The Glamorous Gloriosas

I have always had a weakness for ordering those things in a flower catalogue that sound odd and unusual. Years ago I tried to grow Gloriosa rothschildiana, or glory or climbing lily as it is commonly known. The V-shaped tubers were intriguing; they sent up slender, vine-like stalks with leaves oddly elongated into curling tendrils that, for support, gripped anything within reach. But there were never any blooms, so I lost interest in them.

Then the fortunes of a job transfer sent me down to Florida for some two and a half years, and during my spare time I became well acquainted with the glamorous gloriosas, which are rather plentiful in that balmy climate. There I learned the reasons for my previous failures – I’d never had a blooming-size tuber and I hadn’t watered my plants enough.

Since returning home I have grown and flowered gloriosas with complete success for two years, under outdoor summer culture in Tennessee. Others in Washington state, Missouri, New Jersey and Massachusetts tell me that they also do well with them, so it would seem that here is a plant novelty more northern gardeners might enjoy.

Certainly the spectacular “upside down” flowers will attract attention, for they have eye appeal in both form and color. The reflexed petals are curled and crinkled along their edges, clear yellow and red in newly opened blossoms. An interesting color transition to an all-over deep red occurs as the flowers age. The stems are strong and the blooms last well when cut; florists, in fact even can use them in arrangements.

Gladiolus Culture Is Suitable

Generally speaking, glory lilies are handled like gladiolus and other tender summer-blooming bulbs. No doubt they’ll succeed under a variety of treatments, but to get at something definite, I’ll describe the routine under which mine are thriving. After frost danger is past in spring, I put newly purchased dormant tubers, as well as my own old ones (brought from winter storage in the basement), in a shallow box of pulverized peatmoss on a back porch shelf. Since something – probably a mouse – gnawed the end off a nice tuber once, I’ve covered the box with a screen.

Exposed to outdoor temperatures, the tubers sometimes remain dormant for weeks, but as the days become warmer I keep an eye on the box. Usually toward the end of April, the small, smooth buds at the extreme ends of the tubers start swelling, and before long there are pink sprouts ready to start up, with white rootlets emerging beneath them. Tubers at this stage are removed for planting.

The size of the dormant tubers, conditions under which they are wintered and, of course, the weather are all factors influencing their spring awakening. From last season’s notes I find that some gloriosas wore ready for planting on April 28, but the last ones didn’t get into the ground until June 12.

Most of my tubers are set in pots and tubs, although a number of them go directly into the ground. Possibly, I get the best increase in size from those planted in the ground. On the other hand, it is quite difficult to dig them up in the fall without breaking some, as they are very brittle. Those in pots can be simply turned out. Also, it is easy to move potted ones around wherever I want them at blooming time.

Soil Preparation

In any case a special soil is used – about 1/3 sand and the rest a mixture of garden soil, peatmoss, a little well-rotted cow manure, which I am lucky enough to have, and bits of broken charcoal. Probably a simpler formula would be all right – just good garden soil mixed with plenty of sand. The drainage must be near-perfect, and a thick layer of broken pots or gravel is placed in tubs and pots before the soil is poured in.

Tubers are planted horizontally, 2 to 4 inches deep, depending upon their size. Their size, too, determines the container that is used. I put one tuber in a 5-, 8-, or 7-inch pot, and sometimes three or four large ones in a tub. They are watered moderately at first but after green shoots appear above the ground are given a drink two or three times a week.

A Sheltered Location

My gloriosas grow in a nook near the house, protected on two sides by trees and a wall. They get sunshine for a little over half the day. But this is sunny Tennessee; farther north they’d probably need more open exposure to the sun.

The stalks grow rapidly, and it is not unusual to have bloom six or seven weeks after the tubers are planted. My blooming plants are 2 to 4 feet high – not quite the 8-foot giants I used to see in Florida, but the flowers seem to be about as large.

After flowers are gone I continue watering the glory lilies through the late summer and into the autumn to maintain the plants and fatten new tubers for the next season. If foliage yellows and dies, water is withheld. Before frost, tubers growing in the ground are dug and brought into the basement for drying off. Potted and tubbed tubers also are brought inside and allowed to dry for several weeks. In fact, I have left some undisturbed all winter in the dry earth of their pots, but ordinarily I turn them out and store all the tubers in a box of dry peatmoss until spring conies again. The basement gets cold in winter but never quite down to the freezing point.

Letter-Perfect Tubers

Typical tubers of Gloriosa rothschildiana are shaped just like a V, an L or sometimes an I. Not infrequently, however, they are twisted or knotted, especially when grown in pots which do not afford room for full development.

Set a normal two-pronged tuber in the ground and you will observe a most interesting behavior. Although each arm of the tuber carries a bud at its end, only one will grow up into a plant. There are rare exceptions. The other will develop underground into a knob-like tuber that may be used the next season. However, should the green stalk from the first bud be broken or destroyed while young, the “bud in reserve” on the tuber’s other arm will spring up as a replacement plant.

It has been learned that if tubers are cut in two at the junction of their arms before planting, the bud on each arm will then produce a plant. For this reason, commercial growers nearly always split their tubers – those of blooming size, at least – and sell theta in the form of straight, single arms. I also follow this practice of splitting the rootstocks to get extra dividends in flowering plants.

How Big Is “Blooming Size”?

The number of blooms on a glory lily seems to vary directly with the size of the tuber from which it grows. Some writers state that two-year-old tubers will flower. Perhaps that is true under very favorable conditions. Last year, in an effort to determine the minimum “blooming size” for a Gloriosa rothschildiana tuber, I planted 25 two-year-old ones of fairly uniform size, their arms running 3 to 3 1/2 inches long and 3/8 to 1/2 inch in diameter. Part of them were split and part planted whole. Though they grew nicely and showed satisfactory increase in size when dug in the fall, not a single bloom appeared.

At the same time a group of slightly larger tubers 3 1/2 inches long and 5/8 inches thick – did flower dependably, most of them producing plants with four blooms. A tuber 5 1/2 inches long with average diameter of about an inch sent up a fine stalk with two lateral branches, bearing twenty-two big flowers in all.

In connection with my remark about tubers growing larger during the season, probably I should explain that the tuber you dig in the fall is not the same one you planted in spring. The original tuber shrivels and exhausts itself in making the summer growth, but a larger, stronger tuber should develop beneath it as a replacement. I don’t know what the maximum size of a gloriosa tuber might be. One of mine is 9 inches long and just under 2 inches through at its thickest point. It looks like a husky baby’s forearm.

My understanding is that in their native African habitat, glory lily stalks push up through the undergrowth; then, well above ground, flowering branches trail off horizontally over the top of the brush. This somewhat top-heavy habit of growth may be noted in gardens, too, when plants reach appreciable size. If near a fence or rough wall, they’ll handle the matter of support adequately by taking hold with their leaf tendrils; otherwise stakes or a trellis of some sort should be provided.

Good Under Glass

Besides being adapted to outdoor summer culture, Gloriosa rothschildiana is an excellent subject for growing in a greenhouse or a sunny conservatory. Apparently it can be brought into flower at almost any time of the year. I saw one blooming on a Christmas day in an orchid house in Winter Park, Florida. Far across the country in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, I found the familiar red and yellow blossoms featured in a conservatory flower display in mid-April, and in June I observed them again blooming from potted tubers in the big glass house in Chicago.

Other species available. While rothschildiana is the showiest, largest and best known of the gloriosas, several American dealers in rare plants and bulbs can also supply G. superba and G. planti, both of which are worth growing. Flowers of G. superba are smaller than those of rothschildiana, but there are more of them and their petals are considerably more fluted and crisped along the edges. As I saw it in Florida and as I have grown it in Tennessee, it has always blossomed in late summer, flowering in August and September.

A picture I once took of G. superba illustrated the exceptional durability of its flowers. I picked them at an interesting garden in St. Augustine, Florida, on a Saturday afternoon of September, 1999. Packing them loosely in a paper bag, I took them fifty miles north to our hotel, where they were placed in water until the following Wednesday. Then I put them in damp paper in a cardboard carton and brought them by car 600 miles to my home in Nashville. The foliage showed signs of limpness, but the flowers were in excellent shape.

Gloriosa plant is nearer superba than rothsehildiana, but to me appears weaker in growth and less floriferous than either – under Florida conditions, at least. It differs, too, in having thickened, rambling rootstocks rather than tubers like the other two species.

Glorious From Seed

If you’re patient you can have glory lilies from seed. I was interested to learn that the hundreds of plants of G. rothschildiana, G. superba and G. planti growing in St. Augustine all trace back to packets of seed secured from New Jersey seedsman Rex. Pearce.

In my one trial planting of all three species, the seed, which is hard, round and a little smaller than BB shot, was slow and erratic in germinating. Planted in pots of a soil, sand and peatmoss mixture on March 10, they did nothing for ten weeks. The pots were covered with panes of glass and the soil was kept moist. Early in June tiny green blades began to appear in the rothsehildiana pot. Superba and planti seedlings didn’t show up until the middle of July, four months after sowing. Eventually there was a very good stand, and by fall I could find many plump little tubers. These were left in the pots of dry soil all through the winter in the basement, but were taken out and planted farther apart in deep wood flats for their second summer’s growth.

I haven’t brought them to flowering size yet and really donit expect blooms until their fourth season. Maybe you can do better. But order a few mature tubers in the meantime and enjoy their glorious blooms while you’re bringing up the babies.

by S Caldwell

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