How to plant gladioli in the spring so that they do not fall

Landing in the ground

Choosing the right place to plant your bulbs is essential. The site must be located in a sufficiently illuminated area. It is not recommended to grow flowers in lowlands where a lot of moisture can accumulate, as well as in the shade of trees. The plant will also be negatively affected by the north wind.

Planting gladioli

The soil should absorb water well, but fresh manure should not be put into the soil in spring, because this will make the ground too heavy. There is enough compost left over in the fall. The garden is dug up with him.

Trenches are dug for future flowers. The planting depth depends on the size of the bulb and varies between 7-15 cm. Before spreading the planting material in the trench, the bottom must be sprinkled with sand. It will protect the plant from excess moisture. The bulbs are placed in a recess and pressed into the ground. Pour another 1 layer of sand or ash on top, and then cover them with soil. The distance between the gladioli is 10-15 cm.

After the emergence of sprouts on the surface of the earth, the flower beds are mulched. You can use humus, dry leaves or needles. Mulch protects against drying out and temperature extremes, prevents weeds from growing. After the gladioli are dug up for the winter in the fall, the remaining mulch will serve as fertilizer for the next year.

Experienced growers recommend purchasing and growing early flowering varieties that form quickly, before possible deterioration of weather conditions.

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Preparing the bulbs for storage

How to store gladioli in winter photo

• First, the bulbs are dug up only in dry weather. They start with early varieties of corms. When cutting off the stem, it is necessary to leave the stem 2-3 cm long from the beginning of the bulb.
• After shaking off the ground and pruning the roots, it is necessary to carefully examine the bulbs to exclude those specimens that may be carriers of diseases.
• The bulbs of each variety are separately washed under running water, dried and subsequently treated twice with an antifungal solution of foundationazole.
• Further drying is carried out in the sun, in a well-ventilated place for a month.

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How to store gladiolus bulbs in winter

How to store gladiolus bulbs in winter photo

After drying, each onion is separated from each other (this applies to the old, new replacement and "babies"), wrapped in paper for storage and the variety is signed.

• All bulbs are folded into a cardboard box and stored closed to retain maximum moisture during wintering.
• You can store them on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Small “children”, up to 1.5 cm in diameter, are kept in paper bags under the same conditions as their parents.
• During the rest period, and this is the first 1.5-2 months, there should be no problems with the bulbs at all. After this time, they begin to look after the gladioli bulbs in order to avoid early germination and exclude the occurrence of diseases.
• Garlic cloves, which act as a natural air decontaminant, are added to the onion containers and placed in a well-ventilated, cool place.

Planting bulbs and babies

Adult gladiolus bulbs are planted separately from children.To do this, grooves are made in the prepared area, the distance between which should be about 20 centimeters. If the soil is clayey, then the bulb is planted to a depth equal to three diameters, and in sandy lighter soil - four diameters.

First lay out the bottom of the groove with sphagnum or sprinkle with sand, and then you can start planting. Maintain a distance of about 15 centimeters between the bulbs. First cover the grooves with a not very thick layer of soil and water. When the first shoots appear, the grooves are completely covered with earth, the surface of which is slightly compacted and moistened again.

Preparation of planting material for gladioli

Two to three weeks before planting, the corms are cleaned of scales

They do this carefully, as under them there may be young seedlings that are easy to break off. If the baby's shell is cleaned, then lightly press on it with two fingers, and then remove the scales with a fingernail

It is imperative to clean it, since parasitic microorganisms and thrips nest in the scales. In addition, it is easier to detect signs of disease on peeled corms and disinfect planting material in time.

Peeled corms are laid out sprouts upwards on vernalization, like potatoes. This activity promotes better flowering and less susceptibility to diseases at the beginning of growth.

Planting material purchased in a store or on the market is treated against diseases and pests. It is better not to use chemicals for this in the garden. Soak the corms and the baby well in an infusion of garlic (250-300 g per 10 liters of water) for 2 hours.

Garlic acts on both pathogens and plant pests. It is passed through a meat grinder, pour 10 liters of water. The planting material is immersed in the resulting infusion not only before planting, but also after digging. In the spring, a solution of a lower concentration is prepared (300 g per 10 l), in the fall - a larger one (500 g per 10 l). For digging processing, the concentration can be further increased by taking up to 1 kg of garlic per 10 liters of water.

If there is no garlic, the planting material is treated with a solution of potassium permanganate - from pathogens, karbofos - from pests. In the spring, in a solution of potassium permanganate (1 g of potassium permanganate per 10 l of water), then in a solution of karbofos (30 g per 10 l of water) the corms and the baby are kept for 30 minutes. In the fall, take a stronger solution of potassium permanganate (5-10 g of potassium permanganate per 10 liters of water) and incubate for 30-60 minutes.

A solution of karbofos is the same concentration as in the spring, and the material is kept in it for the same time. After disinfection, before planting, the material can be treated with growth stimulants and trace elements for faster root development. Usually one of the following drugs is used, based on 10 liters of water:

• heteroauxin - one tablet;
• sodium gummate - 1 g;
• succinic acid - 2 g.

The planting material is kept in a growth stimulator solution for 10-12 hours.

Solutions of microelements for processing planting material can be of various compositions. For soaking corms before planting, it is better to use the recommendations of A. N. Gromov (Table 1). The processing time of the material in the recommended composition is 12-14 hours.

Table 1. Doses of micronutrient fertilizers for the treatment of corms

Tab. 2. Doses of micronutrient fertilizers for the treatment of tubers

Table 2 shows the doses of micronutrients recommended by T.G. Tamberg for preparing a solution for soaking tubers before planting. Processing time is 4 hours.

The author prefers to soak the corms and the baby before planting in a combined solution of ammonium molybdate (2 g) and copper sulfate (5 g) per 10 liters of water for 2 hours, after which he immediately plants.

Gladioli care: general information

Many flower lovers, especially beginners, are wondering how to care for gladioli in the garden and in the country. To do this, you need to familiarize yourself with the basic rules, without which it will be almost impossible to achieve lush and long flowering.

Gladioli

What do gladioli love? Growing features:

You cannot grow gladioli in one place for more than two years. On the eve of the beginning of the third growing season, the plant must be transferred to a new place. Every florist must understand that the key to the lush flowering of healthy crops is compliance with the rules of crop rotation.
When transplanting a crop, preference should be given to a place with a different soil composition.

For example, if gladioli grew on light alumina for the previous two years, then in the third year they can be transplanted into sandy loam soil.
It is important to acquire the correct varieties of gladioli. It is necessary to ensure that the variety is adapted for growing in the given climatic and weather conditions.

When purchasing planting material from Holland, you should understand that gladioli will delight you with lush flowering only once.
Do not plant adult bulbs and immature children nearby, otherwise the first ones will strangle the small ones. It is recommended to use the scheme: from small to large or vice versa. It is recommended to plant the largest bulbs separately.

Planting gladioli

It is important to maintain the required planting depth. When planting in light soil, the depth should be equal to the diameters of four such bulbs, and in heavy soil, three diameters

If the depth is more than the norm, the plant may not bloom at all. If the depth is less, it will be necessary to tie up the arrow.
When preparing for planting, it is necessary to clear the scales from the daughter bulb in a few days, otherwise it simply may not germinate. After planting, it is important to water the crop, in moderation, every other day.
All varietal varieties of gladioli are light-loving plants, therefore, in conditions of partial shade or shade, they may not bloom at all. Only early varieties can grow in partial shade conditions, but you won't have to wait for early flowering.
To prevent the development of fungal diseases, flowering plants must grow in an area with good ventilation.
When growing gladioli, feeding is of great importance. If, for example, gladioli grow on infertile soils, it is necessary to apply mineral fertilizers to the soil regularly.
In summer, the plant can be watered at weekly intervals, but abundantly flooding the near-stem circle. If there is a sultry drought on the street, it is worth watering the plant a little every evening. After each watering, the soil is loosened, spud and weeds are removed.
Of great importance in the cultivation of perennial gladioli is the harvesting of corms in the fall and their storage throughout the winter.
The most suitable soil for the growth of gladioli is ordinary black soil, a mixture of loam and sandy loam with neutral or weak acidity.

Preparing for landing

Avoiding the fall of gladioli will help their correct fit.

In order to prevent such a phenomenon in your flower beds, it is important to know how to plant gladioli so that they do not fall. This requires:

• choose a suitable place for gladioli on the site;
• plant tubers correctly;
• organize quality care for flowering plants.

Where is the best place to plant?

Gladioli are very light-loving plants, therefore, to plant them, it is necessary to take a well-lit place on the site. A flower planted in the shade will grow, but it will quickly stretch out and become frail.In this state, it can break even before the appearance of the peduncle.

A good option for plants would be a flower bed along the house on the south side - there it is light and the wall will protect from the wind.

How to plant?

The corms of gladioli should anchor well in the soil, so that during flowering the plant can withstand not only its weight, but also a powerful peduncle. If the tuber lies on the surface of the soil, only lightly covered with earth, it will most likely be pulled out under the weight of the flower. The optimal planting depth for tall gladioli with strong peduncles is at least 20 cm, lower plants can be deepened by 15 cm. This will slightly slow down the emergence of seedlings, but will help the flower to take a "strong" position.

Features of the care of blooming gladioli

During flowering, gladioli need abundant watering and feeding, this is the only way to grow a strong and healthy plant.

In addition, most growers practice creating additional support for massive flowers. To do this, they are tied up one at a time to sticks installed near the plants. If the flowers grow in a row, you can make a kind, group, protective structure: on both sides of the row, stick high sticks (2 on each side) into the ground and pull a rope between them along the flowers. Thus, gladioli will find themselves between two ropes, which will support them and prevent them from falling even in the wind. You can also stretch a coarse mesh on top.

Care of gladioli after disembarkation in open ground

In order for the gladiolus to have a beautiful, even stem, the flowers in the arrow were presentable, it is necessary to make efforts for the next 2 months after planting in order to get the most positive result at the exit.

How to water

Gladiolus after planting should be watered every other day so that the peduncle is fully formed. This will require 8-10 liters of water per 1m². If dry weather is established, watering should be carried out at least 1 time a day in the evenings.

After that, it is advisable to loosen the earth in order to accumulate moisture inside and prevent it from quickly evaporating. In the case of the opposite, that is, when rainy weather is established, watering is either stopped completely, or limited to 2 times a week. In this case, the water must be well settled. It is not worth pouring it directly under the bulbs, as this contributes to their decay. It is necessary to pour in the aisle, then the soil near the roots is moistened. Gladiolus leaves tolerate spraying well.

Feeding gladioli

• When the sprouts reach 10 centimeters in length, it is necessary to fertilize the soil around the plant with humus. This is done in order to protect the soil from overheating and reduce the amount of moisture evaporated.
• During the formation of the first 3 leaves, fertilizing with fertilizers is necessary, which include mineral nitrogen. These fertilizers include urea and ammonium sulfate. It is introduced at the rate of 2 tablespoons per 1m² in order to form the green mass of the plant.
• Then they are fed twice with a mixture of complex potassium-phosphorus fertilizer: the first stage falls on the period of appearance of 5-6 leaves, the second - at the time of laying the buds. During potassium-phosphorus feeding, you can add a few peas of urea.

Four times during the entire growing season, organic fertilizers can also be applied under the plants during irrigation. It is better to use bird droppings for tincture (animal manure should be excluded) at the rate of 1 bucket of droppings for 2 buckets of water. Organic fertilizer is infused for a decade, then it is diluted in a ratio of 1 to 10, where 1 share falls on the infusion and 10 - on water. The quality of the flower depends on the regularity of feeding. Usually fertilizers are applied after watering, which is repeated after fertilization.

Simple disease prevention

For gladioli cultivated on sandy loam, it is good to carry out foliar feeding, the essence of which is to spray the leaves with a special solution. For 1 liter of water, take 0.15 g of potassium permanganate or 0.15 g of boric acid or 0.2 g of Bordeaux mixture. This solution is used as a prophylactic agent against diseases and harmful insects.

Processing is carried out at least 3 times during the entire growing season: the first - during planting, the next - during the appearance of the arrow and during the formation of buds. If you add soap to the solution and process the gladiolus leaves on both sides, then this will be a very useful procedure for him in the fight against spider mites.

Loosening and weeding

The roots of absolutely all plants, including gladioli, love oxygen. Loosening will help provide access. To avoid the appearance of a crust on the soil surface, loosening should be carried out after watering. If you do not weed the flower bed, then the weeds will take nutrients from the soil, which will negatively affect the quality of the gladiolus flower. Therefore, weeding is essential once a decade.

How to tie gladioli

A garter is necessary for those varieties of gladioli that reach more than 1.5 meters in length. To provide the stem with support, which over time begins to bend, you can attach a peg to each free-standing flower. Many gardeners use a different method: they stretch a wire along a row of gladioli and carefully tie each flower to it. At the same time, the stems are spud to give them even more stability.

How to cut a flower correctly

In order not to damage the plant, the bulb of which will remain in the ground for some time, and to ensure that the stem is cut worthy of a bouquet, the following rules must be observed: leave a part of the stem with 4 leaves above the ground so that the bulb does not deteriorate. You can cut a flower only when the bottom 3 flowers are completely dissolved. Ideal varieties of gladioli are those whose ability to dissolve up to 10 buds at once is the norm. Cutting flowers is best done in the evening or early morning. The remaining peduncle stem is hidden deeper into the leaves.

How to tie gladioli with a net

Some gardeners use net twine weaving as an effective method of garters. To do this, you need a frame, which can be made using the method described above. Then, from support to support, cages are tied with twine, into which the flowers are passed.

There is a simpler version of this garter method:

• Pegs are inserted along the perimeter of the bed / flower bed. These can be bamboo sticks, wood, metal, or plastic pegs.
• Then all the pegs, one by one, must be tied in twine in a circle in turn.
• And then we make a net, laying the rope inside and out, connecting opposite pegs. The cells should be quite large so that the flower has enough room for free growth, but at the same time it keeps a straight shape.

How to tie gladioli with a net

But there is another life hack on how to facilitate the process of tying twine cages - to use a coarse-mesh plastic netting. For gladioli, a grid with a mesh size of 10x10 cm is suitable.

The mesh must be taken according to the size of the garden. It can be fixed either in a frame or simply on several supports (pegs, PVC tubes) around the perimeter of the flower bed.

You need to install the grid after the gladioli grow up a little. Then, as the color grows, the arrows of the colors themselves will fall into the cells. You just have to correct them a little and then leave them to grow, bloom and delight with their beauty.

This is a very convenient, aesthetic and easy way to tie gladioli. Even strong winds won't blow flowers. They will stand, like soldiers, straight and steadfast.

Gladiolus varieties

In culture, gladiolus has been grown for a very long time.Now in the world there are about 5,000 varieties that differ in height, size and number of flowers, their color and shape.

By the size of the flowers, the skewer variety is divided into subgroups:

• miniature, with a flower size up to 6.5 cm;
• small-flowered - up to 9 cm;
• mid-flowered - up to 12 cm;
• large-flowered - up to 14 cm;
• giant - more than 14 cm.

According to the timing of the beginning of flowering, gladioli are: early, medium and late. The flower shape is simple, corrugated and super corrugated. The color palette of flowers is very diverse, there is no such shade in which gladiolus is not painted.

Do I need to tie up gladioli

Given the external characteristics of these flowers and their long stem, the question of a garter of gladioli will always be relevant, especially if the grower rarely appears on the site and only manages to plant the plants without providing them with further full care. If you do not fix the flowers at first, then after a month it will be too late to do this, since they will begin to fall to the side or completely fall to the ground, continuing to grow in a horizontal position.

In order to preserve the high decorativeness of gladioli for the entire period of their flowering, it is better to tie the plants while the sprouts are still relatively short and are located strictly vertically, but how exactly to tie the plants to the support (stick) installed next to it can be determined based on the number of flowers and the peculiarities of their location in the garden.

Diseases and pests

Like other flower crops, gladioli are susceptible to attacks by pests and diseases, some of which can cause curvature of stems and inflorescences. First of all, we are talking about bacterial scab, fusarium, gladiolus cancer, jaundice and viral mosaic, due to which the flower quickly weakens and its stem part becomes not as elastic as before. This is especially noticeable with severe damage to scab and jaundice, although root cancer is no less dangerous for the decorative effect of the culture.

As for pests, the most relevant in this case include thrips and wireworms, which damage different parts of the plant and make it unstable. By the way, the latter is the causative agent of many fungal diseases, so the harm from it is double.

Prevention and control measures for each problem have some common features for different groups:

• the affected areas of flowers should be cut off and destroyed immediately;
• spray the rest of the plant with a fungicidal or insecticidal composition (depending on the type of pest or disease);
• further control the mode of moistening, feeding and crop rotation of flower plantations (you should not plant flowers after nightshade crops, especially tomatoes and potatoes).

Without fail, the tubers are processed after digging for the winter, and the aboveground part of the flowers can be sprayed even when the first signs of an illness appear.

Important! With fusarium, bacterial scab and cancer, it is better to completely dig the diseased gladiolus out of the ground and destroy it, and treat its planting site with a suitable fungicide, carefully distributing it throughout the soil in the hole

Why gladioli grow crooked and fall

These flowers always tend to grow vertically, but due to their length, the stem often tilts to the side and grows further curved. Such a flower will not look beautiful either in a cut or in a flower bed, so it is worthwhile to study in advance all the possible causes of this phenomenon and take appropriate measures to prevent undesirable consequences.

Did you know? Many legends are associated with the appearance of gladiolus flowers, but according to the most widespread, they were the swords of two gladiator friends Teresa and Sevt, who refused to fight each other to please the emperor and were executed together on his orders.

In most cases, there are two main reasons for the curvature of gladioli.Too shallow planting of bulbs, to a depth of no more than 5-7 cm from the soil surface. The upper layer of the substrate dries out quickly, which is why the plants lack moisture every day and tend to the ground in the evening. At night, their moisture increases, but the stems are less and less aligned each time, and remain crooked.

Maintaining constant moisture levels when growing flowers in the country is quite difficult, since most summer residents come to the site only for the weekend. In such a situation, the only possible way out of the situation would be to comply with all the requirements for planting a flower culture, with the bulb deepening at least 12-15 cm deep into the soil.

The second reason for curved peduncles in gladioli is a lack of calcium in the soil or an excess of nitrogenous components. In each of these cases, plant tissues become very loose over time, so the stem can no longer support the peduncle in a normal position and bends under its weight. To remedy the situation at the initial stages of the appearance of the problem, it is worth adding calcium nitrate and potassium phosphate to the soil, performing top dressing according to the attached instructions.

In addition, do not forget that gladioli are tall flowers in themselves, with not very thick stems, therefore, if there is no support nearby, they can break simply due to the weight of the apical part, which is quite logical.

Diseases and pests

Diseases in gladioli can occur both on their own due to the carelessness of the owner, and due to the spread of infection from other crops. Common diseases: botrytis, rust, septoria and fusarium. All of them are of a fungal nature, which they begin to fight against even during the treatment of the bulbs with foundation.

• The preparation "Horus" and "Falcon" is used at the stage before the flowering of the plant in the presence of 3 formed leaves.
• Against insect pests, such as bulb mites, thrips are used "Balazo", "Agrovertin", "Aktara", "Confidor-maxim". Only regular check-ups will help prevent serious illness. An attentive attitude to gladioli will surely be rewarded with its unique lush flowering.