Welcome to Gladiolus Exoticus, our catalog of designer glads at Honker Flats. We are the Wallace family, Lew, Tammy and Marcus.

Our second year with Gladiolus Exoticus was very interesting indeed. Producing our second catalog and launching a great new website, www.honkerflats.com, was a WOW experience. It took a lot of planning, and we learned a lot. Thanks for the guidance from Mary Ann and Traci of the Thief River Falls Times. It looks and works great. Of course there’s lots we can still do with it, both for the glads and the greenhouse.

 We appreciate all the repeat orders and enjoyed all the new customers as well. It’s great to see varieties we introduced show up on 2007 show reports from across the country. Snoflakes, Venus, Plum Butter, Chocolat, Laguna, and Mars proved themselves in competition and are listed on symposiums in Glad World. A huge part of the credit goes to the hybridizers that have allowed us to showcase their fine creations in our catalog. Thanks go to Bob Longhenry, Don Selinger, and Dave Kollasch – great job. Trialing seedlings is exciting and the class of 2008 is a fun offering. We’ve become very strong in the miniature section. Dave Kollasch brings us delightful novelties in the 100 size, some so tiny they're almost unbelievable – believe it! Small glads are good in the garden and fun to design with.

 

Don Selinger offers three distinctive 200 size glads. Designers have been drooling over these at Minnesota shows. Anna Lynn will set a high standard.  

 

From Bob Longhenry we’ve selected a hot red glad for arranging.

 

 We welcome Jeff Radunz of Wausau,WI , and Robert Schalow of Marshfield WI. Jeff brings us a mouthwatering 315 seedling that he has had good success with. We are pleased to offer three of Robert’s stand out varieties.

 Like many of you our growing season was challenging. Planting was delayed because of two weeks of rain. That moisture helped us through a hot 2 months with no rain. Most of our glads bloomed late August & September.

 We had a fun show season, with design winners at the Minnesota show in Hutchinson, Canadian International – Winnipeg, and Minnesota State Fair. Some photos are in the catalog and more in the website.

 A big event for us was our second annual Honker Flats Gladiolus Festival, featuring Minnesota Glad Society Spike and Seedling Show. Two hundred-twelve spikes and 40 arrangements were on display. Thanks for the support from the members of the MN Glad Society. It was a wonderful weekend and we exposed a lot of new people to gladiolus. It’s a planned event again this year, September 6 and 7, 2008. All are welcome!
 Our main business of Honker flats Greenhouse continues to flourish. We now prepare for our 34th season. We appreciate those that “come home to Honker Flats” each year to shop for their bedding plants, exotic annuals, perennials and nursery stock. The walk in cooler was a huge success. It was nice and bright and kept the bare root nursery stock in great shape. It was very useful in the fall when working with the cut flowers and vegetables.

 Whether you purchase glads from our catalog, visit our greenhouses, visit a show, join a society or come to our Gladiolus Festival in September, Welcome to our Honker Flats Family!

 

 Lew, Tammy and Marcus Wallace