Usually caring for gladioli is a pleasure. They need to be watered on time, regularly loosen the soil and carry out the necessary weeding. But many beginner gardeners are faced with unexpected complexity: how to save gladioli until spring. What needs to be done to make flowers glad with bright colors in the new season, professional summer residents advise.
Secrets of cutting gladiolus inflorescences
If you decide to get a viable planting material from faded plants, you need to know the technology of pruning buds. Inflorescences are cut off when two or three of the lowest flowers on the stem are fully opened. How to keep gladioli healthy during such a procedure? There are two simple rules to follow:
- Each plant should have at least 5-6 leaves.
- And the remaining piece of the peduncle must be carefully covered with leaves so that excess moisture does not get on the cut. If this is not done, the gladiolus may die from any infection or mold.
To reliably shelter the place of cut, you need to enter a sharp garden knife directly into the leaf outlet, and then make two oblique cuts. They should go to the middle of the peduncle on both sides of the trunk. When the bud is removed, the leaves themselves will reliably hide the place of cut.
Winter storage of bulbs
Experienced gardeners note that without their own dry basement or a well-insulated balcony, saving this amazing flower will not work. It will be much easier to purchase new planting material when the time comes for spring planting. How to keep gladioli in winter, if the desire to have your usual varieties is strong enough? You must adhere to the following action plan:
- Bulbs usually begin to be dug up on the 40-50th day after the plant has already completely faded or all the necessary inflorescences are cut off. Most often, this period falls on the second half of September, very rarely at the beginning of October.
- How to keep gladioli until spring viable? It is necessary to throw away all diseased specimens. To identify them, the bulbs are removed from the soil only in dry weather, cleaned from clods of earth. Next, inspect for damage, rot and separate weak children.
- Each stalk needs to be shortened to a hemp state of 1 cm. If the bulb developed from a baby, she needs to shorten the roots by half, and if it was an adult gladiolus, all roots must be cut off completely. Each future planting material is carefully washed in slightly warm water, and then incubated for 20-30 minutes in a weak solution of potassium permanganate.
After all these procedures, the question of how to keep gladioli until spring healthy should be resolved. All planting material is dried in the open air, laying out the bulbs in one layer. This is followed by a two-week rest in a dry room, at a minimum temperature of 25-30 ° C. After which it will still be necessary to withstand the bulbs at 20-22 ° C for at least another month. All material must be regularly turned over in a box, and if sick or weak specimens are found, discard. How to keep gladioli until spring next? Very simple. If the grower copes with all of the above procedures, it remains to place the box with bulbs in a dry basement, where the temperature will be unchanged (from +5 ° C to +9 ° C) until the warm season.