/ 
/936 Annual Price List 
From 
Boulder 
Glad Gardens 
Address: D. L. SKIFF, 7l7-9th Street, Boulder, Colo. 
-^«»-- 
717-9th St., Boulder, Colo., ll-20- T 35. 
Dear Folks: 
As I take my pen to start the 1936 circular, 
I feel as if I am meeting old friends after sev¬ 
eral months’ separation. My wife says I talk 
too much, in these annual circulars. Maybe 
she is right, but who wants to talk business all 
the time? Every year I get pleasant letters 
from customers, and here is a chance to make 
some sort of reply. Don’t know what I shall 
write, but perhaps it doesn’t matter, just so it 
is not about business. 
Did you get any western dust early last 
spring? I read of its settling down in Terre 
Haute and other eastern cities. One day early 
last spring we had what appeared to be a fog, 
but it smelled dusty. We could see only about 
two blocks. It snowed that night and melted 
snow was muddy. The same thing happened 
two or three times. The dust floated in quiet¬ 
ly from the Plains. We are close to the moun¬ 
tains and our winds come from the mountains, 
and do not bring dust. 
A story writer makes one of his characters 
say, “People come from miles around to hear 
us drink soup.” I’ll change that a little and 
say, “People come for miles around to see my 
Red California Poppies.” They lived through 
last winter and in June were a blaze of glory. 
I was working near the Calif. Poppy patch one 
day last June, dressed in my old working 
clothes, and wearing a disreputable old straw 
hat that never wears out. It was the hat that 
brought this gibe from the CCC boys as they 
went by to their work: “Where did you get 
that hat?” A lady stopped her car nearby, 
and asked permission to look at the Red Cali¬ 
fornia Poppies. She introduced herself by say¬ 
ing, “I am-. We bought the 
--place.” I recognized the 
name of a well-known writer. “Pleased to 
meetcha,” said I, abashed at meeting a lady 
who can write the Book of the Month. Well 
we hadn’t been talking two minutes before 
she began calling me names. No, not names, 
and nothing very bad, but a name. It was 
this way: “Do you do all this work yourself?” 
she asked. “Yessum,” I answered, pridefully. 
“Stout fella!” said she. 
Speaking of authors, Boulder has its share 
of them, for a small city. Up the avenue two 
blocks, lives Mrs. Billig, a writer of books, and 
down the avenue a few blocks lives C. E. Scog¬ 
gins, in a large new stone house. He writes 
good adventure serials for the Saturday Eve¬ 
ning Post. I liked his “House of Darkness” 
best. Edward Davison is a poet, who teaches 
in the State University here. Edna Davis Ro- 
mig is another poet, who teaches in the Uni¬ 
versity. There are many other writers here 
whom I shall not stop to name. 
A wet spring followed a dry winter here. It 
rained nearly every day in May. You thought 
it ever rained here, didn’t you? It bothered 
me to get the Glads planted. Of course we had 
to irrigate during the summer. Then we had 
some good rains this fall. 
Well, there is a lot to tell you about my 1935 
products, so will close this letter with an old 
fashioned ending. 
Your obedient servant, 
D. L. SKIFF. 
Ten Gladiolus Favorites 
Here they are in their order by popular vote. 
I always try to have a stock of the favorite 
ten and many of the favorite 100. 
1. —Picardy. 
2. —Minuet. 
3. —Betty Nuthall. 
4. —Marmora. 
5. —Mr. W. H. Phipps. 
6. —Mother Machree. 
7. —Maid of Orleans. 
S.—Dr. F. E. Bennett. 
9.—Mildred Louise. 
10.—Pfitzer’s Triumph. 
Two New Ones 
Last spring, Mr. James L. Brownlee, an ama¬ 
teur Gladiolus Grower of Denver, wrote me, 
saying there was danger of a scarcity of water 
in Denver, for irrigating purposes, and asked 
me to grow for him two Gladiolus varieties he 
had originated. I planted them here, and liked 
them so much that this fall I asked him to let 
me list them in my 1936 Price List, and he 
consented. I understand that he is having 
them registered. 
In the summer of 1928, Mr. and Mrs. Brown¬ 
lee visited the gardens of J. D. Long, the fa¬ 
mous Gladiolus grower. They were given a 
spike of Commander Kohl, which then must 
have been very new. Mr. B. took some pollen 
from this flower, and fertilized a blossom of 
Dr. F. E. Bennett, growing in his own garden. 
The result was Flamingo , one of the varieties 
I grew for Mr. Brownlee last summer. Flamin¬ 
go is orange-scarlet in color, with a crimson 
blotch. It is very similar in color to Pfitzer’s 
Triumph, but color is richer, and petals have 
better substance, enduring heat much better. 
Bulbs and foliage are healthy, and it is a great 
producer of bulblets. Flamingo is in the same 
class as that of its illustrious parents. If Pfit- 
zer or Kunderd or Diener had originated this, 
the price would be dollars where its now cents. 
Blunello struck me at once, when it blos¬ 
somed, as being like Veilchenblau, and I found 
later that Veilchenblau is one of its parents. 
The blossom is larger than that of Veilchen- 
