THE BEGINNINGS 
OF A GLADIOLUS ENTHUSIASM 
AGNES FALES HUNTINGTON 
M OR years I tried in vain to love the Gladiolus. Of 
course, I knew it was silly to try to love anything. 
But others had such pleasure from this flower; and it 
comes at an otherwise uninteresting time of the garden 
season; and, most of all, I thought it ought, in some small 
degree, to take the place left vacant by the passing of the Dar¬ 
win and Cottage Tulips. These late Tulips are by far my 
favorite flowers, and each year 1 feel melancholy when they are 
over. 
The Gladiolus has the same range of color—it can give us the 
pinks and purples of the Darwins, and the scarlets and oranges 
and yellows of the Cottage Tulips. The shade, too, is not 
utterly different, though growing with many flowers on a stalk 
instead of the single flower which to me always seems more dis¬ 
tinguished in style. The Tulip has one indisputable advantage: 
it is what I call a “quiet” flower, remaining the same for day 
after day, while the Gladiolus is quite the opposite, each in¬ 
dividual bloom lasting hardly more than a day, and the stalk 
continually becoming more top-heavy and stringy as it fades 
from the bottom up. This is the penalty of belonging to the 
Iris family, all the members of which have what the books call a 
“fugacious” habit to a most distressing degree. At that, the 
Gladiolus holds much better than the German Iris, whose glor¬ 
ious petals hasten to curl up into a sodden discolored ball. 
I tried, as I say, to enjoy the Gladiolus, and each year I 
bought one or two kinds. But they never took me off my feet 
with delight. Halley was rather a joy, I must admit. It is 
an old kind; but one can hardly improve upon it for a standby. 
It is big, well-shaped, of a soft yet brilliant shade midway be¬ 
tween orange and pink, perhaps a little nearer the orange. And 
it is so hardy that I have had the corms in the ground for two 
winters in my New Jersey garden. One is supposed to lift 
Gladiolus each autumn, but these I left in place because they 
were tucked in so close to the roots of perennial plants in my 
mixed border. Yet they bloom well each year. 
Mrs. Frank Pendleton is also hardy enough to leave in 
the ground, and is a vigorous, fine-stalked variety. But I 
think it is overrated. A newly opened flower is a lovely thing 
in rose and white; but the later flowers, in vases, open nearly 
white and very small. 
My other early attempts, though some showed possibilities 
of beauty, disliked their bed and did badly. 
S TILL I read and thought about the Gladiolus, and Mrs. 
King’s enthusiastic praises clung to a little corner of my 
mind. Last year the “Pages from a Garden Note-book” 
started me afresh. I thought, “ I must try Beaute de Juillet 
and Desdemone and L’ Innocence and Chicago Salmon and 
Martha Washington.” Yes, and others, too, that I aban¬ 
doned all idea of, when 1 looked them up in the catalogues and 
saw their prices! Five dollars does not seem prohibitive for a 
Peony root, but for a tiny Gladiolus corm —1 have not yet 
come to that! Beaute de Juillet was the most expensive I 
bought, and it did not grow at all. Nor did Aristophane, 
nor the lovely lavender Mr. Mark. 
But I was surprised to see what success I had with nearly all 
the rest, planted later than 1 meant, too, most of them on 
June 30th, as their place was not ready for them till then. I 
had two rows of them in a vegetable garden, where the soil in 
former years had been somewhat fertilized and cultivated. 
Last season I had sheep manure and bonemeal forked in before 
planting. Otherwise the place received no attention save an 
occasional weeding. But the Gladiolus were lovely, and have 
won for themselves my genuine affection. 
W HICH was the most beautiful? I could not say. But 
I will name those 1 thought the loveliest, and then the 
others that seemed not worth my having again. 
One was a puzzle—the usual puzzle that occurs once in so 
often. I ordered Pink Perfection, a variety noted for its ir¬ 
regularly curving stem. What bloomed for me was a particu¬ 
larly straight-stemmed flower, a very vivid rose-pink with big 
deep blotch, that reminded me at once of a Lady Washington 
Geranium. Not long afterward, I read that Pink Beauty 
looks like a Pelargonium, so perhaps that was the variety sent. 
The individual flowers are small, but the lovely and unusual 
coloring makes this variety very worth while. There are many 
flowers open at once, close together. 
I have never seen a deep blue-purple to compare with Baron 
Hulot, and the specialists seem agreed that as yet there is none. 
This, too, is a small flower, and the stalk is slender and weak. 
The color is a wine purple, but there are blue lights. The buds 
are pure velvet, with exactly that wonderful bloom of Iris 
Kochii buds. 
I have not seen many of the lavenders. But Mr. Mark is 
good enough to begin with, and it was a disappointment to me 
that mine refused to grow. There is much blue in its coloring, 
and the deep crimson blotch, tipped cream, adds distinction. 
My only white Gladiolus is Peace. This has a great reputa¬ 
tion, and it is a fine thing in many ways. It is a very strong 
grower, with a fine stalk of big flowers. But I do not care for 
it. It lacks charm. The white is of a hard*quality, and I dis¬ 
like the magenta blotch. The loveliest white I know is Mary 
Pickford, which I hope to own another year. Its soft yellow 
lower petal gives it a creamy look. It is a most gracious flower. 
My best pale pinks are Panama and Myrtle. Panama has 
a tall, strong stalk, with large flowers of a lovely pale rose-pink. 
Perhaps I like Myrtle even better. It is one of the most lov¬ 
able Gladiolus I have ever seen. Neither so big nor so tall as 
Panama, it made a particularly charming clump in my garden; 
it was so full of bloom. It seems most healthy in its delicate 
fashion. It, too, is pale rose-pink, deeper along the edge of 
the petal, with light violet anthers making a delicious contrast. 
The buds are pale coral. 
Evelyn Kirtland is the best bright pink I know. It is a 
cherry-pink, shading paler toward the throat, with a brilliant 
red blotch. The color scheme is similar to that of Mrs. Frank 
Pendleton, but infinitely better; and it is just as big and vigor¬ 
ous. The shape is unique; the edges of the petals curve sharply 
back, giving a pointed, frilly look. Liss greatly resembles 
Evelyn in color, but is a little smaller, and has rather less 
character. 
O NE of the most striking of my new varieties is Martha 
Washington; and as it was the first to bloom, I was 
especially thrilled over it. I wrote in my garden book that it 
made me think of looking toward the light through stained 
glass. Ridgway’s term “peach red” well describes it. And it 
has a huge, velvety, deep brown blotch running well back into 
the throat. The color is as rich as anything I ever saw in a 
flower. Even before it opens, it is most beautiful by reason of 
the lovely curves of its buds. 
My other dazzler is Chicago Salmon. I think I enjoyed 
this the most of any. It is a very brilliant salmon-red, practi- 
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