42 
Outline of Methods Used 
in Growing Gladioli. 
[Written expressly for The Flower Grower . ] 
One of our good friends who has 
made a notable success in growing fine 
Gladioli when asked to give an outline 
of his cultural methods, has sent us 
information which we believe on ac- 
count of its conciseness and at the 
same time very complete way in which 
the information is given, will prove 
interesting and helpful not only to new 
beginners, but as well to those who 
have had more experience in the busi- 
ness. 
For fertilizer I use bone meal and 
hard wood ashes well mixed together 
at the rate of 10 lbs. of bone meal and 
five quarts of ashes and applying this 
amount to about 100 feet of row, 
sprinkling over the rows after the 
corms are covered at planting time. 
Only made one application for the 
season. 
Bulblets were planted in flat trenches 
or furrows about 5 in. wide and were 
sown very thickly nearly covering the 
ground and then were covered about 
3 in. deep. 
Planting stock up to f in. in diameter 
was planted in trenches or furrows 
about 6 in. wide at the rate of about 
50 corms to the foot and covered 4 in. 
deep. All corms over f in. diameter 
were planted in double rows spaced 
about twice the size of the bulb apart 
in the row and the rows about 6 in. 
apart in the trench and were covered 
about 6 in. deep. All stock except 
bulblets was planted in trenches 3 It. 
apart to give room to secure soil for 
ridging up the rows and sifting soil 
around the plants, the same as one 
would ridge up or hill up potatoes. 
When plants appeared above ground 
so that the rows could be followed, 
shallow cultivation was used between 
the rows to keep a good dust mulch 
about 2 in. deep. The soil was stirred 
after every rain and in dry weather at 
least twice a week until after the 
blooming season. 
For making the double rows a horse 
and light plow was used to start the 
trench and an ordinary hand hoe to 
complete the job and make a flat bot- 
tom trench about 6 in. wide for the 
bulbs. 
For bulblets the plow was run more 
shallow and also a hoe used to prepare 
the flat trench or furrow. 
When planting all stock was looked 
over carefully and only good plump 
and perfectly healthy corms were 
planted. 
A horse cultivator was used except 
in bulblets, and in these a garden rake 
was employed as the rows were made 
about 20 in. apart. Presume that a 
wheel hoe would have proved useful. 
Wings were used on the cultivator 
about three times during the season 
and run about 2 to 3 in. in depth. At 
other times no wings were used as this 
was sufficient to ridge up the plants as 
above explained. When going thi ough 
Ol)£ Slower (Brower 
with the wings on cultivator they were 
set so as not to run too near the plants 
and an ordinary broom was used to 
brush the soil in around plants. This 
does not make a very high ridge. A 
half worn broom should be used as it 
is not as flexible as a new one. Bulb- 
lets were given level culture and not 
ridged. 
The soil was quite strong but not 
heavy and is what might be called a 
medium clay loam and planting was 
done on a clover sod. This soil worked 
very easily for a clay soil. Plowing 
was done in the fall of the year and 
the furrows cut about 5 inches deep 
and 12 inches wide, and care was taken 
that they should overlap each other 
and not turn flat. This gives a seed 
bed of 7 to 8 inches of mellow soil. 
Plants showing signs of disease dur- 
ing the growing season were pulled 
out and no bulblets saved from corms 
that were not perfectly healthy at 
digging time. 
After digging, all stock was given at 
least five days curing in the sun when 
possible. Bulblets were stored in moist 
sand to keep them good and plump. 
Any culls or diseased stock were 
planted experimentally and often made 
fine healthy new corms, but these were 
not used to increase the main stocks. 
L. B. Colby. 
Wild Flowers in 
the Home Garden. 
[ Written expressly for The Flower Grower. ] 
When I first came to Iowa, in the 
60’s, there was an abundance of wild 
flowers in great variety on the prairie 
and all around the little town. To the 
west, immediately beyotid the pretty 
Wapsipiniccn River, stretched the rol- 
ling Iowa prairie. Eastward, after 
crossing a tributary creek, came al- 
most immediately the Wapsie Timber, 
consisting of oak openings, hickory, 
poplar and some crab apple, wild plum 
and numerous smaller trees and a great 
growth of hazel bushes. Beyond this 
to the east came the prairie again. 
Nearly all the trees were along the 
water courses. In the spring the wild 
crabs and plums, with various thorns, 
were gay with their pink and white 
flowers. Sheltered among the trees 
and hazel brush were anemones, blood 
root, hepaticas (liverwort) moccasin 
flowers (cypripediums) in variety, Dogs- 
tooth Violet (erythronium) polemon- 
ium, ranunculus, shooting stars (do- 
decatheon) various violets, Dutchman’s 
Breeches (Dicentra) and a lot more 
which I don’t now think of. One gay 
scarlet bracted flower was called the 
“Fireman,” locally, Bartsia, I believe. 
On the prairie were Phloxes, Liatris, 
Lilies, Rudbeckias, Spiderwort, Ascle- 
pias and many more. 
As the native grass was displaced by 
the “tame” grasses, and the ravines 
were pastured and cleared, the wild 
flowers began to disappear and some 
are almost extinct. So now, if we wish 
to save lhe wild flowers, we must 
transplant them to wild gardens in our 
home grounds. I began years ago to 
May, 1919 
make such a little collection and now 
the spring brings me flowers in some- 
thing like the following order. First 
of all come the Hepaticas, closely fol- I 
lowed by the Bloodroot. A little later 
come the Dutchman’s Breeches, the 
yellow Bellwort, Water Leaf, white, 
blue and yellow wild Violets, and a few 
Trilliums, purple and white. The 
Shooting Stars come later and soon I 
have a great bed of Blue Bells, as they 
are called here, the Mertensia. I have 
what is quite rare, a pure white one 
but it does not spread much. After a 
while there are two kinds of Solomon’s 
Seal and the False Solomon’s Seal 
(Smolacina recemosa?) A curious 
thing which I brought from the glens 
of the Maquoketa. “The Devil’s Back- 
bone,” is the Wild Ginger, with large, i 
downy heart-shaped leaves and curious i 
flowers down close to the ground. The 
root smells and tastes like mild ginger. I 
Then there are Columbines, Polemon- 
iums, and the Actea or Baneberry, l 
with large clusters of small white 
flowers and, later, very handsome dark 
scarlet berries. This is not nearly all 
but will suffice to show that much can 
easily be had in the way of natural 
garden by a little pains in transplanting 
from time to time. The number of 
available wild flowers is really surpris- 
ing when one comes to count them 
up Several native ferns are to be 
had even here in northern Iowa. But ! 
this impromptu narrative runs out to 
a length and I will stop before the 
editor gets alarmed. 
Geo. S. Woodruff. 
Mr. Meader’s offer of corms of the 
beautiful Kunderd Gladiolus Myrtle to 
all persons who join the American 
Gladiolus Society before the next an- 
nual meeting is still in force and it is 
hoped that there will be a liberal re- 
sponse. The cost of membership is 
but $2.00 per year, new members pay- 
ing an additional $1 initiation fee. All 
members are entitled to receive The 
Flower Grower regularly without 
extra charge. The editor will be glad 
to forward application blanks on re- 
quest. 
Tiger Lily. 
Some years ago the old-fashioned Tiger 
Lily fell under the ban of disfavor. Some 
dabbler in aesthetics declared the color of its 
flower crude and tawdry, and in their zeal 
some misguided persons ruthlessly sacrificed 
fine clumps that it had taken > ears to pro- 
duce, replacing them with newer or finer 
varieties. But the old Tiger Lily had too 
many good points to remain long an exile, 
and it is again resuming the place to which 
i s ease of culture, hardiness, stately habit 
of growth and gorgeous orange-red, black- 
spotted flowers entitle it. The re appearance 
of the old Tiger Lily in gardens from which 
it was once banished is a glowing, though 
tardy tribute of appreciation. A glimpse at 
a fine ten-year-old clump of bloom in my gar- 
den, gives one some idea of the gorgeous 
oriental coloring of “the lilies of the field” 
referred to in the words “that even Solomon 
in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
of these.”- Bertha Berbert Hammond in 
Park's Floral Magazine. 
Please note the appeal to Gladiolus 
growers in our editorial column, p. 44. 
