Are the gladioli flowering in your garden?

I did the same, once planted, never touched them.
But like with daffodils, some people believe that they have to interfere, but since living here, the daffodils in a nearby park have never failed, loads of them, with one exception when in 2019 none of the millions flowered. It must have been one of the weird years where plants know more than homo. A woman asked in the GW magazine why none of her daffodils had flowered.

 

I think one common error with bulbs is "tidying" too early rather than letting all the leaves die back naturally.
It is often recommended that giving flowering bulbs a feed such as Tomorite or similar once they begin to die back does help flowering for the following year. Don't know whether that helps or not.
The various daffs, tulips, glads, crocus etc. have flowered normally for me but the lack of any rainfall may well mean next year is a bit different come flowering time.

 

Most of mine are going over now, I think the large flowered ones tend to be later.
When we moved into this house in 2000 there was a large flowered salmon one which I wasn't too keen on so I gave away the bulb but the seed corms kept growing and coming back so I have given in and let it stay. You have to admire such tenacity.

 

@Baalmaiden your salmon one has obviously fallen in love with you and your garden and has no intention of moving on

 

I discovered today that one of the gladioli developes a flower. It should flower in August which means winter will end at the end of March. Good news imo.

 

How does a gladioli living in this year know what happens next year.
A plant, in fact anything can only "know" what happened to it in the past and what is happening currently, they cannot be affected by what might happen in the future and they cannot predict what will happen in the future.

 

We had this discussion before @NigelJ

 

I know, but people insist on perpetuating the fallacy that plant behaviour/growth patterns predict the future. And not one of these people can explain how it could be possible.

 

@NigelJ It must make you suspicious when there is a plant that behaves differently in some years than in others.
It’s a well known rule that if some plants flower in November rather when they normally should flower, that there is a long winter ahead. Instead of valuing such hints, you try to ask these observations in question.

Either you make the effort to find out the secret or ignore people who observe over many years and accept things as they are.

 

Most of it is wrapped up in folk law, st swithins day, ground hog day, to name just a couple.