Dear Gladioli,

[beac]

Thanks for coming back year after year despite the fact that I don't dig up your bulbs, store them in a "cool, dry place" over the winter and re-plant them in the early Spring. Thanks for actually dividing and providing even MORE glads each year. You rock.

However, this as-soon-as-you-bloom-the-stalk-flops-groundward behavior has got to stop! You are gorgeous. You are majestic. Stand tall and show off your flowers. You all are falling down like a gaggle of drunken college kids and it's unbecoming of you. Anyone walking by would think I was watering you with tequila.

Yes, you make a nice, long-lasting cut flower, but I am running out of vases. Yes, I can prop you up somewhat but you I really need those stakes for tomatoes.

Seriously, Gladioli, get your crap together.

Love,
beac

[Denninmi]

1. Try restricting water and fertilizing with high P, high K, low N fertilizer.

Won't do squat about the glads flopping over, but at least you'll feel like you did something about it!





Really, staking each one is about the only way to do it that I know of.

[beac]

2. LOL. You got me... I was taking notes.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. I agree. I have never seen glads that did not lean

without staking. It must be one of those things with developing beautiful flowers at a price. Good luck.

I have this same problem with my peonies in the spring....the flowers are so heavy that they just lay on the ground. But they are worth it.

[beac]

8. I guess I am fortunate that my peonies seem to be teetotalers.

A heavy rain will beat them down, but they stay upright and sober other than that.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. There are shorter types..

I just planted some this year, they haven't even poked up yet.

[beac]

7. Would love to see some pics when they do!

[Tsiyu]

5. I lol'd at your title alone

I knew the complaint.

I saw an elaborate setup at a friend's with stake and twine and it was the neatest I've seen.

Mine are sporting the tequila-sodden look, too. Real bad. Grr.

I've tried some halfass stuff with string and whatever, but I have to just individually get out there and work each blossom.

It's on the list...

[beac]

6. After the massive wind storm we had last night, mine looked like they'd been in a bar fight.

Overnight, the ones I had staked up previously pulled their stakes from the ground. Many of their stems were snapped. Tequila makes glads drunk AND aggressive just like humans, apparently.



I lashed them all up to the fence behind this morning with one looooong strand of tomato velcro (1/2" roll of green velcro that I use for tying tomatoes) but it's not what you call "garden tour ready."

Thinking I might add a little fence in the FRONT and SIDES of them next year to box them in a bit.

Oddly, the first year I planted glads, I put five in a terracotta pot and those came up nice and straight, bloomed beautifully and never tipped over. (Of course, I forgot to pull them before the weather got cold and the corms rotted. I never intended to pull the in-ground ones and, fortunately for me, they have thrived on the neglect... except for becoming terrible lushes, of course. )

[Tsiyu]

9. I've got them all over the place

now, in wayward packs. The deer sometimes get to the blossoms, but the red ones in the garden went unmolested so now there is a long row of sloppy red blossoms falling all over themselves.

I cut some for a blue glass vase (actually they sacrificed themselves by snapping as I was trying to help them stand up) and the stems are so twisted from my neglect, they can't even stand up in the vase lol!

I love the flowers, so I deal, but they never quite have that majestic look I was going for - always the swaggering, stumbling sailor display!

[beac]

10. Last night, I read up a bit on creating twine and post supports for glads.

Each method was more time-consuming and complicated than the last.

Plus, my glads always take me by surprise. One minute it's a bed full of leaves and suddenly, there are flower stalks everywhere.

Most twine methods require careful monitoringand constant readjusting and tying. The majority of my glads are in a little area behind another garden and all surrounded by a somewhat precarious rock wall. Not ideal conditions for careful staking (I almost broke an ankle just doing the half-assed job I did yesterday.

Oh well, at least I know drunkenness is genetic to the breed and not the result of my bad flower parenting.

[tru]

11. genetic?

Or modern breeding. I wonder if species glads do this. Not that I grow either.

[Tsiyu]

12. My friends' glads were tied up like papooses

or crazy people.

Leaf and stalk gathered to a stake and wrapped in jute string.

The flowers towered above the foliage so you didn't notice the supports.

But, yeah, at this point, gathering all the sots is the challenge.

With the heat so extreme, I am putting it at low priority.

But I will remember her method next year.

I know what you mean about their sneakiness, too. One minute you're thinking "when you gonna get some flower?" and the next day they're laid out like swooning women in petticoats, trying to make you feel guilty for ignoring their plight.