Gladioli seeds
I have gladioli in my garden that are more or less at the end of the season now. The ones that flowered first have long lost their petals and the flower heads (16 on some plants) have swollen into big pods.
Are these gladioli seeds, and if so, are they likely to grow into new plants in the average London garden? How long does it take to go from a seed to a full new plant?
In the past, I've just cut the dead stalks down as soon as they turn brown, but perhaps I could have been harvesting these pods and growing new gladioli.
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Hi Tomsk. The large pods you mention contain many seeds (bit like a pea pod). You could harvest the seeds when they are ripe but you would have to wait several years before you get a decent sized flowering plant and they may not look like the parent plant. Ideally the faded flowers should be cut off as you have done in the past and then the leaves can concentrate on making food and sending it back down to the corm so it can store it and form next years flowers. This is how most bulbs and corms are treated.
agree with Ladybird4 - they would eventually flower but as you cannot be sure what the resulting plants would look like, it probably isn't worth the bother. If you let the leaves die down and then dig up the corms (I find they don't survive if left in the ground over winter. I store mine in my shed), you may find lots of little baby ones around the main corm. You could try planting these up and growing them on, but again they will take a long time to mature and flower. You would eventually have replicas of the main plants though.
I 'sheded' my bulbs 2 yrs ago and replanted. I missed the boat last year and left them out, thought they would be dead...... But they bloomed twice as many as the year before....?!? Altho they are too tall for their own selves and droop. Any help on that? Cos bean poles ruin the look!!