Asters are the most common and favorite garden flowers. The main thing that attracts gardeners in them is lush, bright and long flowering. Perennial plants are especially good in this regard, in particular, New Belgian aster. Be that as it may, sowing seeds annually and waiting to see how many of them will sprout is somewhat tedious and not to everyone's liking. Whether it's proven bushes that can please the eye for many years.
Flower Description
New Belgian aster is a late flowering plant. Depending on the variety, it begins to decorate the garden in July and ends as early as October. Some varieties retain flowers until the first frost. Bushes have smooth, glossy leaves and stems, inflorescences of a very wide range of colors with a mandatory yellow center. Again, depending on which variety you bought: flowers can be small or large enough, up to five centimetersin diameter. Outwardly, they look like lush daisies. Astra New Belgian is rather low, one and a half meters is its limit. But it blooms very profusely, so that the foliage is hidden behind the flowers. And she does not stop this process within 35-45 days.
Plants of this family are relatively undemanding. The New Belgian aster does not stand out from the general row: planting and care are not troublesome, no complex gardening skills will be required on its plantations. The only thing you should pay attention to when choosing a variety is the timing of flowering. The latest in the middle lane simply do not have time to bloom.
Where and when to plant?
When you plan to allocate a place for these flowers on the site, look for sunny areas where there is a lot of light, which the New Belgian aster loves very much. Planting in the shade, and even on too wet ground, will significantly slow down flowering, making it more scarce. In addition, the shoots of the bush will begin to stretch, droop, and even break.
The soil should be neutral, asters agree and slightly acidic, but not alkaline. Seeds can be used both seedlings and seedless. The main thing is to use them as quickly as possible: in an opened bag, they quickly lose their germination. They are sown for seedlings on the day of purchase, in open ground - just before winter. If you sow the aster early, when the daylight hours are still short, you will have to arrange illumination for the seedlings. Astra new Belgian, grown from seeds, blooms a year or two after finding a permanent residence.
It is purely aesthetically desirable to frame plantings of asters with low ornamental plants: the bases of the New Belgians are bare and not very beautiful, they need to be disguised.
Astra new Belgian: leaving
Nothing supernatural is needed. In the presence of periodic rains, the New Belgian aster does not even need regular watering, especially if the ground at the roots is mulched. In a drought, you will have to water, but be careful: overflowing for flowers is harmful and quickly destroys them. Fertilizers are applied complex mineral, during the appearance of buds and in the middle of flowering. If the shoots are too long, they will have to be tied up.
New Belgian aster grows strongly, so every two or three years, in early spring, the bushes should be divided, rejuvenating the planting and thus maintaining the ability to bloom. And once every six years, the flower garden is moved to another place or the soil is enriched under it.
But no pre-winter processing is required: New Belgian aster has high winter hardiness, does not require shelters and does not freeze in the cold. The only reason to additionally warm the soil is if for some reason you divided the bushes in the fall and they have not yet fully adapted. Sawdust or spruce branches are enough to help the asters survive until spring.
Beware of powdery mildew
With regard to pests, the New Belgian aster, planting and caring for which is so hassle-free, can make you worry. It is very vulnerable to powdery mildew andthe object of her defeats will have to be looked at more often. And if the summer is rainy, then the danger increases several times. In order to prevent the death of your flowers, you can start irrigating them with preparations in the spring that form a protective film that prevents infection from penetrating. And at the first sign of a disease, you need to spray the flowers with sulfur fungicides in the evenings.
To make your flower garden look brighter, more harmonious and richer, you can complement asters with flowers that also bloom in autumn: rudbeckia, heliopsis, echinacea, gelenium. Tall cereals will also be good in the same flowerbed with asters.
