How to grow Ranunculus

One of the first blooming cut flowers you can grow in the spring is ranunculus! Ranunculus come in so many colors, and variety's! I love them so much, because they remind me of a garden rose, with its fluffy petals! Because these flowers are planted so early, they need special care and protection. Read along on how I have the best success on growing them!

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First, unbox your ranunculus. When you first open the box, don't be alarmed with how they look! They look like dead, shriveled up roots! These roots are called corms. Before I do anything, I like to make ID tags, so I don't get them mixed up. They look identical at this stage, and you wont be able to tell them apart until they bloom! The varieties I am starting are wedding pastel mix and marshmallow.

Fill up a glass with water. Place the corms in the water, and let soak for at least 3-4 hours. Make sure not to leave them in the water for a long time after that, because they will rot! The corms will slowly triple in size, rehydrating themselves.

After soaking for around 4 hours, you can really see how much larger they got! They actually look like theres life in these little guys now!

Soaked on left, before on right

After the corms are all rehydrated, fill up a shallow tray with potting soil. We are doing this, to pre sprout the corms. Doing this will give us a jumpstart to getting blooms from our plants. For this, I used an extra seed starting tray dome. I separated the tray by putting popsicle sticks in the center, to separate my 2 varieties.

Nestle each corm into the potting soil. Just enough to cover the bottom of the corms. You want the pointy roots down into the soil and the flat part facing up. Water, to just get soil damp. You don't want the soil to get soggy. That will cause rotting! Place the tray in a cool place. I place them on my seed starting rack, under the grow lights.

After about 20 days, your corms will look like this! They have grown little white roots, and are pushing out a ton new growth. They are now ready to be planted.

Plant your plants 9in apart and 2in deep. When planting the new plants, I like to add some fresh garden compost and fertilizer. For fertilizer, I like to use bio-tone starter fertilizer. Water every few days, when needed.

Note- when planting during cold temps, make sure to cover your plants with frost cloth or a row tunnel when temps drop below freezing.

Expect your first blooms in about 90 days. Once they start blooming, you will get flowers for around 6-8 weeks. They will fizzle out once the temps start rising.

Cut flowers when the blooms are just starting to show color, and feel squishy. Ranunculus have a great vase life. When bringing your cut flowers in, always remember to re cut them stems before putting into water!

Good luck on your ranunculus journey! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, along the way!