Tips on becoming a tad mad about glads

Never let it be said that my gardens are elegant.

Wild, maybe. Weedy, probably. Confused, definitely.

My problem, if you will, is that I embrace plants with insidious tendencies. I like the concept of invasive. I like the threat of seed dispersal. I like trouble.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered how well gladioluses looked amid all that confusion. The tall and stately glads gave the chaos a hint of order without making me sell out to visions of clipped hedges and formal gardens.

Glads’ grace comes from their clan, the Iris family. With stiff, swordlike leaves, they can provide a sharp foil to rambling vines and bushy perennials, although everything else will fade into insignificance once the plant’s flower spike bursts into bloom.

The 180 gladiolus species originated mainly in South Africa, with some from the Mediterranean region, Arabia, Madagascar and West Asia. Over the years, the number of cultivars has blossomed into a Technicolor rainbow of 10,000 varieties.

Most gladioluses are divided into three groups: grandiflorus, nanus and primulinus.

The grandiflorus glads are the more commonly cultivated, with their “formal” arrangement of flowers that can produce up to 28 of the funnel-shaped blooms on one spike. This group has five sizes — from giant down to miniature — that are determined by the diameter of the bottom flower on the spike (it’s the biggest one). The giants are also tall, topping out at 5 1/2 feet. Miniatures grow about 3 feet tall.

For a more free-flowering effect, the nanus glads have a bit more air between the blossoms, but they only produce about seven buds per flower spike. The primulinus glads are even more loosely flowered than the nanus group but can bear up to 23 triangular flowers.

The majority of gladiolus are hardy only to Zone 8, a far cry from Maine’s climate, which means they must be lifted every fall. An exception is the winter-hardy gladiolus, offered at many garden centers and in catalogs.

I spotted a collection of winter-hardy glads just a couple of weeks ago in a catalog. Listed as Gladiolus nanus, the description said they were hardy to Zone 5, which applies to parts of Maine. I tried these glads once, and while they survived one winter in my Zone 4 (but sometimes Zone 3) plot, they didn’t make it through a second winter. Maybe I should have mulched.

But lifting glads in the fall isn’t as onerous a task as you might expect. I’d always thought it was too much trouble, but last autumn I decided that my newfound love for my glads and their vibrant hues was enough to make me want to try to save them.

After the first frost, I pulled the plants out of the ground and set them to dry in the wheelbarrow. A few days later, I broke the leaves and stems off from the corms, which I tossed — roots and all — in a box. Into the root cellar they went, not emerging until early June when I plopped myself and the box down on the lawn and proceeded to pry off the dried roots.

I ended up bruising most of my fingertips before wrenching the last of the roots off. Then I headed straight for the vegetable patch to plant my old glad collection. It looks like nearly all of them survived the winter in my dubious care.

Last year’s glads included a vibrant pink-edged white with a yellow throat and a deep purple with a creamy white throat. I also had a peachy one and a white variety with a lavender splotch.

Their names long ago escaped from my memory, but it was names that drew me to the five new glads I planted this spring. These additions to my collection came from Pinetree Garden Seeds (Box 300, New Gloucester, ME 04260, telephone 926-3400), which includes a helpful mention of approximate blossom times for each variety and timetables for early, midseason and late varieties. All of that helps plan your glads’ planting schedule, if you worry about those things. I just toss them all in at once and let nature work its wonders.

But back to the names. To start it all off, I had to get Purple Passion, an early bloomer with deep purple flowers and white markings. Resistance on my part was futile when I read about Play Time, a rosy pink variety that sports eight to 10 flowers in bloom at one time. It should just about finish flowering when Garden Party’s deep rose shade takes over.

Bridging any bloom-time gap between those two will be Forget-Me-Not, which cannot disappoint if it’s the color its name promises, and Peppermint, which should add spice to any bouquet with its green — yes, green — blossoms.

I could have tried a yellow variety, or a red or a salmon or a blue glad. I even could have tried one listed in the smoky category, but the words “smoky brown” made me wonder how glad I would be when it blossomed.

I couldn’t try any more, however, because I had to save some room for a nice little bag of acidanthera, horticulturally known as Gladiolus callianthus. I’ve long planted this elegant variety, with its white flowers and maroon throat. Long, dainty tubes holding the flowers curve away from the stalk, letting the blossoms gently dance in any breeze. And if you have enough acidanthera planted, that breeze will waft the most delicious scent around the yard.

Like other glads, acidanthera corms can be pulled and wintered over.

After my replanting success this year, my only worry for next spring is where I’ll find the room for more of the 9,990 glads I haven’t tried yet.

Janine Pineo is a NEWS copy editor.