Gladiolus tristis

Rescued from the mice. They had just come in to flower too, so they will do as cut flowers for now in the kitchen! #gladiolus #gladiolus-tristis #gladiolustristis #gladioli #wintergladiolus

Lovely colour 😁

@richard.spicer.7906..... These look stunning Richard.... beautiful photo.

Wowzers, they’re beautiful Richard

They are simply stunning Rich 🤩🤩🤩

Your mice have exotic tastes

Well saved Richard! They are superb. It must be like dining at The Savoy for your resident mice! 🐁

Beautiful 🤍

I now have a vision of you wrestling them off the mice 🐭 🤣

What beautiful regal flowers 🤍

Evening 👋🏼 - not much to report in the garden just yet, but working lots on new beds. Mostly digging over grassy weeds and removing old cherry tree roots! Progress is happening though. In the meantime, it’s time for the winter Glads to flower in the tunnel. The smell of Gladiolus tristis is amazing! Quite spindly though but they are bulking up well. They self seed a bit too easily in the tunnel, popping up in random other spots 🫢

That’s so pretty, just love the green stripe 💚

Hi Rich 👋 Loving the little white windmill 😂😘

Could probably spare a couple of these too. It’s very thin foliage, almost like grass. Probably do better grown in groups which support each other. But noticed an odd thing they do which is spread also by runners ?!? Think I’ve had more pop up from runners than from seed come to think of it… they have spread into the crocus beds @sieveheadsarah

😄 they do look like little windmills! @jacaranda

@richard.spicer.7906 ..... Beautiful.

Oh that’d be fab Richard, thank you 👍🏼😀

👌🏻☺️

😍😍

They are very elegant looking flowers Rich 🤍💚🤍

Wow they are so beautiful Rich🤍🤍

Ooooh another beauty ❤️❤️

05/05/19 - I had, until last winter before my polytunnel, a nice growing collection of winter growing South African bulbs including species gladioli and Watsonia. However, my temporary winter home for them was not enough to keep them from the beast from the east storm last spring and they all died ☹️ so I’m having to build up the collection again. Last autumn I bought both bulbs and seeds of this Gladiolus tristis. Winter growing forms start growing in the autumn and flower early spring,

And are summer dormant where they need to be kept completely dry. The polytunnel has completely changed how I look after this South African bulbs now and pleased to report all my seeds germinated (will take two-years to reach flowering size) but also the two bulbs I had I also flowering there socks off for the past three weeks 😄👏🏼👏🏼

#gladiolus #gladiolus-tristis #everfloweringgladiolus #wintergladiolus #gladiolispecies #wintersouthafricanbulbs

It’s quite a delicate thin stem, so I’ve been nervous about snapping them. I’m hoping when more develop over the next couple of years they will support each other as the grow. And pleased the seeds germinated so easily, about 40 in total 😄 @cyndi

I definitely know you have an extensive education in horticulture. I learned that a little bit of air, ex. Light wind/artificial wind (fan) can and will strengthen some thin stalks/stems. Not telling u that you need to do it but it did work for me. I believe as long as it doesn’t get a bit of a strong wind now it’ll grow to b strong. Our amazing Mother Nature. All your flowers are amazing 😉😊💕

Next up in my new set of #gladiolispecies - Gladiolus tristis , another winter growing species. 4 bulbs planted , soil mix of John Innes 3, silver sand, plenty of grit and a bit of multipurpose compost too. #gladiolus #bulb #gladiolus-tristis #wintergladiolus

again, not frost hardy so needs winter protection.