Following my somewhat windswept video back in September/October (you can see it here), here is an update on the forced Narcissi. They suffered something of a setback because I forgot all about them and left them out in the garden for weeks on end rather than carefully controlling the temperature and light levels like you're meant to (whoops). Therefore they won't be in flower for Christmas but should come out around late January, still long before the usual garden bulbs.
I thought I'd mention them because people often worry about not doing things quite right in the garden, and mistakes like this show that most of the time it doesn't really matter. Your plants might come into flower a bit late, or be a slightly unusual shape if your pruning goes awry, but most plants have an amazing ability to spring back into life given even the slightest chance. In my last garden an old walnut tree used to drop walnuts all over the place. It was very common to find a perfectly happy sprouting tree in a forgotten pot, left unwatered and unprotected for months. So have a go and don't worry too much about the results. The great thing about growing from seeds, bulbs, and cuttings is that it's incredibly cheap, so if you do kill the lot it won't have cost you the earth.
The one thing I would do differently with these bulbs is to plant them slightly higher in the container, to avoid seeing the plastic liner so much. At some point I'll get round to dressing it with moss or straw, which will help, but I won't promise it will be any time soon...
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