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GROWING RUSSELL LUPINES - PLANTING AND CARE

In late spring - early summer, passing by abandoned summer cottages, I often admired the meadows of flowering lupins. Lupins also bloomed not far from the highway - what a beautiful sight it was!

But, unfortunately, endless photo shoots in these places led to the fact that soon there was practically nothing left of the former diversity and abundance of flowers. Well, actually, why be surprised? People took pictures, plucked bouquets, trampled plants. And I always dreamed that a picturesque meadow of lupins would bloom in my garden and delight with a riot of colors. But in the flower garden there is not as much space as we would like. Yes, I grew several beautiful varieties, but this was not enough. Therefore, two years ago, I set to work, namely, I purchased about 50 packs of lupine seeds of different colors and sowed them in my garden.

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There was plenty of free space in the garden, and there I allocated a decent area for my beloved lupins. She gave preference to Russell hybrids (bred on the basis of multi-leaved lupine). These are really unique plants in their beauty with the most interesting, diverse and very bright color of inflorescences. Russell's lupins are distinguished not only by a rich spectrum of color, but also by densely packed inflorescences.

Sowed lupins in late autumn, early November. You can, of course, do this in early spring, in April - early May. But my plans were to get flowering as early as possible: lupins sown before winter can please flowering next year, and when sown in spring, they will bloom only a year later.

The seeds were sown to a depth of 2 cm, without soaking them in anything. During the winter, the plants went through a natural stratification, and in the spring thick seedlings appeared, which I then thinned out, leaving a distance of about 5 cm in the row and 30 cm in the aisle.

The lupins grew strong and healthy. Of course, the flowering in the first year was not so plentiful and lush. But then, already in the second year, lupins showed what they are capable of!

Flowering began in late May - early June and lasted about 35 days. The inflorescences were powerful, lush - I called them "torches" (lupine flowers are collected in long slender narrow pyramidal ears, reaching a length of 30-50 cm, and in some varieties - 100 cm).

Since I sowed a wide variety of varieties, the spectacle turned out to be impressive, a real celebration of colors! Contrasting shades looked especially impressive. In the coloring of lupins, you can see all the colors of the rainbow and the most interesting, unusual outlines of color shades. I was very impressed with the two-tone varieties: blue-white, pink-yellow, pink-white, purple-yellow. But monochromatic lupins are no less beautiful: there are no other colors - blue, purple, red, yellow, pink, salmon, white, cream, lilac. My lupine meadow played with the most iridescent colors!

If you have time to cut the flower stalks before the seeds are tied, then the lupins will gain strength and bloom again in August.

LUPI FLOWERING CONDITIONS

In general, lupins are unpretentious flowers. They will grow and develop well almost everywhere, but for a more colorful, abundant and lush flowering, the plant still needs signs of attention from you.

It is best to plant lupins in a sunny place - in such conditions, the color of the flowers is the brightest. The soil for lupins is preferable loamy with a neutral or slightly acidic reaction. On excessively acidic or alkaline soils, plants do not develop well, on highly alkaline soils (at a pH above 7), they often “chlorose”, the leaves become pale. Acidic soils must be limed (lime is applied in autumn - 5 Gg per 30 sq. M).

Despite the fact that lupins themselves enrich the soil with nitrogen, they also need top dressing for beautiful abundant flowering. In this case, the flowers will show their best decorative qualities. In early spring, if the soil is very poor, you can feed the lupins with complex mineral fertilizer (15-20 g per 1 sq. M of plantings), and at the beginning of flowering - with wood ash (3 tablespoons per bush).

Lupins are drought tolerant, they will need watering only when there is no rain for a long time. They do not like damp places, and areas with a high level of groundwater are categorically contraindicated for them.

While the plants are small, I advise you to loosen the soil for oxygen access to the roots, since then it will be almost impossible to do this. If you want to grow lupins, propagate them from seeds or cuttings. By dividing the bush, lupine does not multiply. The reason is in the tap root system of the plant (it can reach 1 m). We can say that the survival rate of lupine during division is a very rare occurrence. Also keep in mind that lupins are very painful to transplant. You can only transplant young bushes and always with a clod of earth.

With seed propagation, varietal characteristics of a plant are rarely inherited. But if you especially liked some rare, interesting color and you need just such a variety, draw a lupine. If you do this at the end of May, then in the fall the plants will bloom.

VARIETIES OF LUPINS FROM MY FLOWER BOARD

Scarlet Sails - a very spectacular plant about 100 cm high with red inflorescences. Flowering is stunningly bright, like a fiery flash.

White Flame plants are slender, majestic, up to 100 cm tall. The inflorescences are creamy-white in color, smell pleasant. The First Lady is a variety with a height of 70-90 cm, with a spectacular pink-white color of the inflorescences. Looks very original!

Faust - reaches 80 cm, inflorescences are saturated purple-blue.

Fireworks (mixture) - very original two-color lupins of various colors (I have not seen varieties with this color on sale separately). Plants reach a height of 100 cm.

Minaret (mixture) - low (about 50 cm) lupins with inflorescences of the most diverse, cheerful shades: red, pink, salmon, purple.

Goperev - a plant 50 cm high, with a dazzlingly sunny yellow color of inflorescences.