Three years ago, my wife Mary and I didn’t know the name of one gladiolus from another in our garden.
The North American Gladiolus Council was holding a glad show in our city, and as public-spirited citizens, we supported it by entering six of our unnamed glads. As a result, we won three blue ribbons—that did it!
In the same show, the nationally known Schrimpff brothers from Minnesota took most of the top honors. We knew them then only by reputation.
Minnesota State Show
Last year, we dared to fly our glads to their Minnesota State Show—and the impossible happened! In our garden, we had some bulbs of Syd Cartmell’s new creation, ‘White Wonder.’ To our amazement, our spike of ‘White Wonder’ was chosen as the best seedling of the show.
But much more surprising, from among 1800 other entries, our entry of ‘Temptress’ was chosen State Champion of Minnesota!
So How Did We Rank Amateurs In Three Short Years?
Many gladiolus lovers have asked us this question. Our answer is: just follow a few simple rules. First, join a gladiolus society and take an active part.
Buy a good book on gladiolus. Then, plant only the best bulbs you can buy—we don’t necessarily mean the most expensive ones.
Ask questions about glad growing and showing from those who know, namely, the growers who issue the catalog. Write to them. More importantly, enter your glads, as we did, in a show whether you know their names or not—glad officials will identify them.
And most importantly, always remember that tender, loving care makes the prize gladiolus.
You Can Grow Prize-Winning Glads
By following these simple suggestions, any beginner can grow prize-winning glads.
Our good fortune bears this out. We spent our vacation weekends last summer driving and flying to the glad shows.
At Mansfield, Ohio, we received a silver set for the Miniature Championship, and at Monroeville, Pennsylvania, we won the Amateur Single Spike and Three Spike Championships.
Back in Michigan, our honors at the East Lansing Seedling Show were Best Seedling and Three Spike Championships; at Watervliet, the Gold Cup Achievement Award; and at Midland, Michigan, we won the Grand Championship with a new Jack Carttnell miniature seedling called JC-54.
We were told this was very unusual, as a miniature hardly ever won over the larger flowered prize blooms.
We received gold cups at the International Show in Chicago for our Michigan and International Single Spike State Championships.
Of course, winning the Minnesota State Championship was the nicest surprise of the year.
Biggest Thrill From Glad
However, our biggest thrill from growing and showing up came from the many friendly and wonderful people we met.
We found that glad growers are a hospitable lot, and we have found that it is easy to grow this beautiful Sower for our pleasure and that of our friends.
44659 by Barney Wendrow