Gladioli Byzantius: Can anyone tell me how to obtain these bullbs?

You are lucky to have had them flowering for 10 days. I've got them all over the place and they rarely go above a week before they start to look tatty. There are one or two mail order companies that offer byzantius, but I'm sorry I can't remember who.
If you'd like to send me your address in a PM I'll send you some of mine. I need to clear them out as I'm expanding my Daylily collection.

That really is so kind of you. Is that all they do when established and full grown? Just a week only? Oh, knickers, knickers, and flipping fiddlesticks! What a silly plant! What a useless and beautiful thing! I knew it was a relatively short bloomer because I'd asked a question about it on GOY before. But I was hoping to be able to stretch it to a couple of weeks or so when fully grown. If a week or 10 days is all it can be expected to do ever, I think I'll abandon the idea of growing it. But thank you ever so much for your very kind thought. I will gladly share with you any of my plant stock, as I do have things to spare from time to time.

I have fuchsias and dahlias which flower for four months approximately. It makes so much sense to grow as many of the longest flowering plants there are. I feel a bit nuts and round the bend each time I plant a lily or a tulip, though I still do it anyway. Would anyone know of a list of the really long flowerers?

Verbena bonariensis- Purple, 5-6ft tall, goes from beginning of June through to and including October.

Lysimachia punctata lasts about a month and half

Anthemis- daisy like flowers, mine started may and is still going!

Achillea The Pearl- late may and still going, although white they dont get damaged by the rain and the same flowers stay white for months

Too name only a few

Crocus.co.uk- plant
Avon Bulbs- bulb

Both do mail order

You can always try Daylilies (Hemerocallis). There are quite a few cultivars that will continue to produce flowers from the end of May until the end of summer. Some of my late season ones have even had one or two smaller flowers on them in December, but it's mild here. Check out my blog 'The Daylily Article'. (It's in 2 parts, as it's quite long). It may give you some inspiration, and I'm always carrying the flag for Daylilies. Most of my collection are featured in my photofile.

Hi Bigbumblebee, I've had a look at your pics. What a lot of day lilies! You must love the things. My garden is largely in pots as it is mostly a patio. I once tried growing a day lily in a pot, I think probably a 14" diameter one. It flowered only sparcely, and when I lifted it out I found it had become pretty root congested. I nowadays have a hose filter to remove chlorine from tap water, which I am hoping will benefit all my plants, including day lilies if ever I were to grow one again. But I am still uncertain how suitable as plants they are for growing in pots.

Not all Daylilies take kindly to being stuck in a pot, yet there are some that are quite happy wherever they are as long as they're well fed and watered. Regardless of which variety you choose, the pot does need to be a minimum of 15ins otherwise, as you found, they plants quickly get potbound. If you're still interested, a good one for pot or garden is the foolproof 'Frans Hals' a bicolor rust-red and gold single which blooms for months. I'll stop now, before my hobby horse runs away with me!