Spring Inside but Snow Outside

Paperwhites at Linderhof are not for Christmas bloom but for those dreary days in January. Started just before Christmas, they come into bloom right after all of the Christmas decorations are tucked back in their boxes and stored away in the basement.
They're small blooms and their whiteness often echoes the white of snow outside. Their fragrance is cloying and annoying to some but we happen to like that fragrance. It's the smell of the promise of spring!
On a shelf in the basement we keep our supply of bulb pots -- some specifically for the bulbs like this treasure brought home from a Washington, D.C. trip, to blue and white Oriental cachepots kept specifically for bulb forcing.

We time them so that for most of January and February the paperwhites bloom. Every fall, we purchase a couple of dozen bulbs of plain ordinary paperwhites. No expensive bulbs for us.

Pots are kept on the breakfast room table, one of the round tables in the living room and the hall table at the top of the stairs. I smile everytime I pass.

Not a usual purchase, but at Sam's, coming home from the cruise, they had these bulb pots for sale. How could I resist the blue and white pot planted full of tulips, with some hyacinths and daffodils thrown in. The pot, once the flowers fade, will go on the shelf reserved for my bulb pots. I can picture it next January once again on the dining room table with 8 blooming paperwhites. The fragrance will be heady.