CHAPTER XIII 



HALF-HARDY BULBS 

 Gladioli Ixias Sparaxises Babianas Morphixias Tritonias 



GLADIOLI 



ALTHOUGH there are some districts in which the greater 

 number of the Gladioli may be grown as hardy bulbs 

 and left in the same position for years without removal, 

 in the vast majority of British gardens they are more 

 satisfactorily treated as half-hardy, and are lifted and 

 replanted annually. They are less liable to disease, and 

 less apt to be injured by frost in severe winters. Those, 

 however, who wish to establish them permanently, will 

 do well to plant rather deeper than is usually recom- 

 mended say, eight inches from the crowns to the sur- 

 face of the soil. 



The general cultivation of Gladioli is very simple. 

 They may be grown well in any good loam, enriched 

 in autumn by a supply of properly rotted animal manure 

 being dug in deeply. In the case of the pretty early- 

 flowering Gladioli, which are often satisfactory when 

 permanently planted, they are put into the ground in 

 late autumn, and protected with a layer of two inches 

 of dry litter or cocoa-nut fibre. The greater number 

 of the species, like the exquisite hybrid Gladioli, may 

 be planted in April or early May. The corms should 

 be about six inches deep, and are best planted by means 

 of a trowel to form the holes, unless the soil has become 



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