Like most artists, Atlanta-area garden designer Ryan Gainey has a keen eye for beauty and a creative spirit that won’t be bound by convention. He even likes gladiolus! In fact, he recently wrote a whole article about them for Flower magazine.

As he explains, “my great-grandmothers and my Aunt Marie grew gladiolus” and he did too when he started gardening in the 1960s. ‘Spic and Span’ was an early favorite, and when 40 years later he found it in our catalog, he was “swept away by a wave of nostalgia.”

Since then he’s added many other heirloom varieties to his garden, including the rare parrot glad, an old Southern form of G. dalenii — and every now and then he calls us with a tip about an old glad he found somewhere that he thinks we ought to add to our catalog. (Thanks, Ryan!)