On 09/10/2013 18:15, Bob Hobden wrote:
"Janet" wrote



if you're reading this, I'd just like to thank you for promoting the
glory of the vulgar gladioli. Yes, those huge, exotically OTT flower
spikes in dazzling colours and ruffles beloved of oldfashioned florists
gardeners and allotmenters, garden shows etc.

From childhood memory I'd always considered gladioli as one of those
tender fusspots that needs to be lifted, dried and dusted and replanted
after frosts, far too much faff for my "do or die" garden. I'd tried
several of the small-flowered, supposedly hardy gladioli nanus and
byzantium but they weren't....shy to flower even once, and far from
being hardy, just peter out to grassy leaves then nothing.

A few years back I saw in a Shed, corms of the large-flowered Dame Edna
kind including (irresistible to me) velvety Black Star

http://tinyurl.com/nkbkvfw

The corms are so ridiculously throw-away cheap I bought a bag and
planted them in clumps as exotic annuals. I was surprised how stunning
they look en masse, how long they flower, and that slugs don't trouble
them. Come autumn I abandoned them to die back, expecting winter rain
and cold to save the trouble of a funeral; especialy, as they were in
the cold-northfacing windiest side of the garden. The following year, I
bought a couple more bags and planted them. But to my surprise, by June
the first planting popped back up in full force with babies in tow. The
youngsters flower a bit later than the parents which is useful.

Those originals have just finished their third highly floriferous year
(and as cut flowers won a prize at the local show). The second lot have
lasted two, and I'm hooked.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/6701041...127084/in/set-
72157636350663755

(no name, these were mislabelled by B and Q as Velvet Eyes)

They've been in flower since August and later stems have enough buds
for another fortnight unless today's storm snaps their heads off; I've
brought a vaseful indoors just in case, possums.


I have never dug them up for winter protection since I first tried to
grow them and lost the lot by doing so. They were originally a mixed
bunch from a GC decades ago and although they were different colours it
seems only two varieties have survived over the years, but how they have
survived! I moved them into one large clump two years ago but now they
are also back where they originally were and a couple of other places
too. Even got some on the allotment, probably from stuff I put in the
compost bin!

We actually have some posh named ones on order from...

http://www.pheasantacreplants.co.uk/

I planted a row around 4 years ago, left them in but they were swamped
with weeds and the ground was wet, but they kept coming, I rotovated
them in and did the same last year and this, a stray bulb must have
stuck to the Rotavator and dropped off later giving me this lone flower.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...psd0dbf48b.jpg
David @ a damp side of Swansea bay