How to keep gladioli until spring healthy

Usually taking care of gladiolus is a pleasure. They need to be watered in time, regularly loosen the soil and carry out the necessary weeding. But many beginning gardeners are faced with an unexpected difficulty: how to save the gladiolus until the spring. What you need to do to make flowers happy with bright colors in the new season, advise professional summer residents.

Secrets of cutting the gladiolus blossoms

If you decide to get a viable planting material from faded plants, you need to know the technology of pruning buds. Cut the inflorescence when two or three of the lowest flowers on the stem fully opened. How to keep gladioli healthy during this procedure? It is worth sticking to two simple rules:

1. Each plant should have a minimum of 5-6 leaves.
2. And the remaining piece of peduncle must be neatly covered with leaves, so that excess moisture does not get on the cut. If this is not done - gladiolus can die from any infection or mold.

For a safe hiding place cut, you need to enter a sharp garden knife directly into the rosette of the leaves, and then make two oblique incisions. They should go up to the middle of the peduncle on both sides of the trunk. When the bud is extracted, the leaves themselves securely cover the cutoff location.

Winter storage bulbs

Experienced gardeners note that without their own dry cellar or a securely insulated balcony, this amazing flower will not be saved. It will be much easier to purchase a new planting material when the spring planting season comes. How to keep gladioli in the winter, if the desire to have their usual varieties is strong enough? It is necessary to adhere to the following plan of action:

1. Dig up bulbs usually begin on the 40th-50th day after the plant has completely faded or all the necessary inflorescences have been cut off. Most often this term falls on the second half of September, very rarely at the beginning of October.
2. How to keep the gladiolus viable until the spring? It is necessary to throw out all the sick specimens. For their detection, the bulbs are extracted from the soil only in dry weather, cleaned of clods of earth. Next, inspect for damage, rot and separate the weak children.
3. Each stem should be shortened to a hemp condition of 1 cm. If a bulb develops from a baby, it needs to shorten the rootlets halfway, and if it was an adult gladiolus - all roots must be cut completely. Each future planting material is gently washed in lukewarm water, and then aged for 20-30 minutes in a weak solution of potassium permanganate.

After all these procedures, the question of how to keep gladioli healthy until the spring should be resolved. All the planting material is dried in the open air, laying the bulbs in one layer. Next, it should be dry for two weeks in a dry room, with a minimum temperature of 25-30 ^o C. After that it will be necessary to withstand the bulbs at 20-22 ^o C for at least another month. All material must be regularly turned in a box, and if sick or weak specimens are found, discard. How to save the gladiolus until spring next? Very simple. If the florist has coped with all the above procedures, it remains to place a box with bulbs in a dry cellar where the temperature will be unchanged (from +5 ^о С to +9 ^о С) before the onset of the warm season.