How To Plant Gladioli Bulbs

No bulb should be forced more than once. Remember that, unlike seeds, bulbs pack into their papery shells all the nutrients they need to bloom, so soil is irrelevant to flowering. This is more a miracle of nature than a magic trick.

There's a method to their madness: Tulips continue to grow after being cut, reaching for the light. Rotate the container periodically so each side gets equal access to the light to help tulips stand upright.Fresh water is a must for strong, healthy tulips.

These plants can handle crowding, so holes can be within 1 foot of each other. Windflowers bloom in spring. This softens the husk and gets the roots wet for planting.Mix the top 5 inches of your site with a rich potting soil to provide the bulbs with...

Mature bulbs should be planted 6 inches deep and watered thoroughly until the wet weather begins. Daffodils are low-maintenance annuals that take care of themselves. Seeds will produce flowers in three to five years, and bulbs in another two.

Onions and garlic are both members of the allium family, and the bulbs of garden allium have a distinctive onion-like smell. Although both belong to the order Amaryllidaceae, agapanthus is a member of the African lily family, or Agapanthoideae, while...

Tend to the dahlia plants when they're dry because it helps prevent fungal spores from spreading. Specifically, dahlia leaves may become mottled with mold for two reasons: Botrytis cinerea or powdery mildew.

Cut it off when you are ready to plant the bulb.Dig into the soil in the planting area, to a depth of 6 inches. Unfortunately, water-forced paperwhite bulbs use all of their energy producing the flowers and will not rebloom.

Gently break the smaller bulb from the larger bulb. Gently pull the clump apart to expose the individual bulbs. Each spring, new flowers come up reliably, even if you neglected them through the year.

As these plants leaf out they will grow up, arching over the unsightly, dying tulip foliage, hiding it from view. Grow them near edelweiss, alpine gentians and other low growing perennials that won't cover them up, so the bulbs can get the baking they...

If the bulbs freeze in the ground during the winter, then the bulbs rot after the ground thaws out. The freesia flowers will have to be planted again from newly purchased bulbs.Freesias originate from southern Africa where the rainfall occurs mainly during...

Some of the most compact cultivars are ‘Million Gold', ‘Lemon Delight', ‘Melanie', and ‘Derby' which grow about 10 inches tall and are great for front of the border or for a bright groundcover.

A generous layer of mulch helps protect celery and other fibrous-rooted biennial vegetables How to Overwinter Biennial Vegetables There are several ways to help biennial vegetables make it through winter so they can come into their blooming glory in spring.

Lay them around existing crops to give them an advantage over the yet-to-emerge weeds beneath. Remove any staples or tape then position each sheet of cardboard with generous overlaps to make it harder for weeds to push through.

I was lucky enough to nab one second-hand a few years ago, and it reduces mountains of branches and twigs to useful mulch every spring and autumn. Grass clippings are readily taken down into the soil by earthworms and other soil fauna, and also add a...

By midsummer, the structure that underpins a terraced vegetable garden disappears as it is overrun by exuberant plants. Over time, the lowest tiers of a sloped site gain organic matter as it trickles down from the higher beds, so adding organic matter...

Deadhead Bed for Flowers and Herbs As you clean up after tired flowers and herbs, you will encounter mature seeds. It's been a rough year in many vegetable gardens, but mild autumn days are just around the corner.

You can hasten ripening by removing the leaves from immediately around the fruits to minimize the amount of shade cast so that the fruits can remain sun-kissed and work on their tan.

If you see signs of silver leaf, cut well beyond the area where the dark stain shows in the centre of the wood to make sure that no trace of the fungus remains. Cut through a branch for a certain diagnosis.

The fruits can be picked as soon as the seeds inside have matured, when they will have turned from small and white to full-sized and beige. These ones won't hang around for long – I've a cheek-flushing chili bean recipe I've been itching to try out!...

Mulching can keep soil cooler and reduce evaporation How to Apply a Mulch Thoroughly soak the ground before adding your mulch. This technique ensures a really thorough watering that makes very efficient use of water.

Whether or not you choose to leave potatoes in the ground depends on how cold early winter is in your part of the world. First, the warmth of late summer means that second-crop seed potatoes do not need to be pre-sprouted – they're primed to get growing...

Now remove the smallest fruits and any that are awkwardly positioned. Fewer, bigger fruits are generally more useful than many tiny fruits. It sounds counterintuitive, but there's logic behind this apparent madness I promise! Read on or watch our video...

Each adult lays hundreds of eggs which hatch out into larvae with an insatiable appetite for whatever plant they're sat on. The first frost will put paid to their plans for crop-wide domination but, be warned, in mild areas or in warm greenhouses they...

A regular liquid feed will result in better quality fruits for longer 4. Grass clippings are a ready-to-hand source of instant mulch too, and will help to keep plant roots cool and moist in hot, dry weather.

Also try trap-cropping using a pest's favorite food to make your crops less appealing to them. Practice crop rotation to help prevent a build-up of crop-specific pests in the soil, and if you have suffered from a soil-borne pest such as wireworm it's...

Spring cabbages may be harvested young and loose as greens for repeated cutting, or left to grow on to form a tight head of leaves. Harvest cabbages once the heads have firmed up How to Harvest Cabbage Use a sharp knife to cut your cabbages once the heads...

Well-considered seating is the answer. LED lighting is low cost, versatile and doesn't use much electricity. Consider the look and feel of the bench, which will become a feature in its own right.