Say gladiolus and most people picture the big stiff spikes of the show bench, staked, lifted every autumn and a little bit municipal. The dwarf gladioli are another thing altogether. These are slender, hardy little plants at a third of the height, up in early summer over a long season, and they ask for almost none of the fuss. You put them in during the autumn, leave them where they are, and they get on with it.
When Does A Dwarf Gladiolus Flower
From early June, and on through the summer. Each corm sends up a graceful spike of well spaced florets, far daintier than its tall cousins, and then throws a second and sometimes a third spike behind it, so the show runs for weeks rather than a fortnight. At around thirty centimetres they belong at the front of a border or in a sunny pocket of the rock garden, exactly where the big ones would look absurd.
How Are They Different From The Big Glads
This is the whole appeal of them. The large summer gladioli are tender, so they get staked against the wind, lifted before the frosts and stored dry all winter, which is a good deal of work for a fortnight of colour. The dwarf sorts are hardy. They go in during the autumn, they are untroubled by wind and want no cane, and the toughest of them, communis byzantinus, will settle in and spread on its own in a warm sunny spot. Plant them once and you are very nearly done.
Where And How Do You Plant Them
Full sun and free draining ground, the sharper the better. They come from the Cape and the Mediterranean and expect that same baking, open position, so a gritty bed, a sunny bank or the foot of a warm wall all suit them, where heavy wet clay does not. Ten centimetres deep and ten apart, corms going in through the autumn. Give them the sun they are asking for and they will want nothing else.
Spend and Save
The more you plant, the more you save. The discount applies to your whole order, and delivery is free over £100.
Are They Good For Cutting
Few small flowers cut better. The spikes are sized for a jug rather than a grand vase, they stand well in water, and a short row grown along the edge of the vegetable patch keeps the house in flowers through early summer without robbing the border of a thing. Prince Claus has been a fixture in Chris’s garden for years, grown as much for the kitchen table as for the bed.
Which Dwarf Gladiolus Should You Choose
Reach for communis byzantinus if you want the one that stays. It carries slender spikes of an intense rosy magenta in early summer, it is far and away the hardiest of the group, and left in peace in a sunny spot it naturalises into a drift over the years in a way none of the others quite manage.
The nanus are the ones for colour and for the vase. Prince Claus is pure white with a solid cerise pink flash across the lower petals, Nymph a white splashed with deep carmine, Mirella a deep crimson red veined darker still, and the Mixed bag hands you the whole lot at once. Every one of them is daintier and less trouble than a tall gladiolus, and all of them run on into August.
Plant These With Your Dwarf Gladioli
The dwarf gladioli keep company with the other sun lovers of early summer. Alliums flower with them at much the same time, the wiry spikes of ixia enjoy exactly the same baked, sharp drained ground, and nectaroscordum lifts its nodding bells for a little height behind.
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