Gladiolus daleni; Parrot
Lily; Natal Lily; Papegaaigladiolus; Wildeswardlelie; isidwi esibomvu; uhlakahle;
udwendweni
Article by Geoff Nichols
This gladiolus is one of the most widespread, in not only the
province, but throughout Africa and even onto the island of Madagascar. It
is common in cultivation and I use it as one of my garden age indicators.
Any garden, that has established clumps of this species, is more than 70-80
years old. The reason being that the early gardeners in the Natal Colony saw
this plant in the wild and brought it into cultivation. We see it now only
along road verges or on steep banks where humans and their livestock cannot
get at the plants. It went out of fashion and has proven difficult to obtain
in nurseries.
There are two colour forms a bright orange form that flowers usually in
the winter months and another slightly duller greenish-orange that is in
flower now during the spring and early summer.
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For
those people that live in the Pietermaritzburg area this species flowers about
4 weeks later than its coastal cousins. I was telephoned by a lady in the
"Sleepy Hollow" asking that I include species that would do in your pretty
city. So here you are.
This species has had 27 different scientific names from tropical Africa
and Madagascar plus a further 14 from southern Africa, mainly because it
is so widespread and because it has many different colour forms. Peter Goldblatt
and John Manning in their book "Gladiolus of Southern Africa" lavishly illustrated
by Fay Anderson and Auriol Batten have given a detailed account of the nomenclature.
Very entertaining reading.
This species needs full sunlight to grow in. The soil needs to be relatively
well drained but I have seen it growing in fairly heavy soils to light coastal
sandy soil. Moles love this species and in my garden the only plants to survive
are in a pot. Otherwise the moles eat all the larger flowering size corms
and you get a mass of young corms that do not flower. Compost and feed well
during the summer growing season and then allow the corms to die back and
rest during winter. Leave watering out of the equation entirely in the winter.
The Parrot Lily is widely cultivated and has been in cultivation in Europe
since the 1820s. It has been an important component of the breeding of the
modern Gladiolus hybrids. It was one of the species used in making the original
hybrids.
It is bird pollinated and here in Durban I often see White-bellied Sunbirds
working over the flowering patch in a nearby garden.
