my favourites and I had a terrible cold at the time, but no flowers for me.  The two rather strong scents combined together to create a rather heady mix.  Sitting in the lounge began to feel like you had whipped out a chair and were attempting to watch TV in the middle of a florists.  I did not find it relaxing.

Due to the time of year the sun goes down at like half three I actually had to take them from their home in the lounge to upstairs where I could get the setting sun

The rosey glow of the setting sun has produced some rather nice spring coloured pictures

You may have thought that with such a bounty of smell the mother would have been delighted with her narcissus, but alas, she was not.  In fact she was rather disappointed because the flowers turned out to be really rather small.  "More like paperclips than paper whites" she said.  Turns out she was unaware that the name 'paperwhites' refers to more than one variety, as was I until I took to Google.  I don't know which particular variety we have but its a very strong smelling tiny flowered one.  So small in fact that she complained she couldn't see the flowers from the chair across the room.
The other reason she was disappointed was because they grew very tall and insisted on flopping about. The mother wonders wether she left them in the garage too long and should have brought them inside earlier to flower when they were shorter.  Either way, they have required considerable support.  The mother saw these metal rings that you stick into the soil in your pot and the narcissus grow up through and it keeps them contained and in place.  But she thought, nah string will do just as well so has tied some round at a couple of points to try and keep order.  Instead now the whole lot just flop in the same direction and require propping up against the wall.

Those stamens really stand out all bright and fresh and zingy don't they?

Despite these two small problems I have enjoyed these fragrant little joys, so much so that we have more bulbs and have planted them in a different way, but more on that another time.  We have thrown these particular ones away now as they were shrivelling, when the mother put them out she cut the string and all the stems splayed out like crazy hair, reminded me of mine!

Just to demonstrate the great height the stems achieved, and the complete
 lack of stability, hence the string