You can create particular colors or shapes by pollinating gladioluses yourself.
Gladiolus flowers are known for their vibrant colors, ranging from white to deep purple and hitting nearly every color in between. The plants grow spiky, ruffled flowers that enhance any garden. Adventurous growers choose to breed their gladiolus flowers by hand to determine the appearance of their next set of seeds. While breeding the gladiolus does not guarantee predictable color, it allows you customize your flowers to your sensibilities. Start as soon as the flowers open to make sure you get fresh pollen and breed the plants before bees and other bugs do the job for you.
Instructions
1. Gently pull off the petals of two or three of the flowers near the base of the gladiolus plants that will serve as your parent and seed plants. The parent plant provides the pollen and the seed plant is the one you will pollinate. Removing the petals exposes the stamens and stops bees from being attracted to the plant and taking the pollen.
2. Pull off the stamens with a pair of tweezers and immediately place the stamens into a sealable plastic bag or container. When you remove the stamens, only the pistils of the flower will remain.
3. Move to the seed plant. Gently scrape the top of the stamens with the tweezers to push the fresh pollen onto your fingertip, so that you can easily transport it to the seed plant.
4. Rub the pollen onto the sticky tip of the pistils of the seed plant. This pollinates the plant and enables it to form seeds from the two plants you chose, eliminating the random nature of breeding.
5. Attach a tag to the base of the plant that indicates which two plants you used to breed the new seeds. This enables you to keep track of the characteristics each plant offers.
6. Remove the seeds from the seedpods once the pods dry out and crack open. Store the seeds in an envelope, and keep them at room temperature until the following spring, when you can plant your new seeds and grow your hand-bred gladiolus plants.
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