Often, owners of summer cottages and private households think about how to decorate the patio or make a cozy and attractive garden. Undoubtedly, fountains, functional reservoirs and original fences will decorate the territory. But liveliness and luxury will be able to add fresh, fragrant flowers to her. In this case, alissums, which are very much in demand in landscape design, can be an excellent choice.
In this article, we will describe how alissum is grown. Planting and plant care have some features that you will also learn about.
Plant description
Alyssum (Alyssum), or marine lobularia , or alyssum, belongs to the Cabbage family, which includes almost a hundred plant species. They grow in North Africa and Asia, in Europe. Judging by the description of alissum in floriculture manuals, it is a groundcover, stunted plant with a height of 15 to 40 cm. Branching, lignified shoots at the base are pubescent. The leaves are oblong. The flowers are small, having the most diverse color - yellow, white, pink, lilac, purple, red. They are collected in small brushes.
Flowering of the plant begins in May and ends in late autumn. The fruits of alissum are pods filled with seeds that retain germination for about three years. Alyssum is a beautiful honey plant that attracts bees with its sweet, honey aroma. There are perennial and annual varieties of this plant. Looks great alissum in the flowerbed, in the flower beds and flowerpots. This magnificent plant is often planted to mask areas that are empty after spring blooming bulb.
Types and varieties: alissum rocky
Perennial, up to 30 cm high, growing in hemispherical bushes that grow in diameter up to 40 cm. The branched stems of this plant are lignified at the base. Oblong, painted in a bluish color, as if felt, leaves remain on the bushes even in winter. They form dense sockets. Yellow small flowers with notched petals gather in short thick brushes. The plant blooms for about forty days in the spring, and subject to the conditions for growing alissum, another flowering is possible at the end of summer.
Popular varieties:
- Citrinum is a shrub with bright yellow flowers, low and blooming profusely.
- Compactum is a plant with a height of not more than 19 cm with fragrant small flowers.
- The golden wave is a yellow alissum about 20 cm high, which begins to bloom only at the age of two.
- Plenum - terry alissum gold, up to 30 cm high.
Alissum sea
This variety is often called marine lobularia. Perennial plant (only in warm climates) up to 40 cm high. It is distinguished by branches that creep along the ground and form fluffy bushes with fleshy, small, silvery oval leaves. They are a little downy.
Small flowers with a magnificent honey aroma. Under natural conditions, marine alissum is white and lilac. In the culture today, many varieties with violet, pink and red flowers, distinguished by long flowering until the first frosts, are bred.
Common varieties:
- Taini Tim is a white, dwarf alissum, not more than 8 cm high. This plant blooms so abundantly that no leaves or stems are visible under the snow-white carpet.
- Princesses in Apple - ampel alissum. Spreading shoots about 35 cm long look great in flowerpots or in hanging flower pots. Fragrant flowers are painted in light lilac shades.
- Violet Konigin. Compact purple alissum, densely branched, no more than 15 cm high.
- Alyssum Gmelin. Perennial frost-resistant plant up to 20 cm high with creeping stems. They are covered with densely pubescent star-shaped leaves. Because of this, they appear grayed out. The yellow flowers collected in the brush bloom in April or May.
Due to the popularity of alissum, in recent years, breeders have developed wonderful new varieties that quickly won the hearts of flower growers.
- Big jam. Alyssum is large-flowered. Its flowers are almost one and a half times larger than usual. Wide and color gamut - purple, lavender, light lilac, white. Bushes up to 35 cm high, are characterized by increased resistance to cold and drought. Interestingly, the flowering of this variety does not stop even at a temperature of –3 ° C.
- Gold placer. The bush of this variety has a spherical shape. The stems practically lie on the ground, the leaves are narrow, the flowers of saturated yellow are gathered in dense small brushes. Such flowers look great on alpine slides, for the design of retaining partitions.
- White carpet. The variety is famous for its abundant and long flowering snow-white inflorescences. Most often used as an excellent groundcover.
Most gardeners believe that this unpretentious plant is alissum. Planting and caring for it do not cause special problems even for beginners in floriculture. Despite this, when growing it is necessary to follow simple rules.
Alyssum: growing from seed. When to plant?
Alissum cultivation by seed method can be carried out in two ways - seedling and seedling. First, consider the first option.
When to plant alissum when grown in a seedlingless way? Seeds are sown in the soil in early May to a depth of one and a half centimeters, and when the seedlings appear as a continuous carpet, they are thinned out. It should be understood that during spring sowing, flowering is somewhat late. That is why most flower lovers believe that such an cultivation of alissum from seeds is inappropriate. When to plant them for seedlings? We will talk about this below.
Alissum seedlings
Most gardeners prefer the seedling method of growing alissum. Planting and caring for seedlings in this case is more difficult, but a guaranteed excellent result makes gardeners choose it. This method is reliable and rarely presents not very pleasant surprises.
For seedlings, you need light nutrient soil, which should be placed in a seedling box. Planting alissum seeds is carried out evenly on the surface of the soil. Some gardeners sprinkle them with a thin layer of soil, others believe that this can not be done - just lightly press the seeds to the surface.
For crops it is necessary to create greenhouse conditions - the box with seedlings needs to be covered with glass, to provide good lighting, to maintain the room temperature around +15 ° C. The seedlings are moderately moistened and aired daily. With proper care, the seeds will germinate in a week.
As soon as the first real leaf appears in the seedlings, it is necessary to feed the plants with complex fertilizer. Alissum is picked in separate containers after the appearance of three true leaves.
Outdoor landing
Transplanting flowers into the open ground is carried out in the last decade of May or in early June, when the danger of spring return frosts is over. To do this, choose a dry and sunny area with well-drained soil rich in humus. It is desirable that it be a neutral reaction, although the plant will develop normally in both slightly alkaline and slightly acidic. Alyssum grows beautifully and blooms violently between stones or plates heated by the sun.
How to plant alissum?
When planting an alissum, it should be borne in mind that the flowers quickly expand in breadth. Therefore, they are planted at a distance of at least 40 cm from each other, this parameter largely depends on the variety and type of alissum. Planting pits should be slightly larger in size than the rhizome with an earthen lump. The plant is not deeply buried, and after planting it is watered abundantly. By forming a flowerbed, overgrown bushes can be divided and planted as independent plants. The alissum grown from seeds blooms six weeks after the appearance of the first seedlings.
Care
As you can see, alissum planting is quite simple. And caring for him is not too burdensome. It consists in loosening the soil, watering the plant, removing weeds from the site, top dressing and pruning.
Watering
The plant needs regular moderate watering. In dry weather, it should be plentiful. Otherwise, a lack of moisture will cause the plant to drop flowers and buds. However, abundant watering is possible only if the soil has good water permeability, otherwise moisture stagnation can provoke root decay and plant death.
Determining when to water alissum is quite simple: dig the soil with a shovel 3-4 cm deep, and if it is dry there, you can safely water the plant. After that, remove the weeds and loosen the soil between the bushes.
Top dressing
During the period of growing green mass, perennial alissum varieties are fed with nitrogen fertilizer at the rate of one tablespoon of Agricola-7 and the same amount of urea per bucket of water. Complex fertilizers are applied before flowering.
Annual species require more frequent top dressing - four times per season. A sufficient amount of such care guarantees the repeated flowering of annual alissums in the fall.
Alissum pruning
This procedure is very important for abundant flowering and full growth of alissum. In the spring, dried flowers and leaves, last year's peduncles, diseased shoots are removed from perennial bushes. The same sanitary pruning is carried out after summer flowering. The shoots are shortened by 5 cm, and this stimulates the re-blooming of alissum. Please note that the bushes that have grown too much over the summer are a bit messy, so pruning will give them a well-groomed appearance.