weekly bloom: gladiolus

It is raining — finally. The garden badly needs it. I did get out, earlier this week, to put some of the new plants into the ground, and I have watered, faithfully, every day this week — but still, the ground is so dried and hard that the water just pools, and I wonder how much of it is actually penetrating to root-depth. And when I dig the holes to plant, it's just dried and sad, all the way down. I've been amending as I go, but without water, none of this is going to work.

Last year — spring, 2011 — I planted a bunch of gladiolus bulbs along the border of our fence. (The fence is actually mostly decorative; it's about two feet high and so far I have seen the irises and poppies propagate freely right under it. Luckily, we get along well with our neighbours.) I admit that I had no clue what I was doing. The plants did send up shoots, but no flowers — which was a pity, I thought, because supposedly gladiolus are not winter hardy in this zone. Something, somewhere, suggested that I dig up the bulbs at the end of the season, store them in my basement, and then replant them in the spring.

... Ha. Like that was going to happen. I didn't even do that to my calla lilies, and I loved my callas. (And sadly, no, they didn't come back ... although I suspect that might be because I'm fairly certain I dug at least one of them up while preparing the new herb garden. An accident.)

At any rate, despite my not-so-benign neglect, and thanks I suppose to the unseasonably warm winter we had, the bulbs flowered this year.
I alternated the coral colour with the salmon colour. (I don't remember the "official" names of the flowers; it was too long ago.) The salmon bloomed first; three or four stalks last week, and the corals bloomed yesterday or the day before.


Unfortunately, they're not doing so well; twice this week I've come home to stalks that have fallen. Whether it's because of their weight or because they're being knocked over by something — our neighbours' walkway is right next to them, on the other side of the fence — is hard to say. I don't have great hopes that all of the remaining stalks will survive the thunderstorms tonight.


I'm not sure if I like them, particularly. I planted them because I love gladiolus as cut flowers; they're so dramatic and give such wonderful height to an arrangement. But what's lovely in a vase is overblown in the garden; the large blooms look out of place next to the miniature 'Fairy' roses and too fusty compared to the carefree echinacea; the colours are too garish. I love vermillion, but this is the wrong shade; it clashes horribly with the 'Amber Sun' roses. And even the height is wrong; the stalks are about six feet tall, and look ridiculous next to the little two-foot fence — particularly as nothing else in the garden (except the tree and) is even half that height.

So they may go next year. I am going to leave them in for the time being. It feels wrong to pull something that I've successfully planted, even if it's patently in the wrong place — like I'm thumbing my nose at my good luck. It just feels risky.