Lying haulteria: ornamental trees and shrubs
Haulteria is good: as a houseplant and as a garden bush, as a decoration for New Year’s holidays and as a medicine. And this unpretentious exotic beauty has a delicate aroma.
Another name for the plant is “American wintergreen”, it comes from North America. This is a short, 10-15 cm, creeping bush. Its leaves are round, like a lingonberry. When the weather is cool enough, they become crimson. The flowers are white-pink bells, collected in a brush, the berries are bright red.
The haulteria blooms twice from June to September with white-pink flowers
This representative of the heather family can be purchased for the New Year. A pot with a wintergreen should be placed in a cool place and watered with cold water. So she can stand all the holidays without losing her decorative qualities. If you grow it as an indoor flower, special conditions are needed:
- place the plant in a cool place at 12 ° C;
- water it rarely and drain the water from the pan in which it stands;
- when warming, take the pot outside in the shade: the plant does not tolerate direct sunlight;
- return the flower home in the fall and put it in a cool place.
At home, the wintergreen grows in the shade of shrubs and trees, so there is no need to take it to the back of the room. The light must hit her.
Haulteria as ornamental trees or shrubs
Of the 100 species of this plant, some of which are trees up to 6 m, 2-3 can be grown in the middle lane. The recumbent variety of the American wintergreen perfectly tolerates the winter cold down to -35 ° C.
In the garden, the bushes will behave like a ground cover plant, that is, they will creep throughout the garden. This vibrant carpet of burgundy leaves and red berries adorns the garden right down to the snow.
A New Year’s or indoor pampered plant is not suitable for planting in open ground.
You can grow a young plant from a nursery or use the seeds of a house bush. Wintergreen grows slowly, up to 20 cm per season under favorable conditions. Bushes need slightly acidic or acidic soil and a shaded area. The soil should be well fertilized and loose. In the absence of peat, you can mix turf and sand with coniferous sawdust.
In dry summers, in addition to watering, it is necessary to spray the bushes with soft water. They need to be fed with a complex mineral fertilizer.
The berries of this bush are inedible for humans, although forest animals feast on them.
The flower contains melilsalicylate, a substance used in medicine as an analgesic and anti-inflammatory agent for rubbing into joints.
The American wintergreen looks elegant in the garden or in the room. It is undemanding to lighting and can decorate both an alpine slide and tree trunks.