Inexpensive, Adaptable Gladioli: As a Colorful Gift, They’re a Natural

Gladioli, now in bloom, are carefree plants, demanding only full sun and average soil. They are inexpensive, easy to propagate and come in a spectrum of colors. And if that’s not enough, they can be grown in chilly Canadian gardens as well as sultry California gardens.

Gladioli are excellent cut flowers. The flowers keep for over a week if the stalks are cut in the cool air of morning and when the lowest flower buds are just beginning to open.

Usual instructions call for digging the corms, which are the disk-like stems that you plant when the leaves finally yellow at the end of the season. After cutting off almost the full length of leaves, you put the corms away in some cool place until the weather warms again the following spring. Digging and storing the corms for winter is little trouble, but you can leave the corms in place if you mulch the soil for winter. The plants really are carefree.

If you want to multiply your plants when you dig them up, collect the small corms that form around the larger ones. Plant them in a nursery row. After a season or two, they will reach blooming size. It won’t take long for you to have enough plants to give as gifts.

Gladioli, poking out of the soil like swords, are admittedly not the prettiest garden plant. So disguise their gawky growth habit by massing them with other plants. Or grow them in a sunny out-of-the-way place; perhaps a cutting garden that supplies you with flowers for vases. Some gardeners don’t like the flowers even then, perhaps because the cut blossoms are used commercially for funeral arrangements.

Knowing the history of the development of the gladioli might increase appreciation of them. Native to the Mediterranean region, wild gladioli were used by ancient Greeks and Romans. “Corne flags,” as gladioli were called, were grown in 16th century Britain, and their popularity increased as hybrids were developed. The first hybrid was introduced in 1823. Popularity really soared when the Duke of Aremberg’s gardener developed a vermilion-colored one.

Breeding has continued on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the result being flowers with fluted or ruffled forms, large petals and brilliant colors.