{"id":137,"date":"2009-02-23T06:06:54","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T14:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=137"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:00","slug":"gladiolus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/gladiolus\/","title":{"rendered":"Gladiolus"},"content":{"rendered":"

GLADIOLUS
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>In my experience, men and women differ in their appreciation of gladiolus. Several women of my acquaintance call them “funeral flowers,”\u009d and even though mums and roses appear just as often in undertaking establishments, the women scorn only glads. \u00a0Other female friends dislike the statuesque stalks because they appear “stiff”\u009d or “formal”\u009d. My friend Gordon, on the other hand, is a talented flower arranger, and loves gladiolus, using them often, especially in big, splashy arrangements.\u00a0 He has a way of finding the dynamism in the flowering stalks, which repay the favor by bringing color and movement to his creations.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many years ago, I met a retired farmer, who turned a small field into a giant, multi-colored gladiolus bed.\u00a0 When the glads flowered, he gave them away to hospitals, nursing homes and churches.\u00a0 Another gardener of my acquaintance hybridized hundreds of daylilies in his front yard, but saved about a third of his sunny space for an impressive area devoted to gladiolus.\u00a0 He said that the flowers were for his wife.\u00a0 Judging by the fond way that he spoke about his plants, I think this may have been a fairly transparent cover story.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Like dahlias, gladioli were popular in Victorian times and retained the affection of gardeners even after World War II.\u00a0 They seemed to have begun a descent into the shadows of the horticultural fashion scene in the late seventies or early eighties, when people began rediscovering the charms of perennials.\u00a0 Glads languished, still loved by many but no longer \u00c3\u00a0 la mode, as fashionable gardeners went through sequential infatuation with ornamental grasses, foliage plants, variegated varieties, purple-leafed plants, miniatures and succulents.\u00a0 The catalogs vendors stocked fewer gladiolus varieties and the plants seemed on their way to obscurity.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then, several years ago, the wheel of fashion turned and tastemakers rediscovered another formerly unfashionable flower–the dahlia.\u00a0 Suddenly dahlias of all sizes–from the big “dinner plate”\u009d specimens to the little border varieties–were on the covers of every garden magazine.\u00a0 Martha Stewart gave them her blessing.\u00a0 If dahlias had been able to talk, they would have gone on “Oprah”\u009d and told their comeback story.\u00a0 People who used to find them vulgar and obvious suddenly couldn’t get enough of them, and bragged about that fact in a vulgar and obvious way. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now that the dahlia renaissance is underway, glads cannot be far behind. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Those who like glads and dahlias do so for many of the same reasons.\u00a0 Both flower in late summer and provide lots of color to the garden at a time when other plants are threatening to give up the ghost.\u00a0 Once established, they are easy to care for and great for cutting.\u00a0 Some may need staking, but that can be taken care of by growing them near taller plants, fences or trellises.\u00a0 If one or two stalks happen to flop over anyway, cut them and display them indoors. \u00a0\u00a0<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Northern gardeners know that modern hybrid gladiolus, whose ancestors were native to southern Africa, are not hardy in areas with freezing winter temperatures.\u00a0 The corms can be lifted in the fall and stored in a cool dry place, but, as Scott Kunst, owner of Old House Gardens, says, doing so “is not a moral imperative.”\u009d\u00a0 Glads are relatively inexpensive, making it just as easy to buy new corms each year.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think that many gardeners will welcome bold cheerful ornamentals this year as an antidote to the daily diet of bad news from the media.\u00a0 If you want something flashy, try ‘Mexicana’, introduced in 1967.\u00a0 The base color of the petals is yellow-green, accented with bright, orange-red.\u00a0 The individual flowers crowd each other in their exuberance and are heavily ruffled.\u00a0 For something big and red,\u00a0 try ‘Wig’s Sensation’, which is one of those plants that can’t help but catch the eye–even from a distance.\u00a0 ‘Atom’ is a more compact, red-flowered variety that has a silvery-white edge on every petal.\u00a0 The color is bright, but the flowers themselves are smaller and a bit more subtle.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Despite the size of some varieties, glads can be as genteel as any other plant.\u00a0 Stands of a single color, like the white-flowered ‘White Goddess’ or ‘White Friendship’ look elegant and inviting.\u00a0\u00a0 The same is true of a clump of ‘Blues’, which have blue-purple petals that fade to white at the centers. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Since fragrance is also back in style, I predict a resurgence of interest in Gladiolus callianthus ‘Murielae’, which used to be called Acidanthera.\u00a0 ‘Murielae’ does not look like a conventional gladiolus, with its white, six-petaled flowers sitting atop three-foot tall stalks.\u00a0 The flowers have dark maroon throats and some people have likened their looks to orchids.\u00a0 ‘Lucky Star’, introduced in 1966, is a hybrid with ‘Murielae’ in its background.\u00a0 It has white petals and a similar flower configuration, .but the “star”\u009d in each flower’s throat is ringed with yellow.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For more gladiolus, including classic and unusual types, try Old House Gardens, 536 Third St., Ann Arbor, MI 48103, (734) 995-1486; <\/font><\/font>www.oldhousegardens.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Catalog $2.00.\u00a0 Other varieties can be found at Brent & Becky’s Bulbs, 7900 Daffodil Lane, Gloucester, VA 23061, (877) 661-2852; <\/font>www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog.
\n<\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GLADIOLUS \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In my experience, men and women differ in their appreciation of gladiolus. Several women of my acquaintance call them “funeral flowers,”\u009d and even though mums and roses appear just as often in undertaking establishments, the women scorn only glads. \u00a0Other female friends dislike the statuesque stalks because they appear “stiff”\u009d or “formal”\u009d. My … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1647,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/1647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}