Advice please re Baby Gladioli !

[Isobel]

I planted some gladioli last year but this year I noticed hundreds and hundreds of tiny ones growing all round the original corms (I didn't lift them after they had finished last year). I have no idea what I should be doing with these tiddlers! If I leave them in situ do they affect the adult plants? Should I dig them up, transplant them, leave them, remove the original ones...?? Any advice would be gladly received, I am not much of a flower gardener! Thank you.

[David E. Ross]

If they are not divided, they will eventually become so crowded that they will not bloom well.

When the foliage dies, dig them up. Separate the corms (bulb-like parts). Discard the smallest, the oldest, and any that are mushy or smell bad. Definitely keep the fattest corms. Dust the corms you are saving with powdered sulfur and store in a paper bag (not plastic) that is loosely closed in a cool, dark place until bulb-planting time. Then plant them.

When you plant them -- or any other flowering bulb or bulb-like plant -- stir superphosphate or bone meal into the bottom of the planting hole. Cover that with about an inch of plain soil before setting the bulb.

Most bulbs are planted with the base twice as deep as the bulb is high; that is, a bulb should have as much soil above it as the height of the bulb. THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO BEARDED IRIS, which are planted quite shallow with the top of the rhizome almost exposed.