Gladioli - not just Dame Edna

Last week the flowers that I put in Drymen bank were a dark cerise gladioli caled Plum Tart - pictured on the right.

The women who work in the bank are always very good at passing on feedback to me and said that the flowers had been particularly admired that week and that they had been commented on by a lot of men.

I love gladioli - particularly in dark velvety colours or green - and I have always thought of them as a very female flower. Thinking about it though - at the farmers markets in Partick it did tend to be men who bought gladioli and I suppose that, as a traditional allotment flower, they would have been grown by men for the house.

I have been very disappointed this year as all the black jack gladioli that I ordered have come up peachy pink - the colour that you get in supermarket bunches. It is a mistake at the bulb supplier so there is not much I can do now except ask for a refund. I was looking forward to the black gladioli though.

One variety I am trialling this year is ovation which is described in the catalogue as burntorange but is in reality more of a tangerine colour. It is shown in the picture on the left. It is slightly later than the other gladioli and only just beginning to come out - I think that it will mix well with yellows, lime green and a vibrant blue if I can think of anything blue with enough stature. Or perhaps I shall try it with bronze fennel and rusty coloured rudbeckias.