Poor petals

He who created flowers must have been having an off day when it came to drawing up the gladioli.

After waiting all summer for the spear-like plants to send up the flower stems, with the leaves under constant attack from every slug and snail within a mile, they've suddenly burst into bloom. And what happens? They fall over.

Basically those stems aren't strong enough to keep upright with a whole battery of colour at the top of them. So now I've had to tie them to stakes to achieve the colourful effect I've waited so long for, and quite relieved they look too.

Who knows what would have happened in the wild with no one to stake them? Pretty poor design for a flower if you ask me.