Allium (decorative bow) Gladiator: description, photo, planting and care

Content

1 Description
2 Growing from seeds
3 How and when to plant in open ground
4 Care
5 Diseases and pests
6 Reproduction
7 Photo in landscape design
8 Conclusion
9 Testimonials

Allium Gladiator (Allium Gladiator) - a hybrid form of culture created on the basis of Aflatun onion and McLean variety. A perennial tall plant with large peduncles is grown not only for garden design, but also for cutting.

Description

Allium Gladiator is a tall variety of culture. The plant is frost-resistant, suitable for gardens of a temperate climatic zone. Perennial culture is unpretentious in care, calmly reacts to moisture deficit and unstable spring temperatures.

Allium Gladiator can grow on the site for more than 7 years

After planting with seeds, it reaches reproductive age in the third year of the growing season. Calmly reacts to direct sunlight and partial shade. The wild species of Allium is endemic, tied to clay soils. This feature has been passed on to all hybrid forms.

Biological characteristics of Allium Gladiator:

The height of the decorative bow is 120 cm.
Leaves are formed in the lower part, the plates are narrow, elongated with pointed tops. The surface is plain bright green, smooth, glossy. The leaves are edible, with a pungent garlic odor.
Peduncles are round, hollow inside, strong, tough, do not bend from the wind, a tone lighter than leaves.
A large spherical inflorescence with a diameter of up to 25 cm is formed at the top of the stems.
The flowers are small, stellate, six-petaled, collected in numerous umbellate inflorescences, the dense arrangement of which forms a ball.
The color of the petals is blue-violet, the core is green.
The bulb is oval, with numerous children, up to 3.5 cm in diameter. The inside is beige, parchment scales, dark brown.

Important! Waterlogging of the soil must not be allowed.

Allium bulb Gladiator, with an excess of water, quickly rots, it will be impossible to save the plant.

Allium Gladiator blooms at the end of May, cycle duration - 1.5 months

Growing from seeds

The flowers are bisexual, so the decorative Gladiator bow provides a full-fledged material for generative reproduction. Seeds are harvested after allium blooms when they begin to crumble. If the material is not ripe, it will not sprout. After collection, place in a cloth bag and put in the refrigerator. In the spring, you can sow allium Gladiator on a flower bed. This method of reproduction is used only for the mass cultivation of planting material.

At home, the method is not productive, from the moment of planting the seeds to the flowering of the allium, the Gladiator will take 3-4 years. The initial growing season focuses on the formation of the bulb, when it reaches the required size, the plant will form an arrow and bloom.

Important! With generative reproduction, you can get the allium Gladiator with different colors, at the heart of the hybrid varieties are raspberry and bright purple, they will appear singly in an adult plant.

To speed up the time before allium Gladiator blooms, you can grow seedlings:

Seed placement is carried out immediately after collection.
Fill containers with a mixture of clay, sand and compost, add calcium.
The material is sown into shallow furrows.
Watered and placed in a room at a temperature of +20 ⁰
In a favorable environment, the seeds will germinate in 3 weeks.
They are left indoors until spring, periodically watered.
In March, they begin to temper the allium, gradually lower the temperature.
At the time of disembarkation, the temperature regime should coincide with the indicator of the open area.

Allium Gladiator does not dive into separate containers, for bulb crops such a procedure is undesirable

How and when to plant in open ground

Allium Gladiator is planted in open ground in the spring or at the end of the season. The plant takes root well and hibernates, is not afraid of recurrent frosts, so there are no advantages in choosing the time for work. The timing is based on the weather characteristics of the region. In the spring, the earth should warm up to +8 ⁰C, in autumn the air temperature should not be lower than +10⁰C.

Sequence of work:

The soil is dug up, the nutrient mixture and ash are introduced.
A recess is made for seedlings 10 * 10 cm. For a bulb, the depth should be 3 times greater than the height of the planting material.
The deepening requirements depend on the growing method. If the material is not dug up for winter storage indoors, the drainage is not put. If left on the site, then the bottom is covered with pebbles, middle fraction.

For mass planting, the interval between decorative onions is 20-30 cm.

Several bulbs can be placed in one hole to keep the bush thick

The plant is not mulched so that the material does not retain excess moisture, especially in the rainy season.

Care

Allium Gladiator's agricultural technology consists of the following activities:

Obligatory loosening of the soil for better enrichment with oxygen, this measure is especially relevant in the first years of the growing season, when the bulb is formed.
The constant removal of weeds, the event is of an aesthetic nature and relieves the decorative onion from the threat of fungal infection.
The plant is watered only in the drought season, basically allium has enough rainfall. The culture responds better to dry soil than to waterlogged soil.
Top dressing is a prerequisite, it is given to the culture throughout the season. In the spring, nitrogen is introduced, during flowering - complex mineral fertilizers, in the beginning of autumn calcium and phosphorus are needed.
After flowering, the aerial part dies off; before the onset of frost, it is removed.

If the bulbs are left on the site, they are covered with peat mixed with organic matter. In cold regions, the underground part is dug up and stored at a temperature not higher than +4 ⁰C.

Diseases and pests

Allium Gladiator is a hybrid variety that gets sick if the conditions of agricultural technology are not followed.

In unfavorable conditions for growth, it can be affected by cervical rot. The first foci of infection appear on dying leaves in the fall. The bulb will not survive until spring if left in the soil. Therefore, the underground part is dug up, dried in the sun and heat treated. Turn on the oven on the 48-50 mode ⁰C, the onions are placed on a baking sheet and allowed to stand for 60 minutes.

Of the pests, tobacco thrips parasitizes on allium. Insecticides are used in the fight against insects. The main threat is posed by onion fly larvae. Get rid of pests with "Aktaroy".

For preventive purposes, allium Gladiator is treated in early spring and at the first signs of the appearance of larvae

Reproduction

Allium Gladiator is propagated by seeds, direct planting in the ground or seedlings. The material can be sown on a flower bed in late autumn, it will undergo natural stratification and will sprout in the spring. You can carry out work in early spring, the seedlings are placed on the site at the beginning of the growing season.

Initially, the bulbs can be purchased from a specialist store. After 3 years, children will grow around them. They are separated and planted in a flower bed. The procedure is carried out at the beginning of the season or after flowering. If allium is dug up for the winter, then the planting material is divided at the beginning of the growing season.

Photo in landscape design

Hybrid Gladiator is used to decorate park areas, in gardens and on personal plots as an element of decor. Can be grown in a container as an annual plant and decorate any corner of the garden or veranda.

When composing a composition on a flower bed, it is taken into account that the decorative part of the plant is high peduncles and large purple balls of inflorescences. Leaves with drooping tops and dark spots on the surface are not of particular value, and sometimes even spoil the overall picture.Therefore, for mass planting, they are combined with plants that cover the leaf area in height.

A few examples with a photo of how you can use the Allium Gladiator in gardening:

Mixborder with ephedra and undersized flowering and ornamental crops.
Create a high curb around the edge of the garden path.
Solo in the center of the rockery in a joint landing with the hosts.
Allium as the centerpiece of the composition, combined with daylily and flowering plants.
Lawn design option using allium Gladiator.

Conclusion

Allium Gladiator is a tall hybrid crop variety. A plant with large bright purple inflorescences is used in the design of gardens, plots, and is used in floristry. Allium is unpretentious in cultivation, frost-resistant, does not react to a lack of moisture. The perennial plant is propagated by seeds and bulbs.

Testimonials

Natalia Potapova, 62 years old, Suzdal

At the dacha, the allium variety Gladiator has been growing for 6 years along the perimeter of the front fence. A plant in a linear planting looks solemn, gives the site a special flavor. I propagated decorative onions on my own by children. The survival rate of the variety is high, allium grows quickly, does not get sick, for all the years there have been no pests. I don't dig up bulbs for the winter, I cover the bushes with peat and straw on top, there were no problems with wintering either.

Maria Starykh, 48 years old, Yeysk

The house is located in the suburbs, the plot is large, part of the free area is occupied by a garden. I have alliums of different varieties, among them the Gladiator is the tallest. The stems, unlike other varieties, never bend from a gust of wind. Crop care is insignificant, the only thing I do is fertilize alliums on a regular basis. The air humidity from the sea is always high, but the plants never got sick, they noted thrips from the pests, and only once.

Decorative bow (allium) Gladiator: photo, description, planting and care