The Glory of the Garden : The Modern Gladiolus 
they look. They make no demands, they ask no 
favors. They challenge your admiration and 
win your love solely on their merits. 
The first reason, then, why you should give 
Gladioli a place in your garden is the certainty 
of success with minimum care and labor. 
The second, and more important, reason is 
the pleasure that you, and not only you but all 
your friends as well, will derive from them. 
As a garden flower, Gladioli are unsurpassed. 
It is useless to compare them with other flowers, 
because they are so unlike, so individual; the 
qualities are peculiarly their own. They detract 
nothing from their humbler neighbors, while 
filling their own allotted place in a way which 
is nothing short of regal. 
There need never be a day through the sum¬ 
mer when you cannot find the closely capped 
buds of Gladioli unfolding into wonderful-hued 
flowers. If you have planted named varieties, 
and are acquainted with them, you will know 
what to expect; but if you have planted a col¬ 
lection of mixed strains you will visit your gar¬ 
den every morning with the feeling of a seeker 
after hidden treasures. And you will not be dis¬ 
appointed, for you will be constantly discov¬ 
ering new combinations of colors, unexpected 
arrangements of markings, until you wonder at 
the limitless ingenuity of nature, and willingly 
christen these wonderful blooms “The Glory of 
the Garden.” From early July until frost you 
are always on the qui vive. Your visit to the 
garden is an event. It is something to look 
forward to. Many times I have thought, “surely 
nature has exhausted the entire range of pos¬ 
sible combinations; there can be nothing new.” 
Then I have come forth among my flowers to 
find not one but many unlike any I had seen 
before. 
But it is not only as a garden flower that 
Gladioli are supreme. Few flowers, if any, 
equal them for cutting purposes. They are 
flowers for indoors as well as out, and are 
decorative to the highest degree. They are 
odorless, a quality highly in their favor, inas¬ 
much as to very many people the perfume of flowers is unpleasantly overpowering. Gladioli 
are absolutely clean, neither making litter nor dropped leaves, nor fouling the water, as do so 
many flowers, and the lasting qualities are unsurpassed, if even approached. Cut when the 
lowermost bud begins to break, each bud on the long spike will open in succession, even to 
the bud at the very tip. 
I have had Gladioli almost if not quite two weeks from the time of cutting to the fading 
of the last blossom, and the only attention given them was a daily change of water and the 
removal of withered blossoms. Unlike most other flowers the buds opened in water produce 
blooms fully equal to those opened on the plant. Sometimes I think they even exceed these; cer¬ 
tainly they never are inferior. With most flowers only buds which are half open, or at least are 
well swollen and showing color, will open after cutting. With Gladioli the upper buds will be 
Intensity Gladiolus (see page 11) 
