“Lavender ... Mountain lavender! Our meetings with you are blue flowers ”- these are the lines from the well-known song of Sofia Rotaru. No wonder she praises this wonderful plant, the beauty of lavender deserves it. Like any other flower, lavender has its own characteristics not only in care, but also in reproduction. It will be discussed in the article.
Appearance and specifications
Lavender is a warm and photophilous honey plant with healing properties. It is widely used in medicine, contains essential oils, due to which it emits a persistent strong aroma. This is a frost-resistant flower that can survive at temperatures below minus twenty-five degrees. Not afraid of drought.
Evergreen shrub with a diameter of about a meter, some species of plants are able to reach two meters in height. The standard size of lavender is about 70-80 centimeters, for dwarf varieties - no more than thirty. The plant blooms in mid-summer, the flowers are oblong spikelets of lilac-blue, blue hues. The leaves are large enough, can be both narrow and wide; deep green, with silver pubescence, slightly bent down along the edges.
Origin
The homeland of lavender are considered the Mediterranean, India and Canaries. Moreover, it was already known to the ancient Egyptians, who grew it in Thebes. From Ancient Egypt, the flower came to Ancient Rome, from where it spread throughout Europe, including appeared in Britain. In the Middle Ages, English monks fell in love with this plant. After the reign of Henry the Eighth, lavender arose in private gardens throughout the British Empire.
At the beginning of the last century, a certain French chemist began to study lavender essential oil, due to which the flower received a “rebirth” - its popularity, which had faded by that time, flared up again with renewed vigor. Entire lavender plantations appeared, known throughout the world - in particular, just in France, in the town of Provence. In Russia, the plant is currently cultivated in the Crimea. In the wild, it can still be found on the Canary Islands, in Africa, in southern Europe, in Arabia.
Varieties of lavender
Narrow-leaved and broad-leaved lavender are distinguished - their difference, as the names suggest, primarily in the leaves. The first is considered the most popular garden culture. As a rule, when they say "garden lavender," they mean it. Broadleaf lavender has another second name - spikelet, because, unlike narrow-leaved lavender, this plant on the stem has as many as three inflorescences. There is also a hybrid lavender - a bizarre mixture of the two above. It differs from them in that it tolerates frost worse, therefore such a variety is best grown in warm southern Europe. In Russia, narrow-leaved lavender is mainly preferred, and in total there are about thirty species of this plant in the world.
Lavender Garden: Planting and Care
The first thing to remember if you want to have this flower in your garden: lavender loves not only warmth, but also light. Therefore, choosing a place for the plant, it is necessary to find such that as much sunlight as possible gets there. If lavender accidentally appears in the shade, it is extremely unlikely that it will turn out to wait for flowering, in any case, abundant. It is advisable that next to it there are no tall trees that cast a huge shadow.
Anyone who dares to get a beautiful flower will be interested in how to grow lavender correctly. In order for all the bushes / seeds to take root, do not place them closer to each other than 80-90 centimeters, otherwise they will interfere with the neighbors. About the same distance from lavender should be any other plants.
Before sowing, you must carefully plow the soil. It must be ensured that it does not remain too wet, the swampiness of lavender does not tolerate. In the event that the entire site suffers from dampness, it is reasonable to use drainage, otherwise lavender can die without really starting to grow, and all efforts will be in vain. A flower is planted in well-spilled soil to a depth of not more than ten centimeters (if these are seedlings) or one and a half centimeters (if these are seeds) on a warm spring day (late April or early May).
Caring for lavender in the first year of her life is not particularly difficult. If necessary, remove inflorescences and restore dead sprouts. Regularly it is necessary to process the aisles, to loosen and feed the plant. In the spring, you need to trim. If this is not done, then instead of a beautiful shrub, you will get an ugly curved bush. Immediately after flowering, pruning lavender is not recommended, because young shoots may appear that will suffer from the onset of cold weather. Also, when trimming, it is important not to overdo it: this can lead to the death of the plant.
In spring and autumn, it is necessary to spud and mulch lavender, and for the winter - it is necessary to shelter. This can be done using various branches of conifers. It is not recommended to warm the flower with leaves - it will rot under them. That's all the wisdom of how to grow lavender. With proper care, it will bloom all summer and will quietly live in one place for more than twenty years.
Soil for lavender
An important question: what soil does lavender like? Perhaps it’s easier to answer which one does not like: heavy and wet. Particular attention should be paid to the latter. Light sandy, gravel or clay light, through which water passes well, are best suited. If the soil on the site is heavy, it is recommended to mix it with sand, gravel or granite in a ratio of one to one before planting lavender - then it will take root. If the soil is acidic, the flower will also be capricious, so lime or ash must be added to such a soil. The more responsible it is to approach the “soil issue”, the better it will grow and bloom lavender.
Watering and feeding
Another question for gardeners is how often to water lavender? This should be done sparingly, because the flower does not like not only moist soil, but also excess moisture in general. Necessarily required water lavender immediately after planting, and then - already much less. If the earth near the plant has dried up - it can be watered, but only slightly. When lavender blooms, it does not need to be watered at all. It should be remembered that this is a drought tolerant flower. However, a lack of water will lead to a deterioration in flowering, so even this must be observed.
Lavender and fertilizer are little needed. If the soil is good, such as the plant likes, you can do without fertilizing at all. Favorably lavender belongs to potash fertilizers, responds well to various mineral complexes.
Breeding
Perhaps one of the main points in the care of lavender is reproduction. In total there are four ways: seeds, cuttings, layering, dividing the bush. The first two are the most popular.
Propagation of lavender by cuttings
This is the easiest way. Good cuttings will require young shoots from healthy, developed plants, weak flowers will not work. It is best to carry out this “operation” in the early autumn or spring, in the morning. To cut the shoots, you should take a sharp, well-sharpened knife. The cut should be done as close to the kidney as possible so that the shoot does not rot. When propagating lavender cuttings, it is recommended to select shoots from the middle, annuals that have never bloomed. The size of the cuttings should be from seven to ten centimeters, the leaves from below must be removed.
Ready cuttings need to be treated with a growth stimulant and planted in a mixture of peat and sand in a ratio of one to one. Place a container under the covering material (suitable foil, polyethylene, etc.), which will periodically need to be removed to ventilate the plant (enough once a day). When the soil dries, the cuttings must be watered. It will take about 5-6 weeks for them to give roots, after which time they can be planted in a permanent habitat.
Seed propagation
Reproduction of lavender is carried out by seeds, this is the second most popular method, although it is somewhat more difficult than grafting. The thing is that in this case stratification is required - measures to accelerate seed germination. This process is carried out for a month, the seeds need to be mixed with sand or peat, put in the refrigerator and kept there for 30 days. Desired temperature - no more than plus five degrees.
Seedlings are planted in late February or early March. Sowing depth should not exceed three millimeters. Keep seedlings should be in the light, at an optimum temperature of fifteen to twenty degrees above zero. In such conditions, seedlings will appear quite quickly. When they reach several centimeters, you can seed the sprouts in different containers, and in May send them to open ground. It is important to take into account the fact that the reproduction of lavender from seeds in the first year will not bring flowers, all the efforts of the plant will be directed to the root system.
Propagation by layering and dividing the bush
Propagation of lavender by layering is simpler than by seed, but for some reason it is less popular. In order for everything to work out as it should, in the spring you should bend a couple of young shoots from a healthy plant, put them in a prepared small groove (you do not need to dig a deep hole), fix it, cover it (with soil and fertilizer) and water it. All summer it is necessary to ensure that the soil is moist near the groove. Next year, the shoots will be able to "live a full life" and they can be safely cut off from the mother bush.
An even rarer way to propagate lavender is to divide the bush. This is done in the fall: all branches, without exception, are cut to a height of up to ten centimeters. They huddle the bush, leave it for the winter, and in the spring add as much ground as possible. Over the summer, a firmly rooted young shoot appears, which in the fall can be dug up and divided.
Diseases and Pests
Lavender is afraid of gray rot. It is necessary to carefully monitor the appearance of this infection, and in case of its appearance, remove and burn the affected parts of the plant. Also, the flower suffers from a rainbow beetle, which regales itself. Insects need to be cleaned only by hand.
Although it is sung in a popularly beloved hit that lavender is mountain, in fact it is quite a “plain” flower, which, with proper care and proper care, can please any gardener in any area!