6 Champlain View Gardens 
people will continue to send me full blown blooms for identification. Nine out of ten times the 
blooms are rotted or have lost all their color upon arrival. Please do not waste your time and 
mine by sending blooms in this condition. Send at least one-third of a spike or preferably more 
and send them in fairly tight bud. 
Shows 
| am not as show minded myself as | should be but a great many people do get a 
great kick out of growing glads for the shows. | don’t profess to be able to give any 
tips to the old show growers but will mention one or two things for the novices. In 
trying to hit a show you should make at least three plantings of bulbs a week or so 
apart. In this way you will be more apt to have some good blooms at the proper time. 
You may have to hold some spikes back by putting them in a cold cellar or refrigerator 
for a few days. If you are situated where you can possibly get blooms to the shows | 
would by all means urge you to do so. You will not only get a great kick out of win- 
ning prizes but will meet a lot of other glad fans with whom you can swap experiences. 
To many a show flower means a huge spike with a lot open. Many don’t seem 
to realize that there are prizes offered also for the medium and small sizes. At one 
large eastern show last summer there was hardly anything in the medium size class. 
Anyone with anything good at all could have cleaned up. And a prize in the smaller 
classes is just as valuable as one in the giant class. 
Thrips 
Many people write me that their glads have acquired a terrible disease, thrips. 
Just remember once and for all that thrips is not a disease. It is a minute insect which 
sucks the juices from the buds so they do not open. They are a terrible scourge but 
very easily avoided. Some years ago it was hard to combat them but now by using 
DDT in some form there is no need any longer of having thrips. By dusting them in 
storage with DDT and spraying or dusting them in the field every week or so from the 
time the plants are a few inches high you will not have thrips. 
In warm climates they live over out-of-doors but in cold climates they are supposed 
to freeze out in the winter. They are usually carried over on bulbs. But how ever you 
get them some form of DDT will knock them out. 
Whenever your plants grow well and make buds but the buds dry up and don’t open 
you may know positively that this is caused by thrips. Don't write me and ask me what 
to do about it. When they get up into the buds like that there isn't much you can do, 
tho spraying with DDT or Chlordane will help to get rid of them. The time to spray or 
dust is when the plants are small. Then when they come in bloom they will be alright. 
Bulbs from thrips affected plants will be O.K. for another year if treated with DDT. 
Disease 
There are various diseases that affect glads. But if your conditons are right and your bulbs 
are clean to start with you shouldn't have much trouble in this line tho there are soils that have 
disease in them. | find that bulbs are much cleaner grown on soil with perfect drainage than on 
wet soil. A scab which is a small hard spot that can be dug out with your thumb nail and leaves 
a clean hole doesn’t do much harm. But usually a disease eats into the bulb and spoils the bulb 
for use. Tho if it is only a small spot it can be cut out and the bulb will be alright. 
If conditions are not right bulbs can acquire disease at any time. One year | planted 100% 
clean bulbs on sandy soil that never had a crop before and the bulbs were very bad when | 
dug them. Think the trouble this time was that | put pulverized sheep manure in the trench. Had 
wonderful spikes of bloom but rotten bulbs. 
In spite of all you read about diseases the chances are you will not have any trouble unless 
