Organic, did the seller of the bulbs understand that you wanted to "force" these bulbs for flowering at a particular date? Ordninarily bulbs are bought in the fall...and the seller is advised the nature of 'forcing' is wanted. They then sell you the type of bulb that is more in line with how you are bringing them to bloom. In other words, for forcing, they would sell you a bulb that forces well. Normal bulbs require 14 to 15 weeks of cooling. Your pre-chilled then must only be required to 'fill in' the remaining weeks. The refrigerator then is the only place at this time you can hope for continuing the cooling process. Just subtract the number of weeks in the fridge from the rquired 14. If your bulbs were given a pre-cooling of ....say 8 weeks, then you would be required to finish the remaining 6 in the fridge. They need a temperature of between 35�F and 50�F...so the fridge is the ideal place. Be sure though to not put them into a crisper with other fruit. Plus, these are living plants...bulbs. They must be given a medium to grow their roots in and they must be kept damp. When they do acquire roots, then they are brought out to the sunshine which will target the production of bloom. Into each pot, 3 hyacinths can be planted; 6 tulips in the other. Put the bulb with the flat side toward the outer edge of the pot...this will produce the initial leaves pointing out..the first leaves will grow outward then from its neighbors. If you are using clay potting, be sure to soak it overnight before placing soil into it. Fill each pot loosely with potting soil; the tops of the bulbs should be even with the rim. Don't compress them, just open the soil, place the bulb in. Then water. As the soil settles you can then add more soil but leave room for future watering. The pot must drain. Label each pot so that you know who's who and when you planted it. It does appear if you can give it the cooling required, your end of May date might just be possible. Delaying of bloom is brought about by denying sunlight, withdrawing so much water and otherwise put the bulb back in time to come to bloom. I hope the guests appreciate how you have brought so much flowering into the day. If it works, you can then boast how you made it happen. Good luck....but please, if you do make this happen, don't do what other parents have done...named their children some dopey name like May, or Flower, or Tulip....or Hope or Charity........

I am interested in this as well. I have some tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths in the ground, and the foliage is 80% brown. I want to be able to move them because they are in a horrible place in the garden! I would like to know if I can do this now rather than wait until fall.

Just an update... I potted up the bulbs on March 19th. It was really too chilly before then to really try forcing them. I potted them up in the 8 and 10 inch pots with potting soil. I only filled the pots 3/4 of the way full. Packed in my bulbs pretty close- the 8 inch pots got 7 each, and the 10 inch got 12-15 each. I skipped any mesh- found out my ground critters weren't the tulip eating kind. I set them up at first at the south windows in the three seasons porch, then moved them under the central skylight a month later when most of them had a couple inches worth of green showing and displaying daily tilt. On the first weekend in May, the earliest of them was just starting to drop off bloom, the latest of them was just about to pop. All of them had lovely greenery and a bloom or two going on. The grape hyacinths I gave the same treatment for, I packed them into some recycled fresh mushroom bins. They were fully bloomed by a month later, and almost blown by the weekend. I planted in the bricks of hyacinths into their border at the end of april, with the daffs in their mixed bloom looked lovely. Planted in all the tulips along about 35 feet of fenceline in a shallow 2 foot border, they seem to be doing well there so far, nothing seems to be eating them yet. I don't think I lost any hyacinths in the transplanting so far, I didn't break them up, just planted them in as bricks. Most of the tulips fared well. Lost several Shirley and Orange Queen, they didn't like potting too much. I planted the not quite dead seeming bulbs in anyway, hoping for next year. I gently broke apart the pots into separate bulbs for the border, and several of them already had babies separating off of them shooting up their own greens. I wasn't sure if the insulated garage would have gotten cold enough or not, but apparently so- it also came on fairly quickly after my initial post a seriously deep cold and then real chilly snap, don't know if that helped or not.

Tammy can attest to this "survival of the fittest" story. Last winter I started a packet of globe artichoke seeds. The packet had a germination test results stuck to it like a sticker. It said to expect 66% germination, so I planted all the seeds. I assumed that half of them would sprout and that I would be lucky to grow any of them to maturity. Well every single one of those 200 seeds sprouted. I had flat upon flat of fast growing silver leaved seedlings. I planted some outside, I gave some away, I sold some at the flea market, I traded some at the swap... and managed to kill a few of them along the way. In the end I had a few that I ended up using in the garden display at the state fair (a plot shared with Tammy, who is my neighbor). Tammy was sorta guiding me on my Globe Artichoke journey, since she had experience growing them in the past. The ones at the fair plot did great and got very big but never bloomed - even though this variety was supposed to bloom its first year. At the end of the fair Tammy and I were tearing down the display and when it came time to dig up the monster artichokes they sorta ripped out of the ground without much roots. The resulting withered mass pretty much got tossed to the side during the next few days while I planted my favorites. Weeks later I found them still alive under a pile of strawberry plants also dug up in haste from the fair display. I planted them in well ammended soil in the veggie garden and figured I'd be lucky if one of the three survived. I then had to spend a month away from home tending to my injured father back in Oklahoma. When I returned I discovered that all three had set down roots and had tripled in size. So far, so good. But I have to tell you, if they don't flower this year I'm yanking them out, space is a luxury in my yard and its a "perform or die" kinda place - of course I fully expect them to survive in the compost pile!