How to Force Paperwhites in Pebbles, Water or Soil

Updated September 2026 · Garden Advice Guide

Here is how to force paperwhites in the simplest way: set the bulbs pointed end up, shoulder to shoulder, in a bowl of pebbles, and add water until it sits just below the base of the bulbs without touching the bulbs themselves. Keep the bowl cool and fairly dim for a week or two while the roots grow, then move it to a bright window in a cool room. Paperwhites need no chilling, so they bloom about 4 to 6 weeks after planting. For Christmas flowers, plant between roughly November 10 and November 25.

Plan a whole winter of blooms. Our free planting calendar lays out your frost dates and season, so you can line up paperwhites indoors with what is going on in the garden outside.

A safety note up front: paperwhites are toxic to cats and dogs. The bulbs are the most dangerous part, and the water they grow in is a concern too. Details are in the pet section below.

Updated September 2026

What paperwhites are, and why they are so easy

Paperwhites are a type of narcissus, a close relative of the daffodil, from the Mediterranean region. Botanists place them in the tazetta group, which produces several small, very fragrant flowers on each stem instead of one large trumpet. The name refers to the papery white petals.

Most spring bulbs, such as tulips, hyacinths and regular daffodils, need 12 to 16 weeks of cold before they will bloom indoors, which is why garden daffodils go in the ground in fall and take their chilling outdoors; our guide on how to plant daffodil bulbs covers that side. Paperwhites come from a climate with mild winters, so they need no cold treatment at all. The flower buds are already formed inside the bulb when you buy it. Add water and warmth and they grow straight away, which is why paperwhites are the easiest bulb there is to force.

That also means paperwhites will not wait for you. Bulbs stored in a warm room start sprouting in the bag within weeks. Buy them in fall, keep them cool and dry, and plant them in batches through early winter.

Choosing bulbs

• Pick firm, heavy bulbs with no soft spots, mold or shriveled patches. A little green nose at the tip is fine.
• Bigger is better. Bulbs are graded by circumference in centimeters. A 14 to 15 cm bulb makes two or three flower stems, and a 16 to 17 cm bulb often makes three or four.
• Store unplanted bulbs at 50 to 60°F in a paper or mesh bag somewhere dark and dry, such as a cool basement or an unheated closet. Keep them out of the refrigerator crisper drawer if you store fruit there, because the ethylene gas that ripening fruit gives off can damage the flower buds inside the bulb.
• Keep them away from the kitchen. Paperwhite bulbs look a little like small onions or shallots, and people have been poisoned by cooking them by mistake. Label the bag clearly.

Varieties and scent

About that smell. Paperwhite fragrance comes from a mix of compounds, including one called indole that some people's noses read as sweet and others read as musky or even unpleasant. Scent is strongest in warm rooms and in small spaces. If you are sensitive to it, grow 'Inbal', 'Grand Soleil d'Or' or 'Wintersun', keep the bowl in a cool, large room or an entryway rather than a bedroom, and plant fewer bulbs per container.

How to force paperwhites in pebbles and water

This is the classic method, and it takes about ten minutes.

What you need:

• A container without a drain hole, at least 3 to 4 inches deep. A shallow ceramic bowl, a glass vase or a tall glass cylinder all work. A tall glass container gives the stems something to lean on later.
• Pebbles, pea gravel, river rock, marbles or aquarium gravel, rinsed clean.
• Bulbs, about 5 to 7 for a 6 inch bowl, or as many as fit shoulder to shoulder.

Steps:

1. Add 2 to 3 inches of pebbles to the bottom of the container.
2. Set the bulbs on the pebbles, pointed end up and root plate down. Pack them close together, almost touching. Crowding makes a fuller display, and the bulbs help hold each other up.
3. Nestle them in. Twist each bulb gently into the pebbles, then add more pebbles around the bulbs until about the bottom third of each one is covered. Leave the top two thirds exposed.
4. Add water to just below the base of the bulbs. This is the most important step. Look through the side of a glass container, or tip the bowl slightly to see the water line. The water should sit about a quarter to half an inch below the bottom of the bulbs, close enough that new roots reach it within a day or two, but not touching the bulb itself.
5. Check the water every two or three days and top it up to the same line. As roots grow down into the pebbles, the plants drink more, and a warm room can empty a bowl quickly once they are in full growth.

The water line: why it matters so much

A paperwhite bulb sitting in water rots. The papery tunic and the fleshy scales soak up water, turn soft and brown, and the whole bowl starts to smell sour within a week or two. The roots, on the other hand, need water. Keeping the water just below the base lets the roots grow down to it while the bulb body stays dry.

If the water line creeps up because you overfilled it, tip the container and pour off the extra. If a bulb turns mushy, lift it out, rinse the pebbles and container, and replant the healthy bulbs.

How to force paperwhites in soil

Forcing in potting mix takes a bit more care with watering, but the plants often grow sturdier stems, and a heavy pot of soil is less likely to tip than a bowl of pebbles.

1. Choose a pot with a drain hole, 4 to 6 inches deep, and set it on a saucer.
2. Fill it with a regular, fast-draining potting mix to about 2 inches below the rim. Do not use garden soil, which packs down and stays soggy in a pot.
3. Set the bulbs shoulder to shoulder, pointed ends up, and press them gently into the mix.
4. Add more mix around them until the top half to one third of each bulb shows above the soil.
5. Water thoroughly until water runs from the drain hole, then empty the saucer.
6. Keep the mix lightly moist, watering when the top half inch feels dry. Never let the pot sit in a full saucer.

Light and temperature: the key to short, sturdy stems

Paperwhites are famous for growing 18 to 24 inches tall and then falling over just as the flowers open. Almost always, the cause is too much warmth and too little light. Here is how to avoid it.

Weeks 1 to 2, rooting. Keep the container somewhere cool, about 50 to 60°F, and out of direct sun. A cool basement, an unheated spare room or a chilly entryway works well. This slow start lets the roots develop before the tops take off. Move on once the green shoots are 1 to 2 inches tall.

Week 2 until bloom. Move the container to the brightest window you have, in the coolest room you can manage, ideally 60 to 65°F. A south-facing window is best. Turn the container a quarter turn every day or two so the stems grow straight up instead of leaning toward the glass.

In flower. Move the container out of direct sun and into a cool spot once the first flowers open. At 60 to 65°F the flowers last one and a half to two weeks. In a 72°F room they may fade in under a week.

Every few degrees of warmth speeds up growth and stretches the stems. A bowl on a warm kitchen counter or near a heat vent will bloom days sooner, but on stems that are taller and weaker.

The alcohol trick that keeps stems from flopping

The best-known fix for floppy paperwhites came from research at Cornell University's Flower Bulb Research Program. The researchers found that watering paperwhites with a dilute alcohol solution stunts the stems and leaves, making the plants a third to a half shorter, while the flowers stay just as large, just as many, and last just as long. The alcohol limits how much water the plant can take up, which is just enough stress to hold back stem growth without harming the blooms.

How to do it:

1. Plant and start the bulbs in plain water, as described above.
2. Wait until the shoots are 1 to 2 inches above the tops of the bulbs, usually about a week after planting.
3. Pour off the plain water and replace it with an alcohol solution of about 4 to 6 percent. Use it for every refill until the flowers are done.

Mixing the solution:

Things to get right:

• Do not go stronger than about 10 percent. Concentrations above that damage the plants, and at 25 percent the researchers found the paperwhites stopped growing.
• Do not use beer or wine. Their sugars feed bacteria and fungi in the water, and they tend to cause more problems than they solve.
• Never use this on anything you plan to eat. The alcohol trick is for ornamental bulbs only. Do not try it on herbs, salad greens, forced garlic or chives, or any other edible plant, and do not eat any part of a paperwhite, which is toxic in its own right.
• The research used paperwhites grown in pebbles and water. That is the setting where the method is known to work.
• Label the container and mix only what you need. A bowl of dilute alcohol at floor level is one more reason to keep pets and small children away.

Other ways to hold them up

• Grow in a tall glass container, such as a hurricane vase or a straight glass cylinder, so the stems lean on the sides.
• Tie the stems loosely with ribbon, raffia or twine about halfway up once they reach 8 to 10 inches.
• Push thin twigs of birch, curly willow or red twig dogwood into the pebbles among the bulbs as a natural support.

Weeks from planting to bloom: timing paperwhites for the holidays

Most paperwhites bloom 4 to 6 weeks after planting. 'Ziva' can be faster in a warm room, and yellow and double types are slower. Use the table to plan, then speed up or slow down a batch by moving it to a warmer or cooler room.

For a Christmas display, plant between about November 10 and November 25. If you want flowers for a specific party, plant two bowls a week apart. If the first is racing ahead, move it to a cooler room at around 55°F to slow it down, and move a lagging bowl somewhere a little warmer.

For flowers all winter, plant a new bowl every two weeks from early November through January. Bulbs held back into late winter lose vigor in storage, so most people finish planting by the end of January.

Worked example: a Christmas bowl in a glass vase

A reader wants paperwhites in bloom on the dining table for Christmas dinner, with a scent that is not overpowering.

Choice. Seven 'Inbal' bulbs, 14 to 15 cm, for a milder fragrance. A clear glass cylinder 8 inches tall and 6 inches wide, so the stems have support and the roots are part of the show.

November 15. Rinse 3 inches of white pebbles and pour them into the cylinder. Set the seven bulbs on top, twist them in, and add more pebbles to cover the bottom third of each bulb. Pour in water until it sits a quarter inch below the bulb bases. Place the vase in a 56°F basement next to a window well.

November 22. White roots reach down through the pebbles, and the shoots are an inch and a half tall. Pour off the water and replace it with a 5 percent solution, 1 cup of vodka mixed into 7 cups of water, filled to the same line. Label the jug. Move the vase to a south window in a 64°F spare room and give it a quarter turn every morning.

December 5 to 15. Shoots grow steadily. The solution is topped up every three days. Flower buds appear in their papery sheaths on December 12.

December 21. The first flowers open. The stems stand about 12 inches tall, well short of the 18 inches the same variety usually reaches in plain water in a warm room. The vase moves to the dining table, out of direct sun.

December 25. Every stem is in full flower. In the cool dining room, the display lasts until about January 3, and the scent stays pleasant rather than overwhelming.

What to do with paperwhites after they bloom

Once the flowers fade, most paperwhites go on the compost pile, and that is the right call for bulbs forced in water. Here is why.

• Forcing uses up the bulb. Everything that went into those flowers was stored inside the bulb last summer. A bulb grown in pebbles and water has no soil and no nutrients to rebuild that store, and it comes out of forcing shrunken and spent.
• They are not cold hardy in most of the country. Paperwhites survive winters in the ground only in about USDA zones 8 to 10. Planted outdoors in colder zones, they die over the first winter.
• Even where they are hardy, they are slow to come back. A spent forced bulb planted in the garden in zones 8 to 10 usually needs two or three years of leaf growth before it flowers again, if it does at all.
• They do not rebloom well indoors. Unlike amaryllis, which can be grown on in its pot and brought back into bloom year after year, a forced paperwhite rarely flowers again in a container.

If you forced them in soil and live in zones 8 to 10, you can plant them out. Keep the leaves growing in a sunny window, watering and feeding lightly, until spring. After your last frost, plant them in a sunny, well-drained spot at about 5 to 6 inches deep, let the foliage die back naturally, and be patient. Everywhere else, and for any bulbs forced in water, compost them and buy fresh bulbs next fall. Our guide on how to compost covers adding spent bulbs and plant material to the pile. Rinse and dry the pebbles and store them for next year.

Are paperwhites toxic to cats and dogs?

Yes. Paperwhites contain lycorine and other alkaloids, like all narcissus, and the ASPCA lists narcissus as toxic to cats, dogs and horses. The bulb holds the highest concentration. Eating any part of the plant can cause vomiting, drooling and diarrhea, and eating a bulb can lead to more serious effects, including tremors, low blood pressure and heart rhythm problems.

A few practical rules:

• Keep bowls out of reach of pets that chew plants, on a high shelf or in a room they cannot enter.
• Do not let pets drink the water. The water in a pebble bowl contains compounds from the bulbs and roots, and if you used the alcohol trick, it contains alcohol too.
• Store unplanted bulbs in a closed container well away from pets and away from food.
• Call your veterinarian or an animal poison control line right away if a pet eats a bulb or a large amount of the plant. Do not wait for symptoms.

The sap can also irritate human skin, so wear gloves if you have sensitive skin and wash your hands after handling the bulbs or cutting the stems. For cut arrangements, keep paperwhite stems in a vase of their own, because the sap shortens the vase life of other cut flowers.

If you want a holiday plant that is safe around pets, Christmas cactus plant care covers the one the ASPCA lists as non-toxic. Our guide on how to care for poinsettias explains why that plant is only mildly irritating, and amaryllis care covers the other big holiday bulb, which, like paperwhites, is toxic to pets.

Common problems

Frequently asked questions

How long do paperwhites take to bloom?

Usually 4 to 6 weeks from planting. 'Ziva', the most common variety, can bloom in as little as 3 to 4 weeks in a warm room, while yellow varieties such as 'Grand Soleil d'Or' and double types take 6 to 8 weeks. Cooler rooms slow them down and warmer rooms speed them up.

When should I plant paperwhites for Christmas?

Between about November 10 and November 25 for most white varieties. Plant yellow or double varieties a week or two earlier, around the start of November. Planting two containers a week apart gives you a better chance of hitting a specific date.

How much water do paperwhites need in pebbles?

Enough to keep the water line about a quarter to half an inch below the base of the bulbs, never touching them. Check every two or three days and top up to the same level. Once the roots are growing strongly, the plants drink quickly, and a container can run dry in a couple of days in a warm room.

How do I keep paperwhites from falling over?

Give them a cool start at 50 to 60°F for the first week or two, then bright light in a room around 60 to 65°F. Once the shoots are 1 to 2 inches tall, switch to a 4 to 6 percent alcohol solution, such as 1 part 80 proof vodka to 7 parts water. Tall glass containers and loose ties also help support the stems.

Do paperwhites need to be chilled before forcing?

No. Unlike tulips, hyacinths and most daffodils, paperwhites come from a mild climate and need no cold period. The flower buds are already formed inside the bulb, so they start growing as soon as they get water and warmth.

Can you replant paperwhites after forcing?

Only in USDA zones 8 to 10, and only bulbs forced in soil have a real chance. Even then they usually take two or three years to bloom again. Bulbs forced in pebbles and water are spent, and in colder zones paperwhites do not survive the winter outdoors, so most people compost them and buy fresh bulbs each fall.

Are paperwhites poisonous to pets?

Yes. The ASPCA lists narcissus, including paperwhites, as toxic to cats, dogs and horses, and the bulb is the most toxic part. Keep containers out of reach, do not let pets drink the water, and call your veterinarian right away if a pet eats any part of the plant.