Plant the Gladiolus “Windsong” in spring for blooms mid summer until frost. Gardeners in areas that receive frost will want to dig the bulbs up at the end of the season and store them for the winter.

Growing Gladiolus Everyone knows gladiolus, but not every gardener knows how easy they are to grow. The original “glad” was a wildflower from South Africa called “sword lily”, which was imported into Europe in the 1840’s. As with almost every other bulb, the Dutch went to work and created a grand rainbow from a quite lowly flower.

Put them close together so you’ll end up with a mass of color, not just a stick here and there. One of the things that makes growing gladiolus so easy is that the plants take almost no space. You can easily pop in the bulbs between other more permanent plants. Just find the spaces in your garden, put in the bulbs in tight groups wherever you can, and you’ll know that in a few weeks, those spots will be glowing towers of color.

And of course, everyone knows gladiolus are great in a vase. So be sure to plant plenty where you can cut them. They’re inexpensive, and few other flowers give you so much color for the cost. When frost threatens, you can just forget them, and buy new ones in spring, or dig up the bulbs and store them until the following spring. Don’t hesitate. Enjoy gladiolus this summer. You can’t have too many.