However, low-growing plants and shrubs with limited root growth and foliage 
will allow glads to develop. Glads may add a note of color, provided you keep the 
wilted stems removed, though ordinarily glads are not suitable for landscaping. 
Glads like a good rich garden soil, as they are good feeders. If you keep your 
garden soil productive by plenty of manuring through the years, that is the right 
place for your glads. A soil expert will determine for you whether or not your 
soil contains all the necessary elements. Or you can forget the expert, and spade 
under some barn-yard manure, or a balanced commercial fertilizer. A well-fed glad 
will blush with pleasure. 
If moisture tends to be insufficient during the blooming season, a good water- 
ing at intervals will make a world of difference in your blooms, Glads respond won- 
derfully well to plenty of watering, if you have the facilities for it. But water more 
than just the surface crust, or you will pull the roots to the surface, where much 
damage can be done, for the roots should go deep to where it is cool and less like- 
ly to dry out quickly. 
It is a good practice to do as many farmers do, that is, plant fertilizer with 
the seed, or in close proximity in the same operaton. First cover the bulbs lightly 
with soil in the trench, then sprinkle the fertilizer on this at the rate of a handful 
to several feet of row, and then complete the filling of the trench. Do not let the 
fertilizer come in contact with the bulb. 
You may plant your glads as soon as you plant such garden items as lettuce, 
radishes and peas. Soil warm enough to sprout these will sprout glads. If not, 
just let them lie there until it is, just so it does not freeze the bulbs. And you may 
plant bulbs as late as July, and still have blooms, here in Iowa. 
Commercial growers of glad bulbs plant rather shallow, as this means a great- 
er production of bulblets, and less work in the planting operation. But for the gar- 
den blooms you may plant deeper with profit, say as much as five or six inches, as 
this helps the plant to stand up better in stormy weather, and by placing the roots 
deeper, where it is cooler and more moist, you will have a better bloom spike. 
Commercial growers also plant much more thickly in the row than does the 
average gardener, if their product is a crop of bulbs rather than blooms. By lessen- 
ing the bloom crop they channel the plant’s strength into a better bulb. But for 
your garden you wish to obtain the finest bloom possible, so it is profitable to space 
the bulbs in the rows, say three or four to the foot, with rows at least eighteen 
inches apart. 
Moisture in the dry time of Summer, when glads bloom, must come up from 
below a good part of the time. I do not feel that a dust mulch is necessary. A dust 
mulch is soon gone in any case, when an eager glad fan uses the path between the 
rows as parade grounds in the critical and exciting blooming time. Weed control 
is the object of cultivating, but do not cultivate deeply, as this will destroy the 
little feeder roots. 
Some folks get more enjoyment out of glads than do others who may love 
them equally as well. They do it by the simple device of cutting them and bringing 
them in to where they can be seen oftener. The glad is essentially a cut flower. 
They are notorious for their ability indoors to bloom out to the last bud. Their 
lasting qualities are exceeded by very few plants. Their fresh beauty, renewed 
every morning, is ever present with you if you but take them with you, in a vase 
or basket, wherever you spend your time, from office to kitchen, to shop or parlor 
or church. Do not let them bloom to “blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the 
desert air” out there in the garden. 
GLADS ARE NOT TEMPERAMENTAL 
Do not be alarmed by all these hints on the growing of glads. You can just 
forget all that was said above. Just stick your bulbs in whatever soil you have, 
and you will be delightfully surprised. They will make lovely blooms in spite of it 
all. Glads are notoriously easy to grow. Glads are not like some flowers I know, 
which demand, “Give me exactly what I want, or I will not bloom for you.” 
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