Everything a cut flower ought to be, the gladiolus is infinitely varied, powerful, strong in arrangements, or light as a butterfly.
It is long-lived and stays fresh in water for a week or longer. It comes in colors to suit any taste or decorative scheme.
Planting Gladiolus Varieties
Select a few early, mid-season, and late gladiolus varieties, and you will have spikes for cutting most of the growing season.
Remember that different-sized bulbs give a succession of blooms, the bigger bulbs blooming first, the smaller ones later. Don’t overlook the little ones. They are marvelously ornamental.
Dig a trench about 6″ inches deep in a sunny location. Plant your bulbs 4″ to 8″ inches apart, according to their size.
Give them some food. Soak the soil in the trench when it is dry. Spray the plants if bugs get too fond of them.
That is all but the arranging for the pleasure of your family, who will think you’re wonderful, though you and I know it is the nature of the gladiolus to give a lot for a little effort.
But where to begin? You ask, as well you may. I remember my bewilderment when I started a few years ago and the time and money I wasted buying the latest varieties that turned out different from my expectations or were not suited to the growing conditions of my garden, which is in Worcester, Mass.
Everyone Can Use A Guide
Without a guide, a neophyte with a gladiolus catalog is like a kid in a candy store. Everything looks wonderful. Choosing is agony because if he takes one, another might be even more delicious.
The major cataloguers offer several dozen new or recent varieties every year. Most have merit and succeed somewhere or other.
But how do you know which will succeed for you? How can you get some of the newest without busting your budget all to glory?
It is not so bad now as when new gladiolus used to be offered at $1,000 per bulb. Yet, even now, you can use a lot of milk money. So play it safe with the All-American gladiolus. What are they?
In 1953 several interested glad growers established All-America Gladiolus Selections (patterned after the All-American annuals and vegetables gardeners have long been familiar with) and set up a truly businesslike program for testing, selecting, and disseminating new varieties at reasonable prices., 500 per bulb, 6 for $2.50, 12 for $5 of any variety or combination of varieties.
Choosing New Stocks Of Seedlings
Operated by some of the most competent and experienced growers in the U.S., they were chosen from coast to coast. To them are sent, under code number, stocks of new seedlings.
In this way, the varieties finally selected have been appraised by experts under all sorts of climate and soil conditions, and you get the best lookers with the assurance they will do well in your garden.
You get them at reasonable prices because they are not placed on the market until enough bulbs are grown to bring prices down.
They are the newest but as inexpensive as the older, and they are healthy and adaptable to most conditions. Start with them. Then, if your interest in the gladiolus grows and I am betting it will – venture forth.
For there is more to the glad than the All-Americas. Catalogs are full of two priced varieties that will give you months of cut flowers in luxuriant profusion, and it won’t cost you much to winnow the wheat from the chaff once you know your way about it.
44659 by Harry M. Foxhall