January 30, 2020

Is This the Year You Give Glads a Try?

Joseph Tychonievich doesn’t just love glads. “I freaking adore them,” he writes in the May 2019 issue of Horticulture.

And if you’re not a glad-lover – if you still think of them as “funeral flowers” or “tired old grandma flowers” – he’s out to change your mind.

Maybe you prefer “a more graceful, natural look.” If so, Joseph recommends “old-fashioned varieties” such as ‘Atom’. This smaller glad has “graceful hooded blooms” of “rich, saturated scarlet” with “each petal edged with a perfect line of white.” They’re also spaced out along the stem “so you can enjoy the charm of each individual flower.”

“While some modern hybrids look too stiff and artificial to mingle easily with other plants,” Joseph continues, ‘Atom’ has “a wildling grace that looks marvelous either in a bed with other perennials or in an informal flower arrangement.”

Joseph is also a big fan of the Abyssinian glad. It’s “a treasure because right in the hottest part of the summer, when everything is looking tired and worn, this gladiolus starts pumping out crisp white flowers marked with dark maroon at the base of each petal…. The flowers boast a rich, spicy fragrance that gets stronger once dusk begins to fall.”

Gladiolus byzantinus, he points out, is one of the few Gladiolus species that hail from Europe instead of Africa, and “unlike the African bulbs that you should plant in the spring, this one is best planted in the fall, like a daffodil. Come spring the swordlike leaves pop out of the ground early, with elegant spikes of brilliant pink, graceful flowers following soon behind them. If they’re happy—and to be happy they need little more than full sun – they’ll quickly clump up and come back year after year.”

Diverse, “blessedly easy to grow,” and often “incredibly inexpensive,” glads are “too delightful a group of plants to let your prejudices stand in the way of enjoying them,” Joseph writes in closing. “Give them a shot in your garden this year. I promise you won’t regret it” – and we couldn’t agree more!

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Fragrant Tazettas are Top-5 Favorite at Popular Public Garden

In its January 2020 issue, Horticulture magazine shines a spotlight on our good customer and home-state treasure, the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park.

Located in Grand Rapids, Meijer Gardens features scores of impressive sculptures, a vast conservatory filled with orchids and tropical birds, a recreated 1930s farmstead with heirloom plants, an English-style perennial border reinterpreted in North American natives, and a lot more.

The article also showcases five of “Meijer Gardens’ Favorite Spring Plants” – hellebores, ‘Jack Frost’ Siberian bugloss, ‘Arnold Promise’ witchhazel, ‘Mount Airy’ fothergilla, and – drumroll, please – tazetta narcissus. “This daffodil group carries numerous sweet-scented flowers on each stem,” Horticulture explains, and “many tazettas are tried-and-true heirloom varieties.”

We’re proud to say we offer six of those fragrant heirlooms, including iconic ‘Grand Primo’, introduced in 1780, and orange-cupped ‘Geranium’ (pictured) from 1930. You can see them all here – and if you order now for delivery this fall, you’ll be able to enjoy their enchanting perfume in your own garden next spring!

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Did You Miss Our Last Newsletter? Read It at Our Website or Blog

Our December newsletter included:

2624-Year-Old Tree Discovered in North Carolina,

UK Head Gardener Praises Small-Flowered Glads, and

‘Autumn Minaret’ Daylily is “a Tall Drink of Water.”

You can read all of our back-issues at oldhousegardens.com/NewsletterArchives – and most of them at our blog!

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