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Updated: May 29, 2025
Last of all, it is seen in the house of mourning, and at the graves of the dead, where its sweet cheerfulness seems to speak a message of comfort to the living. Habits of Growth. The gladiolus is a bulbous plant that grows only in the warm season of the year. It may be grown from bulbs, bulblets, or seeds. Amateurs have to do mainly with bulbs, as their chief object is to produce flowers.
He can, in time, make arrangements for growing seed himself, and thus save the expense of buying, besides enjoying the satisfaction of knowing its excellence. Another way of starting is by purchasing small stock. This has the advantage of making salable bulbs the first year, also quantities of bulblets, but there is another side to the question, which is less encouraging.
The May and Augusta are exceedingly prolific, while the Shakespeare is just the opposite. A bulb too small to bloom will yield many times more bulblets than a large one of the same variety. Sometimes as many as two hundred bulblets have been found on a single bulb.
Give good culture, and the outcome will be a crop of blooming bulbs, and most likely a fair yield of bulblets. There is another difficulty that besets some lovers of this beautiful flower who take pains to procure fine collections, and give them the best of care, according to their knowledge.
As success with bulbs depends largely upon the use and management of bulblets, so success with bulblets depends, to a great extent, upon the care given them while out of the ground. This has been dwelt upon in a former chapter, and may be still further emphasized to good advantage. Bulblets may easily be kept too dry, and herein lies the principal danger.
Not only this, but they grow much larger for the peeling, and also yield a fair product of bulblets, thus increasing their rate of multiplication in various ways. When I first heard of the advantages of peeling bulblets I decided to try it, and engaged a number of girls to do the work at their homes in the winter, paying ten cents an hour.
Let us suppose the case of a person who grows bulbs in his garden for flowers, and saves only the bulbs, allowing the bulblets to go to waste as of no value, and this is exactly what many people do. What is the result?
If it meets with no misfortune it will produce a perfect spike of flowers, and perhaps a dozen or twenty pods of seed. When taken up in the fall, the bulb is almost certain to be small and flat, on account of having exhausted its vitality in blooming and seed-bearing, and if it yields any bulblets they will probably be so diminutive as to be thought not worth saving.
Even if the bulblets have been kept in perfect condition, the shells are somewhat of an obstruction to their growth, and it is easy to see that the removal of these would be a great advantage by giving the kernels freedom to start and flourish unhindered.
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