Visit our new neighborhood pages where you can send in photos, find quick information and news and join our message boards. Visit our new neighborhood pages where you can send in photos, find quick information and news and join our message boards. If your paperwhite narcissus, growing tall in a bowl of pebbles and water, is ready to keel over -- and let's face it, whose isn't? -- it may be time to turn to drink. The cure for tippy paperwhites, it turns out, is tipsy ones. Researchers at Cornell University have discovered that an old home remedy for top-heavy paperwhites -- gin in the water -- will indeed shorten the stems, lower the center of gravity and help keep them in place. Not that these hot-climate daffodils are choosy. Other liquors are just as effective, including white and dark rum, vodka, tequila and whiskey. "We tried it and, lo and behold, it's true," says Bill Miller, a professor in Cornell's department of horticulture. This is big news, of course. Anyone who has tried to emulate the elegant paperwhite-in-a-bowl look so prevalent in glossy mags this time of year knows these bulbs have more than delicate and pungently fragrant white blossoms: They have a kinetic streak. First they grow sideways, and then they become prone to topple, bringing water, bowls and stones with them. Here's a recipe to help steady them: Start them in plain water, as usual, until the roots begin to show and the stems reach a couple of inches. Then drain the water and replace it with a booze-water mix: one part liquor to seven parts water for a roughly 5 percent alcohol solution, assuming 80-proof liquor. Thereafter, keep them plied and they will stay stout and happy. Don't use beer, wine or flavored liqueurs -- too sugary for the job. Rubbing alcohol works, too, though the ratio is one part rubbing alcohol to 10 parts water. If the mix is too alcoholic, the bulbs may die. The elixir stunts growth by a third to a half without affecting the size or production of the flowers. They smell just as pungent. Some people dislike the odor; others love it. The booze treatment is newly proven -- Miller thinks it works by reducing water uptake in the plant cells -- but older truths still hold for keeping paperwhites in their place. The cause of most paperwhite woes is keeping them in rooms that are too dark and too warm. Warmth induces rapid growth and short-lived flowers, and inadequate light makes the bulbs stretch in a vain search for sunlight. Put them in a bright room where the heat has been turned down. Sixty degrees is much better than 70. Another approach is to avoid the bowl altogether and find a container that will allow the bulbs to be set deeper, either in pebbles and water or in soil. If you do this, remember one important point: Paperwhites (and amaryllis and hyacinths) will grow with their roots in water but not their bulbs. Keep them watered but maintain the waterline below the bottom of the bulbs to prevent rotting. A florist's trick is to fence in the paperwhites using decorative twigs of curly willow or birch. Trim the twigs to about 20 to 24 inches and sink them in the perimeter. They can be anchored in soil or in stone or gravel, if the container is several inches deep. And here's a little-known horticultural fact that may help in the bid to keep paperwhites vertical. Bulbs started now grow taller and take more time to bloom, but those started after the new year will be shorter and quicker to bloom, says John Fantom, of Fantom and Gahs Greenhouses, a wholesale grower in Baltimore. No matter when you choose to plant your paperwhites, just remember to stop by the liquor store. If your paperwhite narcissus, growing tall in a bowl of pebbles and water, is ready to keel over -- and let's face it, whose isn't? -- it may be time to turn to drink. The cure for tippy paperwhites, it turns out, is tipsy ones. Researchers at Cornell University have discovered that an old home remedy for top-heavy paperwhites -- gin in the water -- will indeed shorten the stems, lower the center of gravity and help keep them in place. Not that these hot-climate daffodils are choosy. Other liquors are just as effective, including white and dark rum, vodka, tequila and whiskey. "We tried it and, lo and behold, it's true," says Bill Miller, a professor in Cornell's department of horticulture. This is big news, of course. Anyone who has tried to emulate the elegant paperwhite-in-a-bowl look so prevalent in glossy mags this time of year knows these bulbs have more than delicate and pungently fragrant white blossoms: They have a kinetic streak. First they grow sideways, and then they become prone to topple, bringing water, bowls and
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