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Many people associate gladioli with the Day of Knowledge and school years. Someone with nostalgia recalls these times, but someone does not want to think about them. Be that as it may, for many years now, these elegant representatives of bulbous flowers have been considered the main decoration of first-graders' bouquets.
Autumn is the time to dig up the bulbous flowers, but this is not always necessary. Many novice gardeners are interested in whether it is necessary to dig up gladioli for the winter and when is it better to do it? How to store the bulb correctly? This article will provide answers to all of these questions.
Do I need to dig up gladioli bulbs
Some bulbous flowers do not need to be dug out for winter storage. This can be said, for example, about tulips... However, can this rule be attributed to gladioli as well? Not at all. This is due to the fact that the bulbs of these autumn flowering plants may freeze and not survive the winter.
In addition, in a cold environment, gladioli bulbs are more susceptible to disease. They can also be destroyed by pests, aided by moist and cold soil. Particularly noteworthy are the valuable varieties that you want to multiply next year. It is imperative to dig up valuable varieties of gladioli for the winter.
How to dig
So, digging gladioli for the winter is mandatory, but how to do it right? First, choose a suitable day, which should be warm and sunny. In this case, drying the planting material will take less time.
Dig up gladioli carefully so as not to damage the bulbs. To do this, the shovel should be thrust into the ground as deep as possible. Before you start shaking the earth from the planting material and looking for children, it is recommended to lay a film or cloth on the ground. So, by turning the soil onto a fabric or polyethylene base, you can save all the kids.
Digging the bulbs of gladioli for the winter does not need to remove the husks from them. The only exceptions are those that have severe damage. Severely spoiled planting material will not survive until spring, so it must be destroyed immediately after collection from the soil.
Old bulbs must be disposed of. Leaves and stems of healthy flowers should be trimmed completely. It is allowed to leave a small stalk, which has a length of no more than 2 cm. The roots must also be cut off. As for the roots on children, they only need to be slightly shortened, and in the spring before planting, they must be completely removed.
When to dig
Now consider the question of when to dig gladioli in autumn... To determine the time for digging out corms, you need to remember the time of flowering and cutting flowers. Babies and bulbs ripen within 30-40 days from the day of flowering and cutting. For example, if the flower was cut on August 1, then the planting material is dug out on September 1.
If you have a lot of gladioli, then you will not be able to remember the flowering period of each. In such cases, a diary can be kept in which the flowering period of each plant will be noted. According to the records, the period when it is necessary to dig out the planting material is determined.
If you don't cut the flower, it will take 15-20 days longer to form the bulb. That is, it is possible to dig out planting material only 45–55 days after the beginning of flowering.
According to statistics, in the non-chernozem part of Russia, the flowering of gladioli begins in the second half of August. Therefore, the period for digging out the bulbs falls on the second half of September.
If the corm is not fully ripe, then the children are not yet separated from it, which means that when you dig up gladioli, you do not have to look for young bulbs separately in the ground. At the same time, early digging will not affect a healthy bulb in any way. An incompletely formed baby has a light gray or gray color. A fully ripe young bulb is dark brown, barely distinguishable from the color of the soil.
The tubers should be dug up in dry, sunny weather. First of all, it is necessary to remove the early varieties of gladioli from the soil, and then the later ones. In order not to get confused about where which varieties, experienced gardeners grow early gladioli separately from later ones. If you adhere to these recommendations, then the question of when to dig up and how to store gladioli will become a thing of the past for you, and your flower bed will be complemented by delicious representatives of bulbous flowers.
Disinfection of planting material
After the hostess dug out gladioli, they must be protected from disease. For this, the bulbs are kept in two solutions. The first consists of water and foundation. You should get a weak 0.1% solution. The second composition, in which the planting material will be soaked before wintering, includes water and potassium permanganate. The result should be a 0.3% solution. The bulbs of gladioli should be in each liquid for 30 minutes. If you are unsure of the result after two treatments, then gladioli can be kept in a third solution made of karbofos for 10-15 minutes.
Before storage, drying of the planting material, which usually lasts about 2 months. Dry bulbs in a well-ventilated area at room temperature. During this period, it is necessary to inspect the bulbs in order to timely remove sick and unsuitable for future storage and planting from them.
Winter storage
If you have collected the bulbs with babies, then after drying, they should be separated. To make gladioli overwinter and delight the eye in the future, you can put several cloves of peeled garlic near them. So, you can protect the planting material from winter hardships such as disease and parasites.
In order not to throw out all the planting material in the spring, you need to provide it with modern insecticides. Experienced gardeners recommend storing the bulbs in mesh bags. So, round-the-clock ventilation is provided. Optimum storage temperature + 2˚С.
Children should be thoroughly rinsed, dried and sorted into grades. The boxes can be marked with tags. In winter, the bulbs need to be checked for disease from time to time. If mold is found on the tubers, it is important to immediately ventilate the room, thus reducing the humidity of the air. And the planting material must be sprinkled with a hydrophobic material.
The bulbs on which mold has appeared should be wiped with a cloth moistened with vodka, and then dried. Planting material, with timely processing, will not suffer from mold.
So, from this article, you learned when to dig up gladioli and how to store them, which will allow you to delight your family with beautiful flowers in a flower bed. They also answered the question of whether it is possible not to dig up the bulbs and what the consequences of inaction may be. We suggest you also watch a video on the topic:
