California Gardening: Fall/Winter Bulbs in California, 1 by chrisw99

chrisw99 wrote:
Some of my paperwhite narcissi::

Narcissus tazetta 'Ariel'

Flowers are larger than other single whites and are the first to bloom in my garden. The stems are shorter (about 12 in) and a bit stockier so that they don't fall over like so many other paperwhites do when the blooms open. The typcial varieties you force indoors under poor light conditions are particularly prone to flopping over. Some like 'Ziva' are 16-18 in tall and often fall over, even outdoors in my garden once all the blooms are fully open. 'Ariel' was bred to make flopping less likely although I haven't tried to grow them indoors to prove it.

Chris
p.s. I put my hand in the photo to show the size of the blooms, not to prop them up.