Are your Gladiolus Falling Over?
Do you have Glads that have taken a dive to the ground after rains? Well, you’re not alone. I planted some glads last spring, it was the first time I had ever planted them. I got a nice mixed bag of 65 from BloomingBulb.com for a very good price and all was well while the foliage was growing. Then the stalks came out and started giving some beautiful flowers but after some heavy rains , the glads were looking very sad. Not because the rain did anything to them but because some of them flopped over to ground. It didn’t kill them or anything but it was a shame to have such nice flowers laying on the ground where you couldn’t see them. I tried straightening them out but to no avail. As soon as we got some more rains, they took another dive.
The problem-they were planted too shallow. I didn’t realize they would grow so tall. Some of them are close to 5′ full of blooms! This of course is way too heavy for the bulb. It seems that the bulbs do not grow many roots or at least not deep roots, so they have very little stability.
The solution- quite simple, they just need to be planted deeper. Most instructions call for 6″. This would probably be fine if they are planted in heavier soils but but if you add ammendments as I did, the soil becomes lighter and it just won’t hold the bulb with such top heavy growth. Now don’t run out and dig them up in the middle of the summer, it’s probably best to leave them alone. Either stake them or cut the flower stalks off to make some nice arrangements and straighten the remaining foliage. The permanent solution is to add more soil once the foliage dies in the fall. Another 2″ or so should do. You could also dig them up and plant them deeper or dig them up, store them over winter and replant them deeper in the spring. If you are in zone 7 where they are marginal, you definitely don’t want to leave them like that because an unusual cold spell could do them in. If you can’t add more soil for whatever reason, at least put a heavy layer of mulch then plant deeper in the spring. In either case, following any of the above should give you some nice upright glads the following year.
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DRAT!!! All that work and my glads are lying down.. We are trying to stake them, but it doesn\’t look good. I am also going to try to build soil up around them..