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Hi, I'm Jessica Smith, and I work for Blands Nursery in West Jordan, Utah, and today we're
talking about how to plant flower bulbs. Right now we're going to discuss gladiolus. Gladiolus
are one of the easiest bulbs that you can plant and enjoy throughout the summer. The
thing with gladiola bulbs are, there's a few things that are a little different than there
is with, that there are with other types of bulbs. First off, they do need to be brought
up and stored throughout the winter months. A lot of people will leave their gladiola
bulbs down in the soil throughout the winter months. This really isn't good an a gladiola;
it's not that they won't come back, they're a little tougher than other types, but what
that can do is actually encourage a lot of disease and everything. So it's really best
if you pull up your gladiola bulbs each fall. Now, how to plant the gladiola in the springtime,
you're going to plant a gladiola bulb not quite as early as you do other types of bulbs.
Wait until you're actually planting like your sweet corn, and you're going to basically
plant it the same way. You're going to plant them about every two weeks. This way this
will extend the bloom in the area with your bulbs. You going to go just like though anything
else, the diameter, the width of that bulb, you're going to go two times down. So we'll
go twice as wide. There's your top level, and then there's your other level. Now, gladiolus
can get top heavy, so right before they bloom, you might want to pile a little bit of soil
just up around the foliage itself. Don't do this with other types of plants, it can actually
suffocate them. Gladiolus is an exception right here. It'll come up with the big stalks
of flowers that you can use in cut arrangements and that. After it's done blooming on the
top, and those flowers begin to wither a little bit, go ahead and cut that stalk, that flower
stalk off. You're going to want to let everything just kind of rejuvenate back down to the soil.
You want to lift that bulb just like you would anything else for the wintertime. Go ahead,
you're going to let the tops die down naturally on the gladiola bulb. Lift them up, let them
air dry for a few weeks out in a shady, kind of cool area location, not out in the full
sun. After they've dried out, kind of wash them up a little bit and then let them dry
for a few more days. They'll actually get a hard little coat on them. I just pulled
these up out of the ground, so they don't have that little hard coat yet on them. And
you're going to store it just like you would a garlic bulb or anything like that, in a
perforated bag, mesh bag's a little bit, or in an old pair of pantyhose down in a cool,
dry location. Don't store these in peat moss or vermiculite like you would other bulbs,
just store them loose and let them hang down in a dry location where it's about 45 to 55
degrees. And then go ahead and plant them back in the spring.