The best part of spring is when all those bulbs you’ve planted come out of the ground and bring color to your garden after a long, gray winter. Unfortunately, you have to wait six months for them to bloom, but if you’re as impatient as I am, you can start growing those flowers indoors now. The idea is simple, and you don’t have to be a seasoned gardener to pull it off: you can place bulbs in a pot or glass vase and let them bloom indoors, like a living bouquet. Once they’ve finished blooming, the bulb is spent, so you can throw it away or compost it. (You can try to save the bulb to replant, but I’ve found that to be a generally thankless endeavor.)

You may have seen these arrangements in the pages of Pottery Barn or the aisles of Trader Joe's. The good news is that you can buy cheap bulbs and get the same effect for a lot less money by doing it yourself. You can get bulbs almost everywhere this time of year, from large online bulb retailers like Eden Brothers to your local garden center, Home Depot, or even your grocery store. If you see a bag of bulbs on sale, grab them for this purpose. If you can find pre-chilled bulbs, that's even better, because it means you don't have to wait until winter for your flowers (more on that below).

When you force bulbs, you trick them into thinking it’s spring by keeping them indoors. The key to this is to mimic outdoor conditions by exposing them to cold for a few weeks. How long they need the cold depends on the type of bulb (and amaryllis and paperwhite daffodils don’t really need to be refrigerated at all). You don’t want to chill your bulbs in your refrigerator, because you probably have fruit in there, and ripening fruit gives off ethylene gas, which tells the bulbs to grow. The best place to chill your bulbs is outside or in your basement. You can chill them already planted in their pots or leave them in the paper bag they come in.

Most bulbs prefer to be planted in a pot filled with potting soil. At your local garden center, look for soilless potting soil, which holds moisture well while providing excellent drainage. When choosing a pot, you will want three to four inches of growing space under the bulb, in addition to the height of the bulb itself. When you are ready to plant the bulbs, soak the roots of the bulbs in warm water overnight. In the morning, add the three to four inches of potting soil to the bottom of your pot and place your bulbs in it, pointed side up and roots down. You can plant the bulbs as close together as you like, even touching each other. Cover them with more potting soil, leaving the top inch of the bulbs exposed. Tamp the soil down with your fingers—you want it to be packed down tightly to hold your bulbs in place when they flower. Water the potting soil mixture until all of the soil is moist. This means that when you take the soil in your fist and squeeze it, the mixture will hold together but no water will come out.