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How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Gladioli Flowers
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When I was growing up, we planted and sold Glads at our local farmers market. We would dig up and replant corms every year. We would notice that each year there were more and more yellow ones. We never really had an explanation as to why it happened, but your situation is not unique. I always wondered if it was a hybrid color from cross pollination.
Every once in a while we get a question like this: why does a flower come back a different color, and there is no good answer. It’s probably nothing you did (or did not do). It happens and we are at a loss to explain why. If anyone has an answer, please share.
Love glads- but property soil is not ideal. Using a raise palnter box this yr, and purchased many bulbs! Would like to know the best depth of soil, or depth of planter box or other container for gladiolas. I used some in a very deep and big pot, and wondering if its not a good thing to have the soil too deep, as roots growing down might take the inertia of the stalk/blooms growing upward? thanks
6 to 8 inch's apart, plant 4 inch's deep.. Before I planted mine last year I simply google how to plant gladiolus.. Read 3 or 4 sights just to make sure at least 3 out of 4 pretty much say the same things..
Planting depth varies with the size of the bulb (corm). Large corms should be planted 4 to 6 inches deep and 6 inches apart. Small corms should be planted at a depth of 3 inches. You need to provide some room for roots—2 to 4 inches of soil, depending on the size of the corm. But be prepared to stake the plants, too; the root systems are not very robust (strong).
The flower was not one I learned about in my youth by gardening. Once I may have tried anything to make the back rocky slope take color and the Norway maple and clay soil made a fail of everything including the test glads. When I travelled to Brazil I stayed long enough to attend a wedding with a humble bouquet of wildflowers and an elderly man's funeral at nearly100 years old, His wife had died a month earlier. In his wooden coffin he lay with a covering of pink gladiolus and they were nearly as tall as him. At my wedding I asked the florist to make an arrangement for the reception with pink glads in the center but messages get misconstrued and roses would have to do. Now, trying to grow glads, knowing nothing the six corms were planted on a fence that gets morning sun to mid day sun and although they were marked my husband ran the lawnmower over the lowly patch but all six grew back the next year. This mini success has me trying again and the winters here are borderline 7 and a fail is quite expected this year. I bought 60 this time and am grateful of the heads up about their water sensitivity as my neighbor's downspout aims near the fence line and I have to be more careful where I plant again.
Would it be ok to plant glads with or next to my yellow onions ?
Hi, Harlan, This is one of the few questions that we can not answer; we can not confirm a yea or nay. We recommend that you contact your local cooperative extension. Find it here https://www.almanac.com/cooperative-extension-services
Hope this helps—and let us know the answer, please!
What a volume of information!!! Wow. Thank you for all the info, tips, guidance and advice on your site. The Old Farmer's Almanac is like an Encyclopaedia of gardens, planning & layouts, plants, flowers, fruits, horticulture in general, etcetera.
Thanks once again.
I have one small garden dedicated to glads. I live in Zone 7 but my house is white vinyl siding and faces due south. I have never dug them out and they keep multiplying and I get many blooms every year. I have 3 colors right now. The baby ones bloom later in the summer it seems. I thought perhaps I should thin them, but with so many blooms and such good health, I hate to disturb them!