How to grow a gladiolus at home?

Beautiful flower beds fill the garden with bright colors. The flowers are given the most honorable place. Bulb plants deserve special attention , the magnificence of which is surprisingly combined with the simplicity of cultivation.

Gladiolus. Short description

The Iris family numbers a lot of plants incomparable in beauty. A popular representative of this family are gladiolus, or skewers. A perennial tuberous plant has been known since ancient times and has a rich history. The natural environment of growth is the tropics and subtropics of Europe, Asia and Africa. Swordsmen differ in a variety of shapes. Tens of thousands of varieties of garden gladioli and at least two hundred natural species are known.

A graceful long plant has vertical stems. Its height is from fifty centimeters to one and a half meters. Hard leaves, the length of which reaches eighty centimeters, like a sharp blade of a sword, rush upward. Funnel-shaped flowers have a different color and shape. The spicate inflorescence can be quite dense or loose.

How to grow gladioli? General rules for planting

To grow a full-fledged gladiolus, which will please with abundant and beautiful flowering, it is necessary to observe certain rules of agricultural technology. Swords - moisture-loving and heat-loving plants. For planting bulbs, the important point is the site selection. Gladiolus will be powerful and healthy in a well-lit, sheltered from wind and draft area. In poor light, plants are strongly stretched and bloom poorly. The normal development of the flower is ensured by the fertility of the soil. The most suitable type is chernozem or light loamy soil. When planting, superfluous fertilizers will be superfluous. They are added to the well for each plant.

Gladiolus - vigorous flowers. The question arises: how to grow a gladiolus, so that the stem is stable and does not break down? The correct depth of planting will contribute to a stable fixation of the plant in the ground. After selecting a site for the flower bed and preparing the soil, ready-to-plant corms are sorted by size.

Large corms deepen by ten centimeters, the average - by five to seven. Small bulbs - babies - are planted to a depth of two to three centimeters. The distance between the holes is from five to fifteen centimeters (depending on the size of the planting material).

How to grow a gladiolus at home? Selection of pots for growing

Bulbous flowers can be found not only in the garden flower beds. Swordsmen sometimes settle in the most unexpected places. Growing gladioli in the open field is not the only possible variant of planting bulbous flowers. In artificial soil they will be an ornament of any interior. But before you grow a gladiolus, you need to solve a number of issues. First of all, you need to choose the right container in which flowers will grow. The mistakes made do not allow you to get a full flowering plant. In order to solve the problem of how to grow a gladiolus with a normal developed root system, it is necessary to know the degree of its proliferation. It branches into the soil to a depth of forty centimeters. The full nutrition of the flower can provide a layer of soil not less than forty-five centimeters thick. Based on this parameter, a suitable container for growing is selected. You can use large flower pots or plastic containers, the capacity of which should be at least twelve to fifteen liters.

Gladiolus on the windowsill. Landing rules

Unusual spectacle - gladiolus on the window of a dwelling. How to grow a gladiolus in a pot, so that it is healthy and fully developed and blossomed? At home, more suitable are small-flowered and miniature varieties of skewers. They have a height of the stem from thirty to fifty centimeters. The root system of colors of these varieties is less powerful. The choice of a suitable capacity has already been said. The drainage hole must be present in the pot. Flowers do not tolerate stagnation of moisture. Fill the bottom of the tank with drainage material, which will ensure normal outflow of water. A good drainage system will ensure normal growing conditions. The pot is filled with soil, which must be quite fertile and simultaneously water-wet. On its composition depends the success of growing full-fledged plants. Corms in pots are deepened by eight to twelve centimeters, maintaining a distance between them of six to seven centimeters.

How to grow a gladiolus on the balcony. Selecting a Flower Container

Decorative design of balconies and loggias is impossible without flowers. Bulb plants can be used for this purpose. When choosing varieties preference is given to gladiolus with a small height of the stem. In order to organize a miniature flower garden, select suitable containers. In this case, you can use containers of the necessary size.

Florists are selected according to the same principle, which is also used when choosing pots for growing gladioli. They must have a volume of not less than fifteen liters. Usually large balconies are used on balconies or loggias, in which more plants can be planted than in pots used for growing indoors.

How to grow gladioli from bulbs to ensure a normal water balance? Containers must have holes for outflow of water. Before filling them with soil mixture, drainage material should be placed on the bottom. The soil must be sufficiently fertile. At home, you can use purchased universal light peat soils, designed for growing flower crops.

Flower garden at home. Agrotechnics of cultivation

Before you grow a gladiolus on a window or balcony, you should study the conditions for planting and keeping these colors. In the open ground gladioli planted at a soil temperature of at least ten degrees Celsius. In the conditions of the closed ground, the swordsmen begin to plant from the middle of April.

When choosing the location for the placement of pots and containers on the windowsill, balcony or loggia, it should be borne in mind that gladiolus are heat-loving and light-loving plants. Containers with flowers are located in well-lit places. Plants do not tolerate drafts and low air temperature. When growing on the balcony you need to monitor the temperature regime. When cooling to ten degrees Celsius, containers are temporarily brought into the room.

The first shoots appear two or three weeks after planting. At this time, it is important to ensure proper hydration of flowers. Lack of moisture will necessarily affect the growth of the plant. It will be weak and will lose its decorative form. Provide a moderate watering, avoiding overmoistening. The preservation of moisture can be ensured by mulching peat. In this case, it will serve as an additional fertilizing of the plant. Also, attention should be paid to air exchange. The soil in the tank is constantly loosened, thereby providing air access to the root system of the gladiolus.

The next important thing is the feeding of gladioli. In conditions of a closed ground without them not to manage. How to grow flowers to ensure a sufficient diet? Normal development and flowering of gladioli will require three or four foliar fertilizing with mineral fertilizers, for the preparation of which the following substances are dissolved in one liter of water:

• Ammonium nitrate - 0.5 g;
• Superphosphate - 0.5 g;
• Potassium chloride - 0.5 g.

Terms of additional dressings are as follows:

• The first is the appearance of three leaves;
• The second is the appearance of six leaves;
• The third is the beginning of flowering.

Preventive measures

The next part of agrotechnical measures for growing gladioli at home is preventive methods. In conditions of closed ground, plants develop much weaker than flowers grown in garden flower beds.

How to grow gladioli from bulbs in pots and containers, in order to prevent the disease of flowers? First of all, you should use a healthy planting material, which before disinfection is disinfected for thirty minutes in a solution of potassium permanganate. For its preparation per liter of water, 0.5 grams of potassium permanganate is sufficient. During the growth period, they control the condition of the flowers and carry out the necessary preventive measures.

Planting material. Cleaning and storage

Cleaning gladioli in open ground conditions is carried out in late September and early October. The corms ripen four weeks after the flowering stops. In conditions of a closed ground, the flowering period lasts a little longer. The cleaning time is then shifted accordingly. When harvesting, the plants are completely excavated from the soil. After that, they are dried and the stems are cut off.

The bulbs are cleaned from the ground and rinsed with water. Then they are kept in a solution of potassium permanganate and then dried well. Then remove the old bulbs and root system. The final stage is careful drying, which will last up to fourteen days.

Store the gladioli bulbs in a dry place at a temperature of three to eight degrees Celsius. At home, gladioli can be stored in paper bags or cardboard boxes, placing them on the lower shelf of the refrigerator.

Propagation of gladiolus

Apply several methods of reproduction - seeds and small onion bulbs, babies. The latter method is more common. How to grow a gladiolus from children?

Tuber belly is a wonderful material for the reproduction of a cogwheel. Babies are formed on the main bulb. They are small in size. In order to accelerate the flowering of this planting material, in March it is sown in containers. Depth of sowing is from two to three centimeters. The gladiolus baby will grow in a container until September. Care for plants is the same as for flowers grown from large corms. At the end of the season, the baby grows up to three centimeters. In the next season, such corms will become an excellent planting material for full flowering plants.