When to germinate gladioli and how to plant them
The name gladiolus has Latin roots, the second name of this beautiful flower is sword. The plant belongs to the corms, the iris family. The homeland of gladioli is in the south: in the subtropics of the Mediterranean, Africa, and Southern Europe.
Content:
- Gladioli
- How to plant gladioli
- How to prepare bulbs and when to germinate gladioli
- How to germinate gladioli
- How to plant bulbs correctly
Gladioli
About 200 species are grown in the world today gladioli. The plant has a vertical, non-branching stem, its height can reach from 50 to 140 cm. The leaves of the plant are sword-shaped, the flowers can be collected in spike-shaped inflorescences, one or two-sided, they can be loose or dense. Gladiolus flowers have funnel-shaped perianths and consist of six uneven lobes fused at the base. The fruit of the plant looks like a tricuspid capsule. Gladiolus seeds have a round shape and their color is brown.
How to plant gladioli
Proper planting of gladioli is a rather troublesome task and requires certain knowledge: you need to know when to germinate gladioli, how to choose the right place for planting, what soil composition will be most optimal for growing these beautiful flowers.
First of all, let's look at the issue of soil. In principle, any cultivated soil is suitable for plants, but it is preferable to choose well-fertilized light sandy loam soils for growing them.Sand should be added to clay soil, and lime and humus should be added before digging in the fall. Adding fresh manure is not advisable - the plant will produce a lot of leaves, but its flowering may be weak.
In the spring, ammonium nitrate and superphosphate are additionally added to the soil at the rate of 15 grams of each fertilizer per 1 square meter, as well as potassium sulfate - up to 30 grams per square meter. It would be a good idea to add wood ash to the soil.
It is very important to choose a well-lit area for planting; it is advisable to orient the beds in the east-west direction. Bulbs should be planted no earlier than the soil temperature rises to +10 degrees, usually in late spring. Planted at fairly low temperatures in moist soil, the bulbs provide very rapid growth of the root system, which throughout the summer will enable the normal development of the plant and create conditions for its abundant flowering.
Experienced flower growers share a secret: to get good flowering, you should not plant gladioli in the same place every year - the plants will be at high risk of disease.
Undesirable precursors for gladioli are asters, phlox, and other plants prone to fungal infections. It’s good if it is possible to plant gladioli in the place where onions, garlic, and cucumbers grew the previous year.
How to prepare bulbs and when to germinate gladioli
Preparing the bulbs involves carefully sorting them, selecting disease-affected and damaged ones. All problem areas on the bulbs should be cleaned and covered with crushed coal. When purchasing new bulbs, you should avoid those that have putrefactive lesions or moldy areas.The size of the bottom of the onion is of particular importance - its small size indicates the immaturity of the onion.
The usual size of a bulb is 5-7 cm; bulbs up to 10 cm in size are rare. Spent bulbs should be replaced annually with new ones; for this, children that appear at the base of the bulb are used. There can be from 1-2 to 200 children, depending on the growing conditions, biological characteristics and method of cultivation.
How to germinate gladioli
Before planting, it is customary to germinate gladioli, but this is not necessary, simply sprouted bulbs will give faster growth and flowering. To the question of when to germinate gladioli, you can answer that to some extent it may depend on the climate zone. Sprout in the middle zone gladioli you can start from mid-March. The bulbs are laid out in a shaded but warm place. An abundance of bright light will lead to too active growth of the sprout, which is not desirable.
A couple of days before planting, the sprouted bulbs can be placed on a damp cloth - small roots will quickly appear on them. Before planting, the bulbs can be treated with a solution of karbofos.
How to plant bulbs correctly
- The depth of planting bulbs depends on: their size, the larger the bulb, the deeper it can be planted, on the quality of the soil, on light soils - deeper, on loamy soils - shallower.
- When planting tubers at greater depths, you can get later flowering, a larger bulb with a small number of children.
- The greatest danger for gladiolus bulbs is cold, rainy summers - they can die due to bacterial and fungal infections.
