Bright-solemn or gentle-watercolor gladioli can become the best decoration of any holiday, starting from the first-September school line and ending with the wedding . They look great not only in cutting, but also in the garden, giving the site a smart and fresh look. Growing gladioli in your flower garden is quite simple, it's much harder to figure out when to dig them out and how to store them properly.
Do I need to dig gladioli for the winter?
A person far from floriculture all this fuss with autumn and digging and further spring planting gladioli can seem like a waste of time and effort. But in reality it is not a whim, but a vital necessity. First, bulbs need to provide a period of complete rest. Secondly, tender bulbs are not able to survive the winter frosts. Thirdly, this measure helps to contain the spread of fungal diseases.
When do you need to dig gladioli for the winter?
The collection time of gladiolus bulbs occurs 40-50 days after the cutting or wilting of inflorescences and falls between September and October. Can you dig the gladiolus before this time? Doing this is not recommended, since the bulb should ripen and accumulate a sufficient amount of nutrients. But in some cases, early harvesting of bulbs from the ground is allowed. For example, if gladioli became a victim of pest or disease attack, or an early cold snap occurred. In the event that several varieties grow on a site at once, dig them out in order from early to late. To understand the order of collection will help and coloring the scales - the darker it is, the more tender and susceptible to disease is the variety, and the earlier it needs to be digged.
How to store gladioli?
To bulb gladioli in good health and survived to spring, it is necessary not only to collect them at the right time, but also to store them in the right place. But this may not be enough if all the preparatory stages are not met:
- To collect bulbs, it is best to choose a warm, sunny day.
- It is necessary to remove gladioli from the ground extremely accurately, trying not to damage their skin.
- Immediately after digging, the stem must be cut or broken, trying not to damage the neck of the bulb. The terrestrial part of the plant should be destroyed immediately, so that the pests that live on it do not have time to move to wintering under the scales.
- Before storing the gladioli must be thoroughly dried. This process takes from two weeks to two months and should proceed at a temperature of +25 to +28 degrees. If the weather contributes, then it is reasonable to dry it out in the open air.
- If during the season gladioli suffered from diseases or pests, then before storage bulbs must be treated with solutions of insecticides or fungicides, and then thoroughly dried. In some cases, for storage (for example, if it is a question of rare varieties or a few bulbs) it is reasonable to use paraffin or wax glaze.
- After complete drying, it is necessary to carefully separate the old bulb (it will go to waste) and the babies. Scooping scales from them is not worth it, since it serves as an additional protection against drying out.
How to store gladioli in an apartment?
An ideal place to store the bulbs will be a dry and well-ventilated cellar, the temperature in which is in the range from +3 to +5 degrees. Polyethylene and other non-breathing materials for packaging are not suitable, but in cardboard boxes or wooden boxes gladioli will feel quite comfortable. If the cellar is not in the asset, then it is easy to find a place in the apartment where to store gladioli - for example, in a vegetable box of a refrigerator or on a cold window sill. The main thing is to maintain the temperature limits necessary for the plant.