Bacopa ampelous - growing, care, planting

Decoration of the garden, balcony, veranda - colorful bakopa. This plant came to our gardens quite recently, but it is already very popular with flower growers and decorators. The unpretentious inhabitant of the tropics has perfectly adapted to the climate and requires only abundant watering and light. It grows in the garden as a ground cover plant, or in a flower pot as an ampel decoration.

Bacopa flower

Bacopa inhabits humid wetlands in the tropics of America, Africa and Australia. Her love for moisture remained in the conditions of ornamental cultivation. Bright sunlight is needed for its abundant flowering, and moist soil for active growth of shoots.

Bacopa pink

Small flowers cover the entire length of the shoots, which can grow up to a meter. Flowers of light delicate shades - white, lilac, blue, purple, pink. Green or olive leaves are small, growing in pairs. Bacopa belongs to the plantain family.

The green beauty grows well both outdoors and indoors - on balconies and verandas all summer long. The plant is unpretentious, active and healthy growth is supported by compliance with just a few conditions:

• The lighting should be plentiful, the flower should receive a daily dose of direct sunlight. It is necessary to plant in open ground in sunny and unshaded areas. Balconies and loggias also need good lighting.
• Abundant watering, but the soil should pass water well and not retain moisture in the roots of the flower. The soil in the pot must be kept moist at all times. For root breathing, it is important to loosen the soil after each watering, both in a pot and in a flower bed.
• Fertilization is necessary when a flower is propagated in order for the roots to grow stronger during the period of active growth of greenery.
• The only requirement for the soil is looseness and airiness. It must pass moisture and air well.

Diseases and pests, with proper care, practically do not affect the flower. Most often, the plant gets sick during wintering in room conditions, when the earthen coma is allowed to dry out, the temperature rises or the humidity level decreases.

Wintering

For proper wintering, all shoots are removed from the plant almost at the root. A bush is dug out of the garden and transplanted into a pot (Bacopa will not tolerate frost). Place the pot in a room where the temperature will be no higher than 10 degrees on a constant basis. Watering is reduced to a minimum, it is desirable that the earth clod is well dried after a warm period before the next watering. Any feeding, temperature rise, abundant light are excluded.

Bacopa is a perennial bush, therefore, with proper winter care, it can remarkably live for several years in a pot

Such wintering will preserve the plant as much as possible and in the spring after awakening it can continue its growth and flowering in the garden or on the balcony.

If the temperature is not suitable for sleeping, the plant loses its decorative effect, the shoots stretch into thin threads, the leaves fade and thin out. In this situation, you can cut last year's bush and get many new healthy plants ready for planting in the spring.

Reproduction

Bacopa is easy to propagate.A new plant can be obtained from seeds, cuttings or layering.

There are general rules for growing seedlings that you need to consider:

• Seedlings of Bacopa, unlike an adult bush, do not like direct sunlight. Abundant light can kill young seedlings.
• The soil should be constantly moist, but without water accumulation in the bottom of the pot.
• When growing in a greenhouse - under film, glass, it is important to accustom the plant to home conditions. In the future, with active growth, young bushes need to be taken out into the open air. Without hardening, the plant will die after transplanting.
• Bacopa should be planted in open ground or taken out in a pots in the open air no earlier than mid-May. A decrease in temperature or frost on the ground is detrimental to the delicate root system.
• During rooting and sowing, it is important to keep the soil temperature in the pot at 20 degrees. It is a thermophilic plant.

Bacopa - growing from seed

To grow a healthy and beautiful plant from bacopa seeds, you need:

1. Mix peat and sand in equal parts as a soil.
2. Seeds should be sown by pressing slightly into the moistened soil.
3. Cover the bowl with foil or glass.
4. Place in a warm place in diffused light.

The seeds wake up after 14 days. Seeds fully germinate in four weeks.

Growing bacopa from seeds in peat pots

At this time, it is important to keep the temperature at least 23 ° C and to moisten the soil. Top dressing must be done with diluted organic and mineral fertilizers alternately.

Cuttings

The most favorable period for the propagation of Bakopa is in the summer - the end of August, for the winter procedure - January-April.

Cultivation of bacopa by cuttings requires preparation of material for planting.

Shoots can be divided into several parts, they will take root well. There should be at least two nodules on the cuttings - one will be the rudiment of the roots, the other - the leaves and shoots.

• On cut cuttings, you need to remove flowers and unopened buds, lower leaves.
• For more confident rooting, the tips of the cuttings are treated with root roots.
• Root in a wet mixture of sand and peat by immersing the bottom knot in the ground.
• Cover with foil or glass on top.

Cuttings take root quickly, after two weeks you can evaluate the growth of the root system. Heat is not lower than 23 degrees, light and moisture are all you need for successful cuttings. It is important not to forget to fertilize the cuttings with diluted organic matter and mineral supplements, and to harden the seedlings.

The active growth of new leaves and shoots with flowers suggests that the propagation of bacopa by cuttings was successful and the seedlings are ready for planting in open ground or in pots.

Layers

This is the fastest and most reliable method of producing a healthy and already flowering young plant.

During the active growth of the shoots, a pot with nutritious moist soil is placed next to the mother plant. Layers just need to be placed on top of the soil and secured with a metal or plastic pin.

Checking periodically for roots, loosen the soil in a new pot and moisten it. After the appearance of new shoots or a noticeable growth of the rooted one, the cuttings can be split off from the mother bush.

The method is good in that the sprouts grow much faster due to the supply of the maternal branch. And also a young bush grows immediately in the conditions of an adult flower and does not require additional fertilization or hardening. It can be grown by layering from the beginning of the active growth of shoots.

Ampelnaya Bacopa: planting and care

Frosts, a sharp drop in temperature will not leave young seedlings a chance for rooting. Bacopa has very delicate roots that grow almost on the surface of the soil, so they are the first to suffer. After root damage, they cannot be restored. You can save the stalk and try to root it again.

Ampel Bacopa

Seedlings must be hardened before planting. A few days before planting, you need to leave the pots on the street in the place of growth of the future bush - a balcony or a veranda.

For planting in pots, you need to prepare the soil. A mixture of peat, sand and sod land in equal parts will be an excellent soil for an ampel flower. The pot must have a drainage hole. A layer of expanded clay is not less than 4-5 cm, stagnant moisture leads to decay of the root system.

After going through the rehabilitation period (14 days), the plant can be pinched, forming it in the form of a bush, a weaving or a falling flower.

Bacopa perfectly coexists in the same pot with other ampelous flowers, creating compositions of incredible beauty

Bacopa - planting and care in a flower bed

Taking care of Bakopa in the garden is just as easy and simple. When choosing a place, it is important that it is well lit and protects the flower from the wind. In the open field, the plant spreads or bushes - depending on how often you pinch and cut it.

If the soil in the garden area is not very nutritious, you need to fertilize the soil before planting seedlings. This will provoke active growth and flowering of the future beauty. After disembarking, caring for bacopa in the garden is simple:

• Abundant lighting will provoke her to active flowering, which occurs in this exotic in a wave-like manner. Inflorescences ripen, open and wither almost simultaneously. After a short break and poor flowering, the next wave of even more exuberant flowering begins.
• Watering should be frequent and abundant.
• After watering, be sure to loosen the soil to breathe the roots. This must be done very carefully, not forgetting that the roots of bacopa are superficial and very fragile.
• Weeds clog the plant, it is important to get rid of them in the early stages exclusively by hand weeding.

Until the very first frosts, Bacopa will continue to grow and bloom, and then it will be ready to migrate to the pot for wintering. Such a hardened and strong plant will make excellent seedlings for next year. And if Bakope is to arrange a full-fledged winter sleep, then this bush will again become a full-fledged decoration of the garden.

Do I need to pinch Bacopa

Pinching and pruning Bacopa stimulates its active growth and flowering. This procedure begins to be carried out even on seedlings.

Pinching is done so that the shoot awakens its lateral buds. The bush will be dense and dotted with flowers. Flowers grow not only on the axils of the shoot tips, so pinching will not harm flowering at all, but will only stimulate it.

If Bacopa ampelous is planted, cultivation should be accompanied by pruning. It is necessary to cut at least 1/3 of the length of the shoot. Cut off shoots will be an excellent material for further reproduction. When forming the decor, you can leave several shoots long, and cut off others, creating interesting compositions.

A ball is most often formed from ampelous bacopa.

On the soil, the uncut Bacopa will lay its shoots on the ground, but it is still worth pinching the beauty - the shoots will be thick and bloom more luxuriantly.

Diseases and pests

Among the diseases of Bacopa, the most common are gray rot and fungus. They arise due to too densely planted several flower bushes or waterlogging of the soil.

Yes, Bacopa loves moisture very much, but if it does not evaporate and the sunlight does not reach the soil due to the dense greenery, fungi and gray rot appear.It is necessary to thin out the dense stems in order to slightly open the soil, do not forget to loosen it. It will not hurt to treat the shoots with a fungicide.

Pests occur most often during room wintering, when the humidity is low and the temperature is above 15 degrees. There is enough warmth and dry air for the appearance of sucking pests - aphids, whiteflies and spider mites. If a plant overwinters in not very suitable temperature conditions, it is important to inspect it for the timely detection of pests and the fight against them. You can destroy parasites by 2-3 treatments of acaricides.

Bacopa is a wonderful decoration. In the garden, she will create a flowering carpet, on balconies or loggias as an ampelous one - this is an avalanche of long flowering lashes. Bacopa, the care and cultivation of which does not require much effort, will delight its owner with greenery and color until the very cold.