Question
I planted some gladioli a few years ago next to a concrete swimming pool at a home that we had just moved into, not expecting them to come back the next year because every other time that I planted them at different locations, they never came back the next year.  I live in Zone 5, and just finished reading from one of your experts that if they are planted near a cement foundation, the cement can retain enough heat to keep the corm alive over the winter.

The gladioli are beautiful and I love that they come back every year without my digging them up, but they are getting more and more crowded, and I would like to know if I can just dig some up and transplant them in the fall, instead of digging up the corms and saving them over the winter.  I am afraid that if I do that they might get moldy or I might do something wrong and they won't be as nice.

Answer
Hi Julie,
Thanx for your question.  I'm in the Kansas City area.  Nice to see a fellow Kansan on the net.  When my mother lived in Edwardsville, KS, she had some glads that were planted in a bed next to the house that was raised from the driveway.  Apparently, enough heat from the basement kept the soil from freezing at the level of the bulbs' depth.  They came up year-after-year until one particularly harsh winter.  My sister-in-law who lived in south Johnson County, Kansas had glads that would come up every year and they made babies too.  Glads are like any other bulbaceous plant.  You can dig it up every three or four years and separate the bulbs.  Discard the old, diseased, dead bulbs.  Keep the large healthy ones and the babies.  Actually, I forget.  It's a corm not a bulb.  Keep the cormlets and cormels (the smaller corms and the pea-sized corms) and they will form new plants two.  Blooming in one to two seasons.  Make sure wherever you plant the corms, cormlets and cormels that you ensure they are protected from freezing soil by either planting next to the foundation of the house or very heavily mulched with straw.  I hope this helps.
Tom