WOW factor: How to Grow Bulbs Indoors and Out

With our winter season fast approaching it is time to plant some spring flowering bulbs indoors and out.

Here's the link to my current lesson plan on planting paperwhites

Here are how-to's from my blog piece of February 2016. How about planting some fragrant Paperwhites or Hyacinths to brighten up your class? Or buy Journey North's Red Emperor Tulips and plant outdoors? You can track and log the tulip's growth and bloom-time as part of an easy citizen science project.

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• Crocuses, daffodils and snowdrops are appearing in the schoolyard through the melting snow.

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• Do you love or hate the scent of Paperwhite narcissus and Hyacinths that you can grow indoors over winter?

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• Why and how do these plants grow shoots?

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• Observation and inquiry about flowering bulbs can be a great gateway introduction to plants and plant lifecycles throughout K- 5th grade.

• Growing flowering bulbs is an appealing, fun nature-themed project for the winter months.

• Introduction to Bulb Biology

• Here’s a 7-minute video introduction to bulb biology for a 2nd - 5th grade audience, that I made with Nicole Schofield 5th Grade teacher at Jamestown and filmed by Yorktown High School student, Stephanie Schofield - LINK

• These are easy 5E steps for a lesson on bulb biology and bulb planting

• Engage: Cut carefully through a spare tulip bulb or red onion in class and you can clearly see that a bulb is modified leaves. You may see the central shoot that will have flowers and if pollinated will produce seeds.  

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• Check out the basal stem and roots.

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• Use the Journey North diagram to teach your class the parts of the bulb.

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• Explain

• How does the plant work? The sun shines on the plant, and with chlorophyll and CO2, the leaves convert the sun's energy into food (carbohydrates) through the process of photosynthesis - and the plant gives off O2. The roots carry water and nutrients into the plant so it can produce flowers, seeds and reproduce. The bulb is the plant's tissue structure (modified leaves) that stores energy for the plant as the above-ground leaves die back.

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• Elaborate

• Learn about dormancy. The bulb is dormant (not dead) and usually needs to go through a real or artificial winter to promote growth.

• Now plant some bulbs indoors or out.  

• Here’s some choices of bulbs and how-to’s to optimize your project for successful flowering.

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• Journey North Tulip Test Gardens - outdoor planting

• For planting outdoors, growing a Journey North Tulip Test Garden is an easy citizen science project for ages K and up.

• You need to buy Red Emperor tulip bulbs.

• The Red Emperor tulip bulbs may cost a little more per bulb than other cultivars, but buying Red Emperor bulbs allows you to then leverage the educational linkage to the Journey North citizen science project. That is extra teaching value that may be worth the extra cost!

• Here’s a movie from APS GreenScene about planting Journey North Tulips with 3rd Grade students from Carlin Springs talking about the benefits - LINK

• By recording the planting and flowering dates on the website, students contribute data that can be used to track climate change.

• Growing bulbs in the ground outside has advantages, in that the bulb goes through natural winter cycle and will shoot in the spring.

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• Here below Kindergarten students plant tulips in raised beds at Jamestown.

• I use string, stake and tape to mark the planting place for each student. The students are using their trowels to the measure correct planting depth.

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• Container planting outdoors

• At Jamestown, the 5th grade gardening team plant Tulips and Daffodils in big planters outside the front entrance and the trailers.

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• However if you grow bulbs in outdoor planters and containers you need to make sure the bulbs are not too cold - since the bulbs could die if over-frozen.

• In early January, I wrap the containers with layers of newspaper and cover the layers with burlap and tie securely with string. Will that be enough insulation to keep the bulbs as warm as if they had been in the ground? I will need to unwrap the containers so the plants can continue to sprout later in the spring.

• Why are tulips and daffodils OK when planted in the ground? The bulbs may be dug up by rodents and squirrels when outdoors, but they will at least be kept warm with the earth's geothermal heat provided you planted the bulbs deep enough, and ground is not too cold for them! As with most outdoor experiments there are a lot of variables. It is difficult as a gardener to control for all of them!

• Planting bulbs indoors

• For students to plant a bulb each, try Paperwhite narcissus bulbs with low scent (to reduce risk for people sensitive to the smell) e.g. I select the cultivar Inbal.

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• You can buy Paperwhite bulbs before Thanksgiving, and plant them in class before the winter holiday. Then students can take their potted bulb home as a winter gift and look after their plants during the holidays. Or you can aim to store the bulbs in a cool/dark place and then plant them with your class in early January, so students can then take the bulbs home and care for the plants during January and February.

• The 5th grade classes planted their paperwhite bulbs in a big pot or a customized clean milk carton - with drainage holes. Both ways worked in my parallel experiments.

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• Hyacinth bulbs - growing indoors over water

• For a class demo, in addition to each student growing a paperwhite at home, you can also grow a "class" Hyacinth bulb on a light window cill or in a very light place at school.

• The Hyacinth bulb as bought, will need to have already gone through an artificial winter in order to grow and flower.

• Or you will need to keep the Hyacinth bulb in the fridge in paperbag to chill the bulb but not freeze it for a few weeks (say 9 weeks). Then you can place the bulb on a vase of water, just below the basal stem and begin to watch the roots grow in the fridge first for a few days.

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• Then move the bulb and vase out to a light window cill. Keep the water refreshed and just below the basal stem.

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• Grown hydroponically over water, is a wonderful way for students to see the speed  of growth and spread of the root system.

• Students can see the Hyacinth's roots growing measurably every day. As the plants grow, transfer the hyacinth bulbs from small vase to clean quart size recycled juice jars. Be careful of the delicate root system!

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• Link science and Language Arts and have students write a My Hyacinth Story.

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• When your bulbs flower

• Take a lesson to study flower parts using your bulbs when they are flowering as demonstrations.

• Name and count and draw: petals, sepals, stamens, pistil.

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• Monocots and Dicots

• All the bulbs: hyacinths, narcissus (paperwhites, daffodils, tete a tete) snowdrops, crocus, amaryllis, iris have “straplike veined leaves" and are monocots. Monocots have seeds with one food part, mono-cotyledon. Note the symmetry of the monocot’s flowers - it is symmetry of 3 with 3 or 6 petals or three petals. Grasses are also monocots

• Dicots include plants such as beans with seeds with two food parts, di-cotyledon.  Early spring flowers such as spiraea, early blooming forsythia, aquilegia, apples and cherries are dicots. You can see the flowers symmetry will be 5 or 8 (but not 3) and the leaves of dicots are veined.

• For this lesson, you can bring in an asssortment of flowers and have students study and sort them into monocots and dicots.

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• In summary here are some activities for students to do while their bulb plant grows:

• Before you plant your bulb weigh it and measure its circumference

• Track your plant’s  growth and development

• Record the growth in an album, science notebook or on a googleform

• Report your data for Journey North Tulips on their website

• When did your plant flower?

• Was the flower pollinated?

• Did the flower produce seeds?

• When does the plant die back?

• After the plant has died back - dig it up and recheck the weight and measure its circumference, compare with your previous measurements.

• Have fun labeling your bulbs too. If you plant your bulbs outside in the schoolyard, labeling the planting spot is good PR for the rest of the school and then you won’t forget where you planted them. Here are some simple labels made with googlepresentation and photocopied onto Xerox polyester paper.

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• Good Luck with your flower bulb planting projects, indoors and out.

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• Enjoy the flowers beauty and wow factor.

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• Now is a good time to plan the time for this project in your schedule for next fall, and to budget for the project supplies.

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• Reposted from the former Arlington Public Schools ATS Gardening Blog

• By Mary Van Dyke, 2/3/2016

As a postscript: 
The tulips and daffodils in the wrapped containers - did really well.
I unwrapped the planters when the weather warmed, and the flowers looked great at the front entrance of the school, blooming in successsion for a really long time in the spring. 

NOTE: I now use TerraSlate 'non-wood waterproof paper' in 7 mm or 10 mm to make outdoor signs and labels for schoolyards.

I am about to redo these bulb-planting class projects with K (Journey North Tulips) and 5th Grade (Paperwhites and Hyacinths). 

I am wondering if the tulip and daffodil bulbs in the planters have survived over the summer and may rebloom in the spring too?