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For many, gladioli are associated with Knowledge Day and school years. Someone remembers these times with nostalgia, but someone does not want to even think about them. Be that as it may, for many years these elegant representatives of bulbous flowers have been considered the main decoration of first-grader bouquets.
Fall is the time to dig up 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 the best time to do this? How to properly store an onion? This article will provide answers to all these questions.
Do I need to dig up gladiolus bulbs?
Some bulbous flowers do not need to be dug up for winter storage. This can be said, for example, about tulips. However, can this rule also be attributed to gladioli? 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, which is facilitated by wet and cold soil. Valuable varieties that you want to propagate next year deserve special attention. It is imperative to dig up valuable varieties of gladioli for the winter.
How to dig
So, digging up gladioli for the winter is a must, but how to do it right? To get started, choose a suitable day, which should be warm and sunny. In this case, drying of planting material will take less time.
Dig up gladioli carefully so as not to damage the bulbs. To do this, the shovel should be stuck into the ground as deep as possible. Before you start shaking the ground from the planting material and searching for children, it is recommended to lay a film or cloth on the ground. So, turning the soil onto a base made of fabric or polyethylene, you can save all the kids.
Digging up gladiolus bulbs for the winter, you do not need to remove the husk from them. The only exceptions are those that have severe damage. Severely spoiled planting material will not last until spring, so it must be destroyed immediately after collection from the soil.
Old bulbs are to be disposed of. Leaves and stems of healthy flowers should be completely cut off. It is allowed to leave a small cutting, which has a length of no more than 2 cm. The roots also need to be cut. As for the roots on the children, they only need to be shortened slightly, and in the spring before planting – completely removed.
When to dig
Now consider the question of when to dig up gladioli in the fall. To determine the period of digging corms, you need to remember the period 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 up on September 1.
If you have a lot of gladiolus, then you will not be able to remember the flowering period of each. In such cases, you can keep a diary in which the flowering period of each plant will be noted. According to the records, the period when you need to dig up planting material is determined.
If you do not cut the flower, then it will take 15-20 days more to form the bulb. That is, it is possible to dig up planting material only 45–55 days after the start of flowering.
According to statistics, in the non-chernozem part of Our Country, the flowering of gladioli begins in the second half of August. Therefore, the period of digging 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 digging up gladioli, you do not have to look for young onions separately in the ground. At the same time, early digging will not affect a healthy bulb in any way. Not fully 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.
Tubers should be dug in dry sunny weather. First of all, early varieties of gladioli should be removed from the soil, and then later ones. In order not to get confused about where which varieties are, experienced gardeners grow early gladioli separately from later ones. If you follow these guidelines, the question of when to dig up and how to store gladiolus will be 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 up the gladioli, they must be protected from diseases. 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. A 0,3% solution should be obtained. Gladiolus bulbs 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 from karbofos for 10–15 minutes.
Drying of planting material precedes storage, which usually lasts about 2 months. Dry the bulbs in a well-ventilated area at room temperature. During this period, it is necessary to inspect the bulbs in order to timely remove diseased and unsuitable for future storage and planting from them.
Storage in winter
If you have collected bulbs with children, then after drying, they should be separated. In order for gladioli to overwinter and delight the eye in the future, you can put a few cloves of peeled garlic near them. So, you will be able to protect planting material from winter hardships such as disease and parasites.
In order not to have to throw away all the planting material in the spring, it is necessary to provide it with modern insecticides. Experienced gardeners recommend storing bulbs in mesh bags. Thus, round-the-clock ventilation is provided. The optimum storage temperature is +2˚С.
Children should be thoroughly washed, dried and sorted into varieties. Boxes can be tagged. In winter, the bulbs need to be checked for diseases from time to time. If mold is found on the tubers, it is important to immediately ventilate the room, thus lowering the humidity. And planting material must be sprinkled with hydrophobic material.
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, in 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 the flower bed. An answer was also given to the question of whether it is possible not to dig up the bulbs and what the consequences of inaction might be. We suggest you also watch the video on the topic:
