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As a rule, flowering plants love the sun and open their buds under its warm rays. But there are flowers that prefer moonlight to sunlight, and one such plant is mirabilis. In the people, this flower is better known as the dawn or night beauty. Mirabilis is very unpretentious, tolerates heat and drought well, blooms with bright inflorescences of juicy shades – it is not surprising that flower growers and landscape designers love it so much. The mysterious beauty of the night deserves to be noticed.
About growing mirabilis from seeds, about when to plant this flower in open ground and for seedlings, how to care for the plant, will be described in this article.
Features of the night beauty
Mirabilis is native to Mexico. For the first time, the ancient Aztecs paid attention to this plant, noting not only the amazing beauty of night flowers, but also their healing properties.
Later, mirabilis seeds came to Europe, where the flower quickly gained popularity and became widespread. If at home mirabilis is a perennial plant, then in a colder climate it is grown as an annual – the roots of the flower are not able to withstand even minimal frosts.
Mirabilis belongs to a very rare family of Nocturnal or Nyctaginous plants. In the wild, there are about fifty species of night beauty, but only one of them, Yalapa, has taken root in Our Country.
Characteristics of the night mirabilis:
- mirabilis jalapa – herbaceous plant;
- dawn bushes are compact, powerful;
- plant height can vary from 50 to 120 cm depending on the variety and growing conditions;
- the root system is powerful, the roots are tuberous, swollen – it is this structure that allows the flower to tolerate drought well;
- inflorescences look like gramophones;
- the color of flowers can be very different (from white to orange and purple), often there are inflorescences in stripes, specks, two-color mirabilis;
- the device of the mirabilis flower is surprising in that it completely lacks a corolla, and instead of an inflorescence there is a calyx (in other plants it is colored green, has a small size);
- the diameter of the inflorescences can be 3,5-5 cm;
- Mirabilis blooms only at night, in cloudy and cool weather;
- mirabilis has a very rich aroma that attracts nocturnal moths and butterflies;
- each flower “lives” for only a couple of hours, after which it again folds into a tube and fades;
- the mirabilis fruit is a wrinkled dark brown box, inside of which there is one large seed;
- dawn bloom lasts from June until the first frost;
- reproduces nocturnal mirabili with seeds, dividing the bush and lignified cuttings.
Cultivation
Since mirabilis is grown in Our Country as an annual plant, it is more convenient to propagate it by seeds. Of course, a florist can cut a cutting from a bush or divide a flower by roots, but all these actions will not make sense, since the plant will die anyway in winter.
Site Selection
When choosing a place for a dawn in your garden, you need to remember the tropical origin of this plant. Mirabilis, indeed, is incredibly unpretentious and is able to bloom even in the most difficult conditions and on clay soils, for example. But, if the grower dreams of lush flowering and large beautiful flowers, you need to provide Mirabilis with just ideal conditions:
- find the warmest and sunniest place in the garden;
- think about the possibility of shading the flowers in the afternoon (due to the intense heat, mirabilis may stop throwing out buds);
- protect flowers from drafts and strong winds;
- prepare slightly acidic or neutral soil;
- mirabilis is able to endure drought, but excessive moisture is detrimental to this flower, so the soil must be well drained and not in a lowland;
- the earth should be loose, nutritious, well pass air and moisture.
Landing in the ground
In principle, the climate of most of Our Country with long and warm summers, minimal rainfall, is quite suitable for a night beauty. All this allows you to grow mirabilis from seeds at home without resorting to buying seedlings.
To answer the question of when to sow mirabilis seeds in a flower bed, it is necessary to analyze the climatic situation in a particular region. In order to achieve flowering of Mirabilis at least by the end of June, it is necessary to plant its seeds in the ground by the first days of May.
If by this time the soil has not warmed up well enough, and there is a threat of return frosts, it is recommended to use mini-greenhouses. In such cases, large oval mirabilis seeds are laid out in pairs at a distance of 20-30 cm from each other, deepening them into the soil by no more than two centimeters. After planting, the seeds are watered with warm water and covered with a transparent film. The film is removed when mirabilis sprouts appear from the seeds, and the weather stabilizes.
Dawn seedlings
Growing mirabilis directly from seeds is an easy and quick process. However, for some flower growers, it may be fundamentally earlier that the dawn blooms, or the climate in the region is cold, which does not allow early sowing of seeds in the ground. In such cases, mirabilis is grown in seedlings.
It is necessary to sow the dawn for seedlings in the first half of April, in order to plant mirabilis in the ground in 1,5 months. Sowing the seeds of a night beauty for seedlings is a simple matter, but here too you need to follow some rules:
- Choose deep cups or pots for planting flowers. The root system of mirabilis goes deep, not to the sides, so the roots will need a lot of space.
- Prepare or purchase a ready-made substrate. The soil for seedlings is prepared from equal parts of sod land, peat and river sand.
- Immediately before sowing, it is recommended to add a handful of wood ash to each pot.
- Mirabilis seeds should be soaked in a damp cloth for 12-20 hours (you can not do this, then the seeds will germinate a couple of days later).
- 2-3 seeds are placed in each cup or pot. This seedling is quite large, the plants are powerful.
- The seeds are buried no more than two centimeters, sprinkled with dry earth on top.
- Plantings are watered with warm water and covered with a transparent film.
Now you need to remove the seedlings in a warm place with a constant temperature at the level of 23-25 degrees. After 10-12 days, the seeds will germinate, then the shelter can be removed and the pots placed on the windowsill.
At the end of May, seedlings of the night beauty are transferred to a permanent place. The holes are prepared in advance, leaving an interval of 30-50 cm between them (depending on the Mirabilis variety and the height of the bush) and fertilizing with a mineral complex.
Flower care
With how to grow mirabilis from seeds, everything is clear. Now it’s worth talking about the rules for caring for night flowers. Although the dawn is very unpretentious and usually does not cause any trouble to the owner of the site, like any cultivated plant, she needs minimal care:
- watering mirabilis needs regular, but not very frequent. During periods of drought, it is recommended to water the flowers abundantly once a week. If the grower noticed that the number of inflorescences on the bushes has decreased, you can increase the frequency of watering – after 1-2 days. When there is enough natural precipitation, it is not necessary to water the night beauty; she suffers more from excess moisture than from its lack.
- Mirabilis needs to be fed at least three times per season.. The first fertilizer should be complex and contain nitrogen, it is applied immediately after planting seedlings in the ground or before laying buds. The second time the flowers are fed in the middle of summer, the third feeding is carried out at the end of August. The last two top dressings consist of a complex of minerals, but nitrogen is no longer needed at this stage, it will make flowering more scarce.
- Diseases and pests almost never affect mirabilis, so you do not have to process the bushes.
- In order for the flowers to be strong and healthy, the soil under the bushes must be loosened after each rain or watering, and weeds must also be pulled out.
- In the middle of autumn, the dawn bushes are dug up and disposed of, having previously collected seeds from mirabilis for the next season.
Conclusion
Photos of blooming mirabilis do not leave indifferent: it was not in vain that this flower was revered by the wisest ancient peoples (Aztecs, Egyptians). Dawn is rightfully considered the queen of the night, illuminating the garden with bright colors when other flowers fold their buds and sleep soundly.
Growing mirabilis is quite simple, for this you just need to sow the seeds in the ground or plant them on seedlings. Complex plant care is also not required, so the night beauty is perfect for the most inexperienced flower growers.
More information about growing seedlings of mirabilis is described in this video:
