Gloxinia is very popular among lovers of floriculture, as it does not require special care and pleases the eyes with unusually beautiful inflorescences. However, beginners who decide to have this decorative miracle on their windowsill, probably wonder about how gloxinia propagates. Planting tubers, cuttings and seeds - all these methods can get a beautiful plant.
Decoration of any room are flowers. Gloxinia, the landing of which requires special care, will rightfully take pride of place on the windowsill. In the botanical reference books there is another name for this plant - beautiful syningia. The representative of the flora got his name for a very beautiful appearance: green leaves, pubescent with villi, and flowers in the form of large bells of bright red, blue, pink and purple hue.
A fairly simple care gives a chance to inexperienced gardeners to have this beauty in the room. We will tell in detail about how to grow gloxinia from a tuber.
Features of choice
Appearance and size are the main criteria when buying. Tubers should be free from rot and mold. Elastic, firm to the touch, up to 5 cm in diameter - these are the most suitable for planting in the soil. In the upper part of the tuber is a recess, there are kidneys. They look like small tubercles. It so happens that the nodules put up for sale have already sprouted, and then the kidneys look like hairy little shoots.
Time to land
Delay with landing is not worth it. This can be done immediately after a period of rest, at the stage of awakening, until the sprout has grown large. If you miss the time, the shoots will stretch and turn pale due to a lack of chlorophyll. The time of appearance of the kidneys depends on the conditions of tuber maintenance in winter. Gloxinia wakes up in February-March. Sometimes a flower may awaken in May. If by this time the tubers have not left their "hibernation", then they can be "woken up". This is necessary when the flower was in the pot all winter. Delivered in a warm place, with good lighting and watered soil, syningia will sprout. It is important not to fill the tubers with water, otherwise they may rot.
Preparation for landing
Gloxinia babies are stored in winter in shavings and sawdust. Often the tubers are covered with old, dried roots. Therefore, before disembarking, they need to be cleaned as much as possible - carefully tear off or cut off all the roots of the roots with nail scissors, leaving the largest. The tuber should be as bare as possible. And from the biggest roots new ones will grow.
It is necessary to determine where the tuber has a bottom and where the tip is, so as not to drop it upside down. There is a small depression in the place of future shoots. On the opposite side, the tuber is a bulge, and it needs to be buried in the soil. You should make sure that there are no rotten spots, rot, or various damages on the seedling. If any, you need to carefully cut them, and sprinkle these places with charcoal. Alternatively, it is appropriate to treat the slice with fungicide and Kornevin powder, having mixed them beforehand. After such treatment, it is advisable to dry the tubers for about a day. These operations will allow to reanimate damaged seedlings.
Restore dried tuber
There are drugs that help stimulate the immune system of plants. They are also able to eliminate the stress of flowers and run their root system into growth. A solution should be prepared from the Epin or Zircon preparation as follows: add 10 drops of the product to 200 ml of boiled and settled water. In the resulting solution, you need to soak tubers for a day. After this treatment, flowers can be safely planted in the soil.
Another way of reviving the children of gloxinia is appropriate. Vermiculite (a layered mineral), often used in floriculture, should be moistened with water. Place the whole tuber in it if there are no shoots yet. If shoots appeared, you need to gently nip, but so that the sprout remains on the surface. The mineral should not be poured abundantly with water, it is enough that the vermiculite is moistened, otherwise the tubers may rot. Enough for a couple of days for the seedlings to regain their elasticity by absorbing water from pebbles saturated with useful substances. Using these techniques, you can avoid the risk that gloxinia will die - planting the tuber will fail. Now let's talk about soil requirements.
Oh, those flowers! Gloxinia: landing and care
In order to grow a healthy plant, the soil must be made light, loose, permeable and well saturated with air. And it should be based on peat. Such a soil will reliably protect the flower from excess water and decay. You can buy ready-made soil or make it yourself. The substrate consists of peat, sand and sheet land (proportion 2: 1: 2). Before planting gloxinia with a tuber, the earth mixture must be calcined in a dry frying pan or baking sheet in an oven. If there is a desire and opportunity, you can irrigate the soil with the drug "Maxim", making a solution at the rate of 2 ml per 1 liter of water. After treatment, let the soil dry.
Pot selection
The root system of the plant is formed so that the roots do not grow in depth, but in breadth. Therefore, when choosing containers for breeding a flower, you need to pay attention to wide and shallow pots. It is in them that gloxinia will grow correctly. Planting a tuber in such a container is the key to successful breeding. Capacities are selected depending on the size of the seedling: the more nodules, the more the flowerpot. But here you need to know the measure, otherwise in a huge pot the foliage system will develop as much as possible.
Want to know how to plant gloxinia with a tuber so that the flowers are large and bright? For this, a small seedling should not be placed in a container that is not sized. Otherwise, there is a danger of flooding with excess water. The flower will develop a root and leaf system, and the bells themselves will be small. Large tubers can be placed in containers from 10 to 15 cm in diameter. Small enough and 8-9 cm.
Gloxinia: tuber propagation
If you follow the recommendations and advice of experienced masters, then magnificent gloxinia will grow, planting the tuber will be successful. First of all, drainage from expanded clay or polystyrene is laid on the bottom of the pot. The height of the layer is -1-2 cm, this is enough with a shallow depth of the pot. Soil is poured on top, which must be left unconsolidated, quite loose (so that gloxinia grows better). Planting a tuber is as follows: in the center of the earth you need to make a recess and place it there with the convex side in the ground, carefully sprinkle with soil. It is necessary to do this so that 1/3 of the tuber remains above the soil. Earth needs to be moistened.
To grow gloxinia faster, the tuber should be planted in a suitable microclimate. You need to create the effect of a greenhouse, to do this, put a plastic bag on the pot and put the container in a warm, lit place. This will preserve soil moisture, and watering is not required. The package must be removed every day for 20 minutes to air the soil. When the first leaves appear, the package should be left only at night, and subsequently, after a few days, and do not cover the pot with gloxinia at all.
Watering the future flower at first should be very careful, literally drop by drop. Be sure to make sure that water does not fall on the plant. In such a simple way gloxinia from a tuber grows magnificent, in the first year it gives its beautiful flowers. With good and proper care, there is a chance that soon there will be a large flower garden on the windowsill.
Some experienced gardeners believe that cultivating a flower from a tuber is the least attractive method of propagation, especially if the seedling is large and has to be cut in half. In this case, the cut points are sprinkled with crushed activated carbon. But due to the fact that watering is done through the top, high humidity is created. At the same time, the places of cut quickly decay, the children of the plant deteriorate, gloxinia does not germinate for a long time. For this reason, you can lose not only part of the flower, but also its entirety.
Other breeding species
In addition to dividing tubers, there are still ways to propagate beautiful syningia: seeds or cuttings. Rooting by leaves can be done in the spring and until the fall. This is allowed to be done before, during and after flowering. Moreover, young leaves, cut in the spring, take root faster and easier than those that were separated in the fall.
Before the procedure, a special device is made. A hole is cut in the lid or piece of cardboard. There, carefully, so as not to damage the delicate shoot, a leaf is inserted, and the cardboard / lid is placed on a glass of water. The fluid level should be up to the tip of the handle. As evaporation of the water is added. During the rooting period, 1 tablet of activated carbon is added to the liquid so that the process of decay of the sprout does not begin. Within a month, small roots appear at the end of the handle and a tuber is tied.
Often, flower growers divide the edge of the cut along, so that the largest division of the gloxinia tuber occurs. It is better to immediately place the cuttings in the ground, at the first sign of the appearance of roots. Before winter, the first embryos the size of a hazelnut are formed on it. Rooting by peduncles is made from an already blossoming plant. Carefully remove the buds, and place the peduncles in the same design as in the case of a leafy stem. The water level must reach the tip of the plant so that 1 cm of it is immersed in the liquid. A month later, when the roots appear, the peduncle needs to be planted in the soil. After another 30 days, the leaves that appeared appeared to signal that the nodules had already begun. Young plants for the winter must be put in a cool, but bright place to give the flower a rest. Watering during dormancy must be reduced, otherwise the gloxinia flooded with water will die.
Flower arrangement
Optimal east side of the apartment. In the north - it is too dark and cold, and in the south - there are a lot of direct rays of the sun, and the plant can get burns. The west side is allowed.
Watering
Constantly plentiful, but only in the soil. Do not allow water to get on the leaves and peduncles. It is better to put the pot on pebbles or wet peat so that the humidity is at a high level. The air around gloxinia is sprayed periodically. And to water it well with melt water. You should take care of the drainage system, since the flower does not tolerate stagnation of water as well as over-dried soil.
Some tips
- Gloxinia loves top dressing. It needs to be produced when the young foliage has fully developed. 60 minutes after watering, a solution of mineral fertilizer should be introduced into the soil. The procedure needs to be done every 10 days.
- Caring for the leaves of a plant is simple - you should wash the dust with a soft brush or wash them with warm water, avoiding moisture entering the outlet.
- If it is not intended to collect seeds, wilted peduncles must be removed. Thanks to this, the flowering period will noticeably last.
- After full flowering, before the dormant period, watering is reduced, and fertilizer is stopped altogether.
These simple tips and tricks will help you understand how gloxinia propagates; planting a tuber will not seem so complicated. A beautiful ornamental plant in gratitude will bloom with lush bells.