Reasons To Be Glad

For a riot of blooming colour in your garden this summer, you can’t go past the hardy gladioli.

- Jackie French

If a collection of ravens is a conspiracy and a group of magpies is a parliament, then it should be a gladness of gladioli.

“Gladdies” have had a bad rap over the past few decades, put in the same class as Dame Edna’s rhinestone tiaras and purple perm. Yet gladdies are also one of the most gorgeous, hardy and reliable summer flowers, and there is a variety for every taste – from gaudy pink or mauve ruffles to “perfectly plain”, the small, wild gladioli that I love.

Galdioli can be planted in a spectacular hedge, scattered among other plants in a cottage garden, or even grown on a grassy bank, as ours are, and picked at Christmas time.