Hello! My name's Irina, and I like gladioli very much! On this web-page you will find a lot of interesting and, I hope, useful information. I tried not to repeat what it is possible to read in any reference book. The stuff that you will find here has partly been taken from rare editions, other things have been translated from foreign ones.
I hope, you will discover for yourselves something new about these amazing flowers - gladioli!
But at first let us meet them. If we consult an encyclopedia, we can read the following information about gladioli:
"One of the best cut flowers, gladiolus has tall, tightly packed spikes of beautiful ruffled, irregular flowers with contrasting throats. Its underground organ is the bulb (or corm), where the nutrient matters are accumulated. A corm is a solid, fibrous-coated mass with a basal plate below and buds, sometimes called eyes, on top. The blossoms open in sequence from the bottom up, all facing the same way. They come in solids or bicolors in all hues. As gladioluses start blooming already about two months after they are planted, it can be done in late spring, summer or fall. Each plant has one flower stem and several sword-shaped leaves".
Beyond this impartial scientific information there is a magnificence of colours, hues, and shapes. Some people consider gladiolus to be a formal, stand-offish and stiff flower. But it can only seem to those who do not know gladioluses!
© Irina Antipina, 2003-2012
