When to dig out gladioli: advice of professionals

Any beginning gardener, engaged in breeding gladioli, faces the problem of their wintering. The fact is that their bulbs must be extracted from the soil during the cold season. For this you need not only to know the time when you dig out gladioli, but also how you need to store and process them. From the timely and properly conducted harvesting of gladioli, their quality and successful storage in the winter depends significantly.

How to choose the right time when digging gladioli

After blossoming or trimming the inflorescences, corms should be given about two months for the final ripening. If they are extracted before the arrival of the peduncles, they may not even ascend the following year. That is why flowers should be prepared in advance for harvesting. This preparation consists in the complete removal from the plant of all its inflorescences, regardless of whether they entered the flowering period or not.

Any experienced gardener on the question, whether digging gladioli for the winter, will answer in the affirmative. The fact is that extracting corms from these flowers from the earth is necessary before the onset of cold weather. If the very first frosts do not cause the gladioli special harm, then the temperature below -2 degrees Celsius already begins to cause damage to the leaves of the plant.

Corms do not suffer from this, however, if frosts are expected below -5 degrees, and the grower does not have time to remove them, it is strongly recommended to cover them with a layer of mulch.

Anyone who is interested in digging out gladioli should know that the first to clean middle and early varieties, and after them - late. The most recent are digging flowers grown from daughter bulbs. First, you must try to extract dark and lavender-blue varieties from the soil, because they are the first to become prone to various fungal infections.

When to dig gladioli for the winter

This procedure should be carried out in warm dry weather due to the fact that a large number of children's bulbs are always lost in moist soil. Some of them can then be pecked out of the ground for three years, disrupting the integrity of the garden and clogging the planting of pure varieties of gladioli.

When digging, the plant is carefully removed with a clod of earth, which is carefully shaken over a piece of polyethylene film. In this case, the pruner shears the stem so that the corms remain small, up to one centimeter in length, a stump. Roots and mother bulb in adult corms are removed immediately. Children just shorten the roots. Sick and infected plants are burned.

Anyone who is interested in when digging gladioli, should know that after this procedure, the corms should be washed and processed in a strong solution of potassium permanganate. After that, they are placed for several weeks in a dry warm place to dry. During this entire period, they must be turned twice a day. From drying, the health of plants and the germination of the next year depends very much.

Any professional who is aware of when to dig gladioli, also knows that the bulbs should be carefully sorted after drying. Damaged or diseased need to be burned. If the grade is especially valuable, then the damaged part can be tried to cut out, and the cut is treated with a green solution.