If you are looking for a small garden at the same time beautiful and unpretentious, then safely plant there a perennial mallow - a plant from the category of "planted and forgotten." Perennial mallow, despite its external fragility, has excellent adaptability to external conditions and is able to survive in absolutely unsuitable conditions for the flower. It will not prevent the blossoming of a bright burning sun, or almost complete absence of rain. Moreover - it is the overabundance of moisture that most often causes the diseases of this plant. We will talk about the intricacies of growing the perennial mallow today.
Clover perennial mallow - cultivation and care
The process of growing a perennial mallow begins, of course, with the choice of a place for planting it. So, where is it better to plant this plant? To mallow grows well and fully flowered, it should be planted in well-lit areas, maximum - in the penumbra. Planted in the shadow of the mallow, although not die, but will grow slowly, and flowers from it and did not wait. The composition of the soil mallow is almost indifferent, but it is best felt on loose soils, filled with oxygen and nutrients. The most important thing is to plant the mallow on a hill where water will not accumulate and stagnate. It is best to plant mallow from the sunny side of the house or fence, where it will be well illuminated and at the same time it can not be damaged by the wind.
Care for perennial mallow is minimal, and reduces to the periodic loosening of the soil around it with the simultaneous removal of weeds . Watering mallow is only necessary in particularly arid years, the rest of the time it is quite natural precipitation.
In autumn, when the last bud buds on the mallow, its stems are cut level with the soil level. The earth around the bush is mulched with a thick layer of humus or compost. For the winter, mulberry bushes are covered with straw or lapnikom to save from frost.
Cultivation of perennial mallow from seeds
Stage 1 - collection of seeds
After withering flowers in their place, seed boxes are formed, called "kalachikas" still popular among the people. Within a few weeks the seeds ripen, and only after the "kalachik" turns yellow and withered, they can be harvested. It should be noted that the germination of seeds of perennial mallow is able to retain for 3 years, and it is in the third year of storage that they germinate most easily.
Stage 2 - selection of the method of cultivation
The way in which to grow mallow from seeds - sowing them directly into the ground or first growing the seedlings - depends only on how soon the grower wishes to enjoy her flowering. Sowing seeds in the ground in early summer will lead to the fact that by autumn the mallow will only have time to form a rosette of leaves. The first flowers on it will appear only in the second year. Cultivated by seedling, the mallow will blossom by the end of summer.
Stage 3 - growing seedlings
To start sowing mallow seeds for seedlings is necessary in the first ten days of February. Before sowing, the seeds are soaked for 10-12 hours in warm water so that they swell. Sow them best at once on peat pots, so as not to disturb the tender roots of mallow by the process of picking and transplanting into the open ground. Seeds are lowered into the soil to a depth of several centimeters and
Stage 4 - planting seedlings in the ground
Plant seedlings in the flower garden should be in early May, when the spring has already become stronger in their rights. For planting it is better to choose a warm, windless evening. Between the bush mallow, gaps of 25-40 cm are left to allow excess moisture to evaporate without any interference from the soil.