—_ 
So here I am in my fourth year of growing gladiolus and without doubt 
getting the most beautiful color effects that I have ever seen, short of profes- 
sional or show entries. Don’t get the idea that I’m bragging. I’m not. Just the 
contrary—what I say is that anyone can do it, and the wonder is that everyone 
- does not. 
It’s practically impossible to go wrong in growing gladiolus nowadays. If you 
have a fairly sunny spot, and reasonably good earth, you just stick the bulbs 
in the ground each springtime, enjoy the blooms in the summer, and take up 
the new bulb and bulblets in the fall. You dust about once a week or every 
ten days with a prepared dust that controls diseases and insects. You cultivate 
and weed, as you do for most flowers. And fertilize, as directed, once or twice 
a year. 
And that’s all there is to it. You have these big beautiful bouquets two or 
three times a week in July, August, and September, and.you keep your own 
home bright and give away lots of spikes to friends. 
The cutest part of the whole deal is the way you multiply your stock of 
gladiolus for practically nothing. Of course you can do this with some other 
flowers, too, but all that business about cutting slips and rooting them, or 
waiting for seeds to self-sow, or a few of the other methods available, bores me. 
I like the gladiolus method of reproduction much better. 
In case you don’t know, the gladiolus bulb which is planted in the spring is 
used up during the summer, but in the meantime a new bulb grows on top of 
the old one, which shrivels up and is broken off eventually. Sometimes you get 
two or three new full-sized bulbs out of one old one, and that of course is just 
so much pure profit to make up for the very occasional ones that may rot or 
not germinate. 
But where the real dividend comes in is in the bulblets that grow on those 
full-sized bulbs. When you dig up the new full-sized bulb in the fall, you usually 
find attached to it anywhere from half a dozen to literally hundreds of tiny 
little bulblets, some even smaller than a pea. 
You keep these bulblets over the winter, as instructed in the books, and in 
the following spring you plant them and let them grow an entire season. They 
sprout regular small-sized gladiolus leaves but frequently do not bloom in the 
first year, or if they bloom the florets are small. 
But in the meantime each bulblét is busily building itself into an ordinary- 
sized bulb. So, that fall you pick up the bulb and hold it over the following 
winter and plant it in the following year, when you get the full-sized bloom. 
And sae of those bulbs may give you more bulblets. And so on... and so on 
Dey aNG, SO, ON. rt 
Apply any mathematical formula you like to this business of increasing, and 
you'll see that in a few years you can have so many gladiolus that they sprout 
out of your ears, if you want to, or you can give away your extras, or you can 
go into the wholesale business—always assuming, of course, that you don’t get 
a blight or unexpected attacks by insects. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard 
of any millionaires among gladiolus growers, so I guess there’s a catch some- 
where—but I haven’t run into it yet. 
* * * * * 
| 
I have bought bulbs costing anywhere from a dollar down to a few cents, 
and it’s astonishing what a good deal you get on inexpensive bulbs. You can 
buy them mixed at the rate of 100 for $2 and most reputable growers have 
these offers each year. If you are not particular about the names of the varieties 
but just want beautiful blooms, that’s a good way to buy bulbs, or in some 
special collection of various kinds. But of course for more intense colors and 
newer introductions and biggest blooms, you have to pay more, especially for 
named varieties. 
