It has a great deal to do with both the method and the aftercare. Paperwhite narcissus are most often forced using just pebbles and water and this method does indeed deplete the bulb's energy reserves so that reblooming in future seasons is compromised. If the location affords a suitable climate so that the forced bulbs can be planted outside, they may recover in a couple of seasons and bloom again. Maybe not :-) Forcing narcissus in potting soil does not necessarily mean these will not rebloom. They can if planted out in normal growing conditions and if the foliage is allowed to ripen properly before removal. Obviously this is going to work better with standard narcissus in most areas rather than the more cold tender paperwhites. Potting soil, as nearly sterile as it tends to be, still provides some basic nutrient component that just water forcing lacks. But it does take a nutrient load - like what is typically found in garden soil (and/or some bulb fertilizer) - and adequate photosynthesis to build up the bulb's reserves to rebloom and that sometimes takes more than a single season in the ground. As individual bulbs are so inexpensive, most just choose to replace with fresh bulbs each season than wait for the bulbs to regenerate.

Hi, Dappled sun should be fine. The spot looks well shaded. If the leaves start turning brown, you will need to move them to more shade. They can bloom more than once, but typically, the oranges/reds bloom in March and early April in CA. Good luck, Craig

GreenDesigns, This was the kitchen design that I uploaded over in the Building a Home sub-forum back on Jan.31 as part of my first draft. Renovator8 made a useful comment - "A double loaded work space is a counter across from another counter that allows a cook to turn and use either surface quickly with a minimum of steps involved. This ability is essential not only for productivity but in order to avoid a disaster. Unnecessary walking in a kitchen should be avoided even if you are alone." His comment has steered me away from G-kitchens precisely because they all seem to have a lot of space in the middle and have the counters on the perimeter, meaning a lot of walking through empty space to get from A to B. Your design, while avoiding the mistakes on appliance placement that I made with my G-kitchen produces the same outcome that Renovator8 was warning about. Doesn't it? You guys are both pros so I'm not really in a position to see the nuance that makes your plan work but which sets off warning bells when I have a lot of open space in the kitchen. Lisa_a, I hope you won't mind some gentle critique. . . . It's precisely because of criticisms that everyone is kind enough to offer than I keep coming back and subjecting you all to more long-winded posts filled with new variations on plans. I am taking the criticisms to heart and they do percolate in my mind as I'm reviewing the problems with the plans, so please offer gentle and not so gentle criticisms. It's all good food for thought. For instance, the majority of people aren't keen on a powder room right next to the front entry. Don't I know, I've tried to avoid that but it's there because of a series of trade-offs. I have a copy of every single iteration that I've created on this plan so if I ever want to post a case-study on "The Evolution Of A House Design" I could demonstrate how each problem discovered shifted the plan to a new look and then the next problem again shifted the plan and so on. Here was the very first plan which had the master on the first floor and before I realized that I had way more space on the 2nd that I had absolutely no idea what to do with, which pushed me towards a smaller first with 2 bedrooms on the 2nd. Note where the powder room was. Note the lack of "birds on a wire seating" note the appliance placement. What I've been struggling with is that the first floor has 3 principal rooms, LR, DR, KI, and then I need to fit in a powder room, stairs, elevator, mudroom and central fireplace. There are only so many design options one can play with when you have 3 rooms and also want to maximize southern exposure. So I understand the drawback of placing the powder room right at the front, but because I wanted a wide-spanning gable roof on the front, I needed some space opposite the centered doorway to counterbalance the living room. Besides, the 2nd floor cantilevers out over the porch behind the powder room, so absent the powder room that porch would be very deep. I thought of putting the powder room next to the basement stairs, in the back of the house, next to the garage, but that would create the problems I mentioned above. I like your kitchen design. I like the big island. I like the appliance placement. However, ever since LWO made his comment about "birds on a wire" I realized that I agree with that viewpoint. I tried to avoid that situation in my very first plan and now that I've played around with banquet seating I think I want to stick with that instead of island seating. To refer back to what I mentioned much earlier about all sorts of hell breaking loose when I played around with the walls, your moving of the "fridge wall" now creates all sorts of misery on the 2nd floor and especially at the roof level for that wall was a load bearing wall essential for roof support, but there was no way for you to know that. I'm going to keep your kitchen design in mind as I once again mull over starting with a blank slate for the whole house because I'm finding that if I pull on one end of the string somewhere then matters on the other end of the string start to unravel. As for the back deck, that was there principally as a wood storage location. The main entertainment and relaxation would be on a tiered stone backyard - I'm really dealing with a 3 dimensional area back there, so it will be very engaging visually, with stairs, slopes, tiers, terraces, etc. Kind of like this but much more involved. I understand your reason for making the mudroom door be part of the back hall but now I lose the airlock quality of the mudroom. I'm up in the mountains near a major ski resort, so I'm dealing with snow and cold and I'm really wanting to isolate the heat loss from opening doors. As for the exercise bike, it had to be next to a counter so that the grain mill and motor have a place to be stationed. I'm not really looking forward to balancing the grain mill in my hand as I peddle the bike. I joke, but I really am looking forward to the ability to get a morning "ride" in when it's miserable outside and do double duty by milling fresh flour for the day. Of course this isn't an iron-clad must have but I'm going to be living in the house solo far more intensively than I will be using the house for entertaining, so I can always move the bike temporarily when it would be unsightly to guests. Putting the door there and removing the cabinet works for guests in the house scenarios, but for a single guy living alone it doesn't give me an advantage. The challenge I'm facing is that, unlike with a game of poker in which many different hands are possible, I'm playing with a deck of cards that only has 3-4 cards, say, so the limited combinations of rooms and purposes is really cramping me up. I do like your big island, principally because I like the surface area it gives me to work with. I'm going to keep the short and squat idea in mind rather than the long and narrow that I was working with.

I guess it depends. If you brought them inside for a few weeks, yes, you just pressed RESET on acclimitization. If, on the other hand, you just brought them in for a few days, it's hard to imagine it makes a big difference. I can put plants out, and it's cloudy for a few days. No sun. So no sun acclimitization. I can put them out, and there is a heat wave for a few days. No cold acclimitization. Weather changes a lot, and plants know how to handle it. At least once they are reasonably mature. I think the issue is avoiding wholesale shocks to the system. So you just need to use some judgement.