Monday 23 September 2013

GLADIOLUS CALLIANTHUS


This beautiful flower has taken two years to come to bloom. I bought the corms in early 2012; it was being sold as the "Orchid lily" but it is actually the flower we used to call acidanthera ( I wonder how flowers feel about botanists constantly changing the plant's name: I doubt they care!). 2012, of course, was far too wet and chilly for the blooms to appear, although my pot was filled with promising sword-like leaves. I figured that was it, so I simply left them over winter in the pot, outside, and they had to put up with frost and snow and more rain, a bad winter. Then a late spring to add to their woes. But they started growing and now at last they are flowering. And the scent of them is overpowering. They are really quite gorgeous flowers and I'm so glad I didn't just turf them out, thinking they'd had it! But this winter I might treat them with the dignity they deserve and keep them drier....

No comments:

Post a Comment