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Levkoy flower: planting and care
The plant matthiola, or Latin Matthiola, is the name originally given by the levkoy. It is an annual or perennial flower. One of its features is beautiful buds with a spicy, strong scent. This plant can bloom all summer long. It looks good on backyard beds.
What does a levkoy flower look like?
Mattiola is a bushy plant. Its woody stems grow no more than 1 m. The leaves of the flower are long and narrow. They can be solid or serrated. The buds are collected in panicles shaped like an ear. Simple flowers are formed by 4 petals. Terry buds can have 30 to 70 petals. Levkoi with simple buds are good honey plants. Only a plant with 4-petal flowers can produce fruits in the form of dry pods with seeds, since the double buds do not have stamens and pistils.
Terry Levkoi flowers do not have stamens and pistils
The most popular types of flower:
- Mattiola incana, or gray-haired mattiola, is so named because of the cannon covering the leaves of the plant. It gives the delicate greenery of the flower a whitish hue. The stem grows from 0,2 to 0 m. Flowers can be simple or double. The shade of the buds is from white to dark purple. Flowering lasts from 8 to 5 days.
- Matthiola bicornis, or two-horned matthiola, is an annual flower. The length of its stems is no more than 0,5 m. The leaves of the grass are coarsely toothed. The plant blooms all summer long. Its small buds close during the day and open in the evening, and then their aroma is enhanced. In the common people, this herb is called the night violet.
In addition to these 2 varieties of matthiola, there are more than 1000 varieties of this flower.
Planting Levkoy and caring for him
Matthiola is grown from seeds. They are placed in a shallow container and filled with water. Leave for 24 hours. Then, for 2-3 days, the planting material, wrapped in a damp cloth, is placed in the refrigerator. This will germinate the seeds faster.
In a pot, mix 1 part of sand and 3 parts of sod land. Shallow holes are made and prepared planting material is sown in them. The container is covered with a film or lid and left in a dark room with a temperature of 20 to 22 ° C. After the first shoots appear, the temperature is lowered to 12 ° C. The pot is placed in a well-lit place. Fortified plants are planted in separate containers filled with a special mixture: 2 parts of sod and leafy soil and 1 part of sand.
On a cloudy May day, young flowers are planted in open ground. The holes are filled with water, a plant is placed in them and covered with earth. Growing matthiola does not require a lot of time and effort. The main thing is to follow simple rules:
- The soil in the flower bed should be fertile, neutral or slightly alkaline.
- The site must be well-drained and well-lit.
Water the plant in the morning as the soil dries up. Water is poured at the root. The soil must be loosened and cleaned of weeds.
Mattiola looks good both on a garden plot and in a bouquet. And an annual flower dug up from the root can stand in a vase for several weeks.