I only just started planting Glads last year and I know I didn't winter them properly. Basically I just put them in a sealed bucket once I dug them up and left them in an out of the way corner of the kitchen. No spagnum moss or anything in with them and I don't have a basement or garage. Once I discovered my mistake I figured they would be a loss so I went to 'reclaim' the bucket for something else today only to discover the corms have started sprouting! Some of them have almost a full foot of growth. I hadn't planned on planting them for at least another month. Will they be alright if I pot them inside for now? I'll have to put some cayenne down to keep the cats out of the pots but I do have a spot that should get a decent amount of sun. Any advice would be appreciated.
Help! Glads are sprouting
I would pot them up. Put them in a deep pot. Maybe 10 or 12 inches. Put an inch of soil in the bottom. Set the bulbs on it & fill in around the whole sprout.
Glads don't grow a lot of roots until they bloom.
Do you have a Sam's Club in your area? The Miracle Grow potting soil they sell in a large bag would work good. It's $10.84 here.
When your ground is ready & last frost date is near, plant them out in the garden. If you handle carefully, most of the soil will stay with the plant. Plant a few inches deeper than what was in the pot.
On storing glads; They do not need to be in any kind of peat moss, etc. In fact in a container that will let air through is best, like an onion bag. Cool place & fairly dark with some air movement are the keys. 40º to 50º works.
Good Luck,
Bernie
Thanks for the info, Bernie! I really was surprised when I opened that bucket to find them sprouting.
Would putting them in the fridge work next fall? As I said I don't have a basement or a garage so no place that gets below about 60F. I could store them at my parents' house but I'd rather not if I don't have to. Oh, don't mind me, Mom. I just need a place to store a few hundred Glad and Dahlia bulbs. LOL
Is your Garage unheated ? If so a few pieces of foam sheeting & a $12.00 electric heater can make a storage unit. There would be a thermostat on the heater, & with a little playing around with it, you could get it set to keep the box at 45º. Some have a fan to move the air around.
We made boxes to hold the glads. They have ¼" screen bottoms.
We have our cooler tore apart for a new building so we had to improvise this year. We have unheated storage area in our shop that we are using. They are keeping well.
Bernie has you started on the right track. Since the corms have been put under a lot of stress, may I suggest you start a new selection of corms too. If you are interested in more information on growing gladiolus may I suggest looking in www.gladworld.org
This site is sponsored by the North American Gladiolus Council. You may be interested in knowing that there are 5 affiliate societys in NY.
Good growing.
LD
Bernie, I don't have a garage at all. That's why I was asking about the fridge though now that I think about it I'm sure I'll have far too many to fit them *and* my own food. I suspect I'll be clearing space in my parents' garage come this fall. Technically it's not heated but it's a basement garage underneath the living room so it's fairly cool but never below freezing.
Thanks for the link, LD. If I lost these I wouldn't be happy but it wouldn't be the end of the world either. It's only about a dozen or so corms. At last count I had roughly 300 corms on order from various places and, thanks to my poor impulse control, I just bought 140 Butterfly Glads and 120 Abyssinian Glads from Costco yesterday. That was actually what got me to look in the bucket and discover the sprouts.
My glads sprouted in January and so I put them in my seed fridge and just about froze them and when I turned the fridge down they started growing again. I finally took pity on these ever-ready-bunny glads and potted them up a couple of weeks ago. They've broken soil and are growing just fine. It's gonna be way too weird to have glads in June I think but these guys are on a mission LOL.
Definitely weird, but a lovely bit of early color. I have three pots with 2 dozen bulbs sprouting. I know of at least one more that should be breaking surface any day in the back pot. You can just barely see it in this picture. My kitty Mischa decided the unsprouted Calla pot was the perfect place to sleep. LOL I just found her like that this morning but apparently it's not the first time. I'd been wondering why there was dirt around the pot but the bulbs were relatively undisturbed.
LOL Gladlover! She's incubating them for you! Doesn't she look like she's found a little nest?
She looks just like our cat, except he's more prone to nibble on my plants than curl up among them!
Booker
LIGladLover Love that picture!! It looks like you were disturbing her sleep by the look on her face!
This message was edited Mar 24, 2008 11:01 AM
LOL I frequently get that hauty look of feline disdain from Mischa. She's my little princess kitty. My other one Molly is the family brat. I've been really lucky in that they don't eat the plants. They just tend to knock things over that aren't heavy or stable enough.