MaryAnne Spinner, Chicago Master Gardener

I've been forcing paperwhites (Narcissus tazetta) inside my house for many winters. The delicate white flowers provide a welcome respite from the bleak winter landscape, their perfume is intoxicatingly beautiful, and they are very easy to grow. Unlike so many other bulbs for forcing, paperwhites are not very expensive, do not require pre-chilling, and bloom quickly.

Forcing them is quite easy. The standard method is to put several bulbs pointy side up in a fairly shallow container, arranging them chock-a-block so that they are touching their neighbors. Add some pebbles, marbles, or river rocks to the bottom of the container so that the bulbs are wedged in, and add water to a level just touching the bottom edge of the bulbs. In a few weeks they will bloom, filling the room with their scent. When they have finished blooming, toss them into the compost heap (they are said to be too difficult to rebloom) and refill the container with fresh bulbs for another round.

They would be my ideal winter bulb–as much as I love amaryllis–except for one major structural flaw: as paperwhites' stems elongate, they flop over awkwardly and look terribly sad.

Over the years I have tried a number of strategies aimed at keeping the paperwhites standing tall. A classic tactic is to tie the stems together with something decorative, such as ribbon or raffia. This works for a few days, until the entire bundle finally decides to lean over en masse, often lifting the bulbs totally out of the water and making a nasty mess. And tying the stems together makes the ensemble look rather pathetic in my opinion, as if the plants were being held hostage.

Another approach is to plant the bulbs in the bottom of a very tall container, such as a glass vase, which will then naturally support the stems. However, I don't think that the result looks very natural at all–think snow globes–besides which it is very difficult to properly settle the bulbs into the bottom of the vase unless you have very slim arms.

Another commonly suggested method is to plant the paperwhites in soil instead of rocks, and then surround them with a support structure that has been thrust into the soil, something that cannot be accomplished with the water-and-rocks scenario due to stability issues. Some mail order sources actually sell a paperwhite "kit" to this end. The kit consists of a shallow clay pot, several paperwhite bulbs, a bag of potting soil, and a metal hoop support that is supposed to be anchored into the soil by means of 4 or 5 attached wire stakes, that slide around the hoop willy-nilly until placed.

I tried the soil method a few times, but always had the same problems. First of all, trying to place the hoop support into the soil was a lesson in humility, whereby the fiendish device kept falling to one side and then the other before all of the stakes could be properly aligned. Then, once I thought it was stable, the soil dried a bit and the whole construction toppled over. Moreover, paperwhites are highly susceptible to basal rot caused by Fusarium, so it is essential that the bulbs not be kept overly wet. A key benefit of growing them in a clear container supported by rocks is that you can actually see the water level as well as the bulbs' general condition, and thus keep them from rotting. This is something you cannot do when growing them in soil. And the rot potential is amplified by the fact that the clay pots supplied in these kits are usually so-called "bulb pans", with no drainage holes.

I consulted other sources, which advised against warm rooms, direct sunlight, drafts, and full moons. But no matter where I put my paperwhites, they still toppled over.

Thus had I become resigned to the fact that paperwhites, no matter how innately beautiful and fragrant, were always going to end their lives as leggy, shamefully floppy reminders that forcing a plant means just that: making it to do something it wouldn't ordinarily do in order to satisfy our selfish human needs. The revenge of the narcissus, Nature takes back the upper hand.

All that changed this past November. Just a few days after I bought my annual allotment of paperwhite bulbs, but before I had a chance to "plant" them ("rock" them?), I saw a brief note in the always-wonderful Chicagoland Gardening about a researcher at Cornell University who had made the discovery that alcohol prevents paperwhites from flopping. "Pickling your Paperwhites" was the name of this scholarly research, conducted by William B. Miller, Professor of Horticulture and Director of Cornell's Flowerbulb Research Program.

Professor Miller found that replacing paperwhites' water supply with a dilute solution of alcohol resulted in stems that were one-third to one-half shorter than normal, while the size and staying power of the blooms remained unchanged. The reason why this happens is still under study, but the theory is that the alcohol may make it more difficult for the plant to take up water, enough to reduce leaf and stem growth, but not enough to affect flower size or longevity. In any event, the shorter stature allows the paperwhites to stay vertical, not all flip-floppy.

The pickling procedure ("boozification?") is quite simple. Place the bulbs amid rocks or stones and add plain water as usual. After about a week, when the roots begin to grow and the shoot is green and just one or two inches tall, pour off the water and replace it with a solution of water supplemented by 4 to 6% alcohol. Continue to use this solution for the duration as needed (the water level should always sit right below the bottom of the bulb), and the plants will remain upright with no other support structure necessary.

The appropriate alcohol concentration turns out to be anywhere between 4 and 10 percent, and in fact the exact percentage within that range is not crucial. However, over 10% alcohol results in growth problems, and 25% alcohol was "dramatically toxic", much as it would be to a human. Professor Miller also found that the effect works only with what are usually called spirits in the trade–gin, vodka, whiskey, rum, tequila, and the like. Beer and wine should not be used, as the sugars in these beverages were found to cause growth problems.

Because gin and its ilk are typically sold as 40% distilled spirit, the recommended dilution formula thus translates to one part alcohol to 7 parts water. Plain rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) also works fine, but because it is typically sold as 70% distilled spirit, it should be used in a lower ratio of 10 or 11 parts of water to one part alcohol. And rubbing alcohol is certainly a lot cheaper; I wouldn't advise you to try this at home with your 50-year old single malt whiskey!

I was still skeptical, having been burned (or was it drooped upon?) so many times. But in the interest of science, and because I have had a bottle of rubbing alcohol in my medicine cabinet for about 10 years with no idea what it might be good for, I decided to try Professor Miller's recipe. The paperwhites went into their usual four-inch high rectangular glass vase, I plunked in the bagful of clear glass marbles recycled from year to year, added plain old water, then waited.

A week later, it was time to replace the water with the booze mixture. At this point, let me add a refinement to Professor Miller's instructions. As I slowly tipped the container into the sink to drain it of its original water, and watched helplessly as several glass marbles slid down the drain into the garbage disposal, I realized that the drainage procedure was itself the only tricky part of the plan. After manually rescuing the marbles (and thus the disposal itself), I cast about for a better method. Since I was in the kitchen at the time, and am an unrepentant kitchen gadget freak, I checked through the drawers for a utensil that would perform the de-watering task. Turkey baster, aha!

The results? I am pleased to report that there are currently nine paperwhite bulbs in the vase on my kitchen table, in full bloom and scent, upright as a tin soldier, and just a smidgen shorter than normal. Just as the professor said, the blooms themselves look just as lovely as ever, and the stems have been standing ramrod tall for over a month now. I have used up a scant couple of tablespoons of rubbing alcohol so far, with enough left for a decade's worth of paperwhites.

Now if someone could only come up with a way to keep my top-heavy amaryllis from keeling over onto my coffee table. Cranberry juice, perhaps?

Do you have a gardening question? Email the Extension's Electronic Plant Clinic at rwolford@uiuc.edu, and our Master Gardeners will be glad to assist you.