Hortensia (photo) cultivation and species
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Cultivation of hydrangea and its varieties and species
This plant has a truly royal appearance, retaining the luxurious caps of flowers throughout the summer.
There are more 70 species of hydrangeas, most of which are perennial shrub plants and are used both in solitary and in group plantings, both in flowerbeds and hedges.
Inflorescences of hydrangeas are often found in wedding bouquets, and dried flowers - in decorative wreaths and compositions of natural material.
In the wild, hydrangeas grow in the Americas, in Asia, and on the territory of our country - in the Far East. In Europe, hydrangeas began to grow in gardens and flower gardens as far back as the 19th century, bringing it from Japan.
See also: Hydrangea - Diseases and Pests
Such different hydrangeas
Among the hydrangeas there are not only shrubs, but also small trees and even lianas.
In the gardens of southern Russia, a large-leafed hydrangea is most often grown - shrubs reaching a height of more than three meters. This species has several hundred varieties.
Hydrangea paniculate, growing on Southern Sakhalin, has pyramidal inflorescences and can grow on boggy soil.
Hortensia gray is grown as a hedge, and hydrangea petiolate - as a vine for the decoration of walls of houses and arbors.
The most winter-hardened are Hydrangea Bretschneider or ground cover, and hydrangea is tree-like, but their flowers are rather small and inferior in decorativeness to other species.
Palette of flowers in hydrangeas
The flowers of hydrangeas can be white, blue, violet, red, lilac and pink, collected in large inflorescences up to 20 cm in diameter. Their color can depend not only on the plant variety, but also on the acidity of the soil, and on the "age" of the inflorescences.
White hydrangeas grow in gardens on neutral soils, but they turn blue in acid and turn pink in alkaline soils.
To obtain blue and blue inflorescences, it is also possible to introduce salts of iron and aluminum into the soil.
Some varieties of hydrangeas can simultaneously detect inflorescences of different colors.
See also: Cultivation of different types of hydrangeas
Hydrangea: planting and care
In our region, it is possible to grow tree-like and paniculate hydrangeas or other species, but with the introduction of plants for the winter into the premises or with a high-quality shelter, since the most decorative varieties can winter at a temperature not lower than -NNUMX °.
Hydrangeas can grow in shading, but the most beautiful and long blooming become only in sunlight-exposed places.
They are hygrophilous plants, they need the presence of moisture in the soil, so it is better to ensure a good watering.
Hortensia grows on different soils, but prefer a small one; acidification, respond positively to composting and mulching, for example, crushed pine bark.
In our region, if they are sheltered for the winter, hydrangeas should be planted in the spring, so that by autumn they are well established. A transplant better late autumn and not very deep, at a sufficient distance from the trees, so that the tree roots do not take away moisture.
The first summer after planting it is necessary to provide the plant with maximum watering. For the winter, you can cover the hydrangea with a wire mesh, over which to fill a thick layer of leaves, bark or straw.
Plants need to be cut periodically, it is best to do this after flowering.
Reference by topic: Hydrangea - pruning and care
Growing hydrangeas in pots
In pot culture, hydrangea is most often found in large leaf.
In autumn, when a hydrangea growing on a windowsill begins to dump leaves, cut off its shoots and place the plant in a cool place at positive temperatures. In spring, the plant must again be placed on the room window sill.
Hydrangea easily multiplies by dividing the bush and cuttings, so you can grow a few plants as a gift to your friends.
CAUTION! Leaves, stems and flowers hydrangeas contain poisonous substances, so they are not recommended to be placed on the ground, freely accessible to children and pets.
Hortense is a noble luxury
In nature, hydrangeas are found on different continents. Their natural habitat is our Far East, Japan, China, North and South America. A little less than a hundred natural species of these plants from the Hortensian family are now known.
Our reference
Hydrangeas have an amazing feature: they are able to change color when soil acidity changes. Pink caps of inflorescences in a more acidic soil become bluish. Unfortunately, chemical experiments do not help with white hydrangeas - they do not change their color.
Most Popular
Most often our gardeners grow species and varieties of hydrangea paniculate and hydrangea tree, large spectacular shrubs with luxurious inflorescences. Experienced gardeners plant in their gardens more capricious and heat-loving species, such as hydrangea large leaf or curly hydrangea petiolate.
Hydrangea is one of the most popular plants in garden design.
It is magnificent in the role of a solitary plant, looks great in lush flower beds in a natural style, hydrangeas can be planted near water bodies, and curly views decorate walls, arbours, pergolas.
Successful location
For planting hydrangeas, it is better to choose a place protected from the wind.
These plants love good lighting, but in the sunshine, their large leaves will evaporate too much moisture and may cause burns. It is better to drop them off in partial shade or where they will be protected from midday sunlight. Hydrangeas love rich, fertile and loose soil with an acid reaction. Hydrangeas cannot tolerate alkaline soils. To feed these plants, you can not use ash and dolomite flour. In the wrong soil, hydrangeas begin chlorosis - due to a lack of iron, the leaves begin to turn yellow, first along the veins, then entirely.
Growing in such soil can perish. To plant hydrangeas, you need to prepare a planting pit approximately 40 x 40 cm in size and fill it with loose soil with the addition of sand and peat.
Watering mode
Hortensia does not like stagnant overmoistening, but their sensitive roots can not be completely over-dried. The soil should be constantly and evenly moisturized. It is especially important to monitor the hydrangea hydration regime in hot weather. Longer to keep the soil moist will help a layer of mulch from crushed bark.
This simple agricultural technique will help you solve several problems at once: the bark layer does not allow the soil to quickly dry out and overheat in the sun, gradually decomposing, it will give the plant the necessary nutrients, at the same time slightly acidifying the soil. In addition, mulch interferes with the growth of weeds - you will save time on weeding. The main thing is to ensure that when adding mulch, the root neck of the plant remains free.
Feeding
Hydrangeas during growth and flowering consume a lot of nutrients. They like to eat in much the same way as garden roses. It is better to use complex mineral fertilizers designed for hydrangeas as top dressings - they do not alkalize the soil and provide the plant with the necessary amount of iron and magnesium - and well-rotted compost, alternating their application. Top dressing is repeated every 2-3 weeks.
Preparation for winter
In the autumn, hydrangeas are cut off by faded inflorescences. Young plants are provided with winter shelter. For these purposes, you can use lapnik, peat, dry foliage. They cover the plants in dry weather, when the soil is picked up by the first frost. "Insulation" should not be wet. They fall asleep a tree trunk of a plant.
Thermophilic species such as hydrangea petiolum and hydrangea are large-leaved, they need to be protected more thoroughly: just like garden roses, they are bent to the ground, shoots are laid on the covering material (they should not lie on bare ground), and then wrapped on top with a layer of spruce tartan . In the spring, you should not take shelter too early, before mid-April. Severe frost, can damage the plant. Wintered without light shoots can burn in the sun.
Feast of flowering
Hydrangeas bloom on the shoots of the current year. Spring pruning of shoots helps to regulate the size of the inflorescences.
If you do not give a hydrangea bloom "how it works", slightly damaging the plant, the caps of the inflorescence will turn out to be especially large and elegant.
Cuts hydrangeas in early spring, depending on the weather, the optimal time for this procedure is in March or April.
Before pruning, you need to carefully inspect the plant: completely removed weak shoots and branches with frost.
Strong, well-overwintered shoots of hydrangeas shorten by about J / ", while leaving 2-3 a pair of good, healthy kidneys.
Cutting hydrangeas
Hydrangeas are easily cuttings.
It is best to take root and winter plants, rooted in early summer.
For reproduction it is better to take last year's shoots from the heel.
They take root in a youngster in loose ground with the addition of peat and sand.
For greater reliability, it is possible to process them before planting the root stimulant.
Adult, well-grown plants can also be multiplied by dividing the bush.
Note
Hortensia is quite resistant to most pests. Sometimes young shoots can be affected by aphids. In dry weather, leaves of hydrangeas can damage a spider mite. Unbalanced top dressing and excessive moisture can cause fungal diseases.
Tips from our readers
Never use fresh manure for hydrangea top dressing - it contributes to the development of dangerous diseases in these flowers.
Beginning in the second half of July, it is better not to use nitrogen-containing top dressing - the hydrangea shoots should mature well before the onset of cold weather, and nitrogen at this time stimulates their unwanted growth, such plants can freeze in winter.
It is better to plant hydrangeas in the spring - during the summer they manage to take root well and grow stronger.
© Author: E. Limonchenko P. Krotova, Zelenogorsk
About transplanting into open ground ...
A pink hydrangea grows in a pot. If you plant her in the garden, will she survive the winter?
Speech, most likely, goes about hydrangea large-leaved. So what to do with it: planted in a garden or left at home?
Species and varieties of hydrangea large-leaved stand cold to minus 23 degrees. This winter hardiness is not enough for our climate. How to keep the hydrangea in winter?
Some growers dig a bush for the winter and keep it in a cool room. In this case, a bush traveling from the garden to the house and back, is never large and luxurious.
Of course, it is better for a plant when it is often not disturbed. Especially it is necessary to take care of an additional shelter planted in autumn bush.
IMPORTANT! Hydrangeas like acid soil, so when planting in the pit, you need to make a significant amount of peat.
Before the shelter with hydrangeas, carefully, so as not to damage the kidneys in the sinuses, cut the pruner leaves. The shoots are tied in a bundle and, if the length allows, is bent to the ground. A 40-50 cm frame (wooden box or wire arcs) is built above the plant. The frame from above and from the sides are covered with waterproof material (roofing paper, film), always leaving gaps at the bottom for ventilation. In the first snowfall, snow is thrown over the shelter to prevent sudden temperature fluctuations. In such a dry shelter hydrangea hibernates until March.
In the spring of the hydrangea threatens to get out. To avoid this, it is necessary in March to remove the snow from the shelter and provide the bush with good ventilation. With the advent of heat, the shelter is removed, the shoots untied and thrown onto the lutrasil bush to protect the shoots from burns and recurrent colds.
Proper pruning is very important. In Hydrangea, large-leaved main flowering occurs on shoots that grow from the upper buds of last year's shoots. The lower the buds, the less likely the formation of flowering shoots. Therefore, it is important to keep young, not flowering in the current year shoots and their tops. If otvettshih shoots a lot, fall after flowering they cut out, improving the growth conditions of young.
Hortensia, hibernating under air-dry shelter, is preliminarily cut in autumn, and finally in spring. In autumn, young, not flowering and two-year-old shoots are left, from which the inflorescences are removed. The older shoots are shortened to the outgoing young branch. Then remove all the leaves.
In spring, pruning begins after swelling of the kidneys. Remove the frozen ends of the shoots to the living kidney, cut out weak branches. Old 4-6-summer branches cut at the base of the bush.
On young plants and varieties with low shoot-forming ability, only old inflorescences are cut off.
Growing hydrangeas - planting and care: tips and reviews
Do you want to enjoy the whole summer and even fall in a continuous lush bloom? Plant a hydrangea paniculate!
O. Glebova, Course
Hydrangea paniculate
- Homeland: south of Sakhalin, China, Japan
- Type of plant: shrub
- Family: Hydrangea
- Illumination: partial shade
- Soil: acidic, fertile
- Watering: abundant
- Temperature regime: cold-resistant
- Flowering: from the middle of June to October
- Height: depending on the variety
- Reproduction: by layers, cuttings
There are few ornamental shrubs that can boast of bright, lush and at the same time prolonged flowering. To such shrubs is hydrangea paniculate. It is ideal for those gardeners who do not like "dances with tambourines" around plants and choose the easiest to care specimens.
Conditions for hydrangeas
For a panic hydrangea at the initial stage it is important to create favorable conditions for growth. Hortensian prefer acidic soil
Soils with sand or limestone do not fit. It is good to add to the garden soil coniferous litter, peat or sawdust, and ground the surrounding plant with pine bark
In the dry period, the bush should be watered. The plant is shade tolerant, but it’s better to have sunlight falling on the bush for several hours a day - then the flowering will be more magnificent.
In spring and autumn hydrangeas are fed with complex mineral fertilizers.
It's important
Panicled hydrangea is a rather frost-resistant species; it does not need shelter for the winter. It is worth covering only young plants of the first years of life, and even that will be enough mulching with foliage.
Pruning Hydrangeas
Hydrangea pruning responds well. You should pay attention to one caveat. With a strong pruning of the shrub, the inflorescences will be smaller, but their size will be larger And vice versa, if you leave high shoots, the number of inflorescences will be larger, but their size will suffer.
Which cutting method to prefer - you choose.
Combating diseases and pests of panic hydrangea
Hydrangea is extremely rare. The most common disease is chlorosis (yellow leaves with green veins appear on the plant). This happens when the soil in which hydrangea grows has an alkaline reaction. To get rid of this disease, you need to change the earth's environment to acidic. For a quick effect, you can use colloidal sulfur, iron sulfate, potassium sulfate.
Sometimes hydrangea is affected by pests - spider mites and aphids. Various insecticides are used to control aphids. And only acaricides, for example, Fitoverm or Actellik, will help to combat the spider mite.
Popular varieties
Varieties of panic hydrangeas are huge. The most common of them are: Grandiflora, Kiushu, Limelight, Pinky Winky, Vanilla Freize, Silver Dollar, Phantom.
Limelight variety is growing in my garden - a shrub up to 1,5-2 m high. Its undoubted advantage is very strong shoots that do not bend under the weight of large (up to 30 cm) inflorescences. Therefore, the shrub does not require support and garter, like many other hydrangeas.
The variety was named for the fact that at the beginning of flowering the inflorescences are painted in lime color. Over time, they whiten, and by the autumn they acquire a pinkish hue. Flowering continues from July to September, but under favorable conditions it can last until October.
Hydrangea in the garden
Hydrangeas can be used both in solitary planting and in the group. It will well disguise the unsightly fence or walls of buildings, will be an excellent background for any flower garden.
I planted it in coniferous plants and a rhododendron, which, with its lush flowering in the spring, will divert attention from the hydrangea that is gaining strength and beauty. And already she, in turn, will intercept this magical flowering baton in the summer and will continue until the fall.
© Natalia Stepanova, Associate Professor of the Department of Methods of Teaching Biology and Ecology of RSPU them. A.N. Herzen. Photo of the author
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It is believed that panicle hydrangea is an unpretentious plant, planted and grows. For several years now, the 'Unique' variety has been living in my garden. The store promised that the inflorescences would be huge, but for now, the plant does not please me with giant caps. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Tell me, what does she really need so that the flowering is as stunning as in the picture?
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The hydrangea variety of paniculate inflorescence is really very large, they can reach 40 cm in length. But only with the proper care of this plant. Hydrangeas do not need much, but you should not forget about it. The first thing to be remembered about, though not capricious, is that the soil is still fertile, better loamy, necessarily well moistened. Hortensia does not tolerate lime, and sandy soils do not fit it at all. In order to please her, when landing under each bush they make a mixture like this: leaf earth, peat, sand and humus in the ratio 2: 1: 1: 2. And do not forget to water it, especially during the budding period. It is possible to retain the moisture properly for your bush, a layer of mulch can be up to 8 see. That's all of its rather modest requirements.