Garden blooms/New Gladiolus pictures on the wiki
Mary Sue Ittner (Tue, 31 May 2005 18:39:17 PDT)

Hi,

This is the time in my garden when the winter rainfall South African bulbs
are winding down and my California bulbs have been or are starting to
bloom. So there are some late blooming Gladiolus, a few Ixias, and the last
of the Tritonias in bloom. I have a Moraea (Homeria) here and there still
in bloom, but mostly I'm in the deadheading mode getting rid of the
hundreds of seed pods I do not want spreading their seeds about my garden.

This seems to be an especially great year for the Calochortus I grow well
and I'm really enjoying them. I'll add some pictures of them later along
with more from my trip in April. I'm amazed at all the different insects I
see in the middle of the Calochortus flowers. I can't figure out whether
they are pollinating the flowers or eating them. Sometimes there are more
than one in the flowers at the same time.

Blooming for the first time from seed in one of my raised beds is Gladiolus
miniatus. We already have this species pictured in a very nice close-up
from Dirk Wallace, Australia, but I added a few more photos to show the
whole plant blooming with California bulbs in the same bed. My husband was
teasing me about that orange Allium in the pot with the Allium tag, but it
is an annual Ursinia that seeded itself in that pot and I didn't pull out.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

I also got confirmation from South Africa and John Manning courtesy of Alan
Horstmann that the Gladiolus a number of us were growing perhaps from
Kirstenbosch seed of Gladiolus huttonii are hybrids between it and
Gladiolus tristis. I got a little carried away on the wiki by all the forms
I added and think I should take some of them off, but am finding it hard
which to choose to remove. I added 2 more pictures to the Gladiolus hybrid
page. One was of Gladiolus cardinalis hybrid purchased from Telos that has
been blooming for awhile and is so pretty. The other is of a white Glad
that I've had in this garden from the beginning and is a reliable bloomer
thriving with no attention at all and very little summer watering. I
suppose that means it is on someone's weed list. Can anyone tell me if they
think this is the Gladiolus known as Gladiolus ×colvillei 'Albus'? One of
the reasons I added this picture was because I was enchanted with the white
spider in the flower.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Mary Sue