Alys Fowler's gardening columnGardening advice This article is more than 8 years oldAlys Fowler: dahlias and gladioli bring colour to house and garden
This article is more than 8 years oldAs long as you’re not too fussy, they can be a great way to get late-season colour
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Some of the most joyous cut flowers are the simplest. Buy a plant, plant it, wait a bit, cut it off, love it a little and, with luck, the whole thing happens again next year. Dahlias and gladioli are such plants and perhaps some of the easiest cut flowers to grow in this manner. No seed trays, no pricking out or potting on, just time it right and wait.
At this point in the year, it’s worth looking out for bulk buys of dahlia tubers and gladioli corms. Notoriously they often don’t match the garish photographs that come with cheap packages, but as long as you’re not too fussy, they can be a great way to get some late-season colour both for the garden and the house. And if you don’t like the colour of the blooms in the garden, cut them all: what looks terrible outside often works wonderfully in a vase.
Dahlias and glads do need to be planted in full sun to get good blooms. If you go for those very blousy dinner plate dahlias, you may have to stake them as well. Dahlias should be planted at least 75cm apart. The bigger the space the more productive the plants can be. If necessary add some well-rotted compost and a little grit to the planting hole if your soil is heavy as these are hungry plants. Firm the soil around the tubers so that there are no air spaces. And watch out for slugs.
I find you can be a lot crueller to gladioli and they still stand strong. Plant them out in late March/April once the soil has warmed up. They need to be 20cm or so deep and 15cm apart. Once your plants are up and the flower buds start to appear it’s worth feeding them with comfrey liquid or a high potash feed as this improves flower size.
I have a soft spot for glads as cut flowers and find spaces for them everywhere: on the sunny side of my raspberries, lining paths and the polytunnel on my allotment. For the garden, I stick to the deep hot pink of Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus, along with the lime ‘Green Star’. I also like ‘Zorro’, which is a dark, deep velvety red and any pure whites I can find on offer.
No one does cut flowers like my friend the florist, Juliet Glaves (julietglaves.com), who grows fields of dahlias at her home in Shropshire. Her tip is to make sure that you cut them when three-quarters of the outer petals are open, otherwise they never fully open. Put them straight into water after cutting. Then transfer them into warm water (about 50C) when you are ready to arrange them in the vase to prevent airlock. Dahlia stems are like straws and if an air bubble gets stuck inside, Juliet says, this can cause premature wilting.
Glads can be treated similarly in lukewarm water, particularly if most of the flowers are still in bud. The best time to pick any flower is early in the morning or late evening when the conditions are cooler.
- Alys Fowler has curated a series of Guardian Masterclasses covering garden design, foraging, growing cut flowers and fruit and vegetables. Find out more and book your place now at theguardian.com/masterclasses
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