The exotic South African bacopa flower has long ceased to be a novelty of salons. Now everyone can grow this plant in their garden or on the balcony. So, bacopa - growing from seeds: what you need to know in advance, but what will you have to worry about in the process? The following are tips from professional growers.
The modern flora market represents Bacopa in numerous color schemes. This can be a scattering of classic white or purple, pink, blue, purple, blue, red and yellow flowers. When choosing a suitable variety, you should familiarize yourself with its resistance to color degeneration. Even bright red and blue bacops can become pure white in a few years of constant pollination.
This small plant blooms continuously from March to October with many small flowers with a diameter of 2 cm. If a bacopa was chosen for a balcony or garden, growing from seeds becomes the best solution, it allows you to save on planting material. Most often, this ampel plant is decorated with fences, walls, balconies and outdoor flowerpots, less often you can see the bacopa in the form of a carpeted floral cover. An unpretentious bush can share space with other ampelous plants: nasturtium, lobelia, petunia, ageratum or fuchsia.
Seed bacopa - growing in steps:
- Choose the soil. An ideal soil mixture for outdoor flower beds would be ordinary peat mixed with garden soil. If flowerpots are needed to decorate a balcony or internal containers, two parts of humus and sand are added to the resulting soil. The roots are very susceptible to decay, so in order to get a healthy and beautiful bacopa, the cultivation should be carried out on high-quality drainage.
- Watering should be regular, but moderate so as not to over-moisten the delicate roots. A place for the future flowerpot should be chosen sunny, without drafts. The less light gets on the bacopa, the less flowers it will have.
- It must be remembered that for a plant such as Bacopa, growing from seeds by direct planting in the ground is impossible. Strong and healthy seedlings should be kicked out. For germination of small seeds, the number of which per 1 g exceeds 5000 pieces, use prepared soil according to the scheme. Ambient temperature should not be lower than 20 ° C. Seeds are only slightly pressed to the ground and moistened. During germination, a little moisture and access to light should be provided. Bacopa sprouts will appear in 10-14 days.
- The first pick is carried out after the appearance of the second real leaf. The second thinning and seating already takes place in separate plastic pots or glasses. The higher the variety of plants, the greater should be the distance between the shoots - at least 10 cm, for particularly tall specimens - up to 25 cm. Young bacopa strengthens with liquid fertilizers, growing from seeds is also necessarily accompanied by regular top dressing.
- Experienced flower growers can do a few tweaks to increase the number of future bacopa buds. On young shoots, growth points are removed, which provokes the development of additional lateral processes and kidneys.