“Flowers Changing Color 2”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana
More changing flower color. As I mentioned in my last posting, gladiolus that I planted about five years ago have gradually changed color. The first year they bloomed, the flowers were yellow with just a hint of a peach color. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of those flowers on my computer, so you will just have to take my word for this. Year by year, the yellow shrank, and the peach took over. As more of the peach showed, it seemed to get darker until now when the flower is now a deep orange with just a little bit of yellow in the throat.
When I bought these the package showed these corms to be yellow, and the first year, I was very disappointed that they were not all yellow, but I could live with the small amount of peach. Later on, I planted, in the same area, all yellow gladiolus which do bloom just before these. So I do have my yellow glads.
I really did not like these orange gladiolus at first, but they have grown on me. Of course, that may have something to do with several neighbors telling me how beautiful they are. (There is nothing like seeing something through another’s eyes to make us appreciate what we have.) Still, I am puzzled as to why these gladiolus flowers gradually changed from yellow to orange.
Always Growing 
garden mary said,
June 25, 2010 at 6:22 am
I don’t know about the changing color, but this flower is certainly pretty. These colors really say “Summer” to me.
Melody said,
June 25, 2010 at 9:41 am
Your changing flowers got me curious so I did some research online. I found this link that states it is caused by cucumber mosaic virus, which sounds reasonable http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930820&slug=1716825
These two links have some other thoughts but I don’t think they are the reason yours are changing http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extnews/hortiscope/flowers/glads.htm and http://www.populararticles.com/article171760.html
Hopes this helps:)
Linda said,
June 27, 2010 at 6:57 am
I picked up a cheap package of gladious at the dollar store to plant on the outside part of my fence. I noticed the package said to keep the true color the plants need a ph of 6-7. Have you checked the ph?
Linda