Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi all!

I'm not good on flower knowledge so hoping you can help & advice on the following.

Gladiolus: When do you cut back the spent stems? Do they need to dry off completely or just when top flower dies? Also do you split the bulbs every year, do you lift them for storage etc?

Name unknown flower; Pic below. These were very cheap as part of an end of season offer of perennial plants, but some had no labels. There is a house a few doors down with some & I've been watching for what they are going to do, but nothing seems the answer. I'm concerned about the number of seeds along the stems which are drying from the bottom & there are masses of them & I don't want these popping up all over. If I cut down will they grow from the stem left in or do I have to pop some seeds in & can I cut down now?
Thanks in advance!

PS: It's the yellow ones not the orange monsters!

Nearly cried in our town park, the "gardeners" were using hedge trimmers on the plants in the borders round the Norman castle mound.
They'd trimmed 6" to 8" off the top of the Butchers Broom.

I mean, really............

I'm no flower gardener either, but as a general rule when leaves look like they are dying, I set about them, flower or shrub, not killed too much...............recently.

Sorry Westi, kept meaning to reply to your questions.
With Gladioli, I cut the old flower spike off, but leave the stem and any leaves that are left, to help feed the corm, for next years flowers!
I don’t bother lifting my Glads, I just leave them in the same spot for about six years, then buy new corms, and plant them in a different piece of ground……and chucking the old ones away!
The yellow flowers are Verbascum’s and they seed everywhere if left, so I would cut the long stems off, just leaving a couple of seed capsules on…..

I planted some gladioli this year OH and although they grew beautiful leaves I didn’t get.a flower spike. Is this normal in the first year after planting?

peter wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2024 6:13 pm Nearly cried in our town park, the "gardeners" were using hedge trimmers on the plants in the borders round the Norman castle mound.
They'd trimmed 6" to 8" off the top of the Butchers Broom.

I mean, really............

Erm, blush. I took the gardening shears to a rather overgrown patch t’other day. A lovely bush which produces white spikes of flowers, that orange thing in the original post, a beautiful big lemon balm amongst other things got a good haircut.

I did suffer for it afterwards as it must have been full of bugs and I’m bitten to pieces. Instant karma.

They should have flowered, Myrkk, maybe down to the hot dry Summer last year, as this is when they would have been making the flower spike, for this year!