Glad tidings

Earlier in the summer, I planted 20 gladiolus bulbs.  I was so excited when they started to poke up through the soil just weeks after I'd put in the bulbs.  But then came the painters and things went bad.

Well, the glad tidings are that as of today, I have 3 stalks of blooming gladioli on the way.

That's not the full bouquet of gladioli that I had in my dreams when I got the bulbs, but given the havoc wrecked by the (much needed) paint job I feel lucky to see any flowers on the way at all.  

My usual response to pretty flowers in the garden is to leave them in the garden, looking pretty.  These, I feel I should pick.  The garden is not looking pretty and it is not going to look pretty again before next spring.  I could have a nice vase of dramatic cut flowers inside instead of a few sad samples sprinkled through an otherwise dismal dirtpatch.  Cutting flowers is hard, though.  They're healthy plants! Still, I think I should consider these vase flowers from the word go.