In nature, there is a huge species diversity of flowers. All of them are beautiful in their own way. But among them there are especially attractive ones that you always want to consider. These flowers are daisies. Read the article about the features of their cultivation at home and in the open field.
Description of the plant
Daisy flowers are perennial crops from the Asteraceae family. In horticulture, they are known as biennials. During the first year of life, a rosette of leaves is formed: it is dense, its shape resembles a spatula or an egg.
In the second year, flower stalks are formed in large numbers, the height of which reaches 15-20 cm or more. They form single inflorescences in the form of baskets with a diameter of two to seven centimeters. In the middle of the flower are tubular petals, and along the edges - reed. They are painted in white, burgundy, pink, red shades.
The flowering period starts from the second month of spring. The optimum temperature for this process is from 15 to 18oS. That is why in summer the flowering is reduced, and the buds become smaller. In autumn, when the heat subsides and the air temperature drops, flowering again becomes violent, it will continue until the frost.
Daisy flowers are simple, double and semi-double. Today there is a huge variety of varieties of this type of plant, but only 20 are grown as cultivated, which are combined into seven garden groups, depending on the timing of flowering, shape, size of inflorescences and other characteristics. Skillfully using the gap in flowering time (about two to three weeks), you can achieve continuous decoration of your garden with cute plants.
Daisy perennial in Greek is called "pearl" and has a high decorative effect. The flowers are very delicate, their unusual beauty attracts attention. Daisies wake up when the sun rises to give joy throughout the day with their lush attractive appearance.
Daisy Varieties
Perennial flower has a number of varieties:
- "Robella" - this variety is a medal winner of the "Fleroselect" competition. Inflorescences of pink-salmon color are large, dense, terry. Their diameter reaches five centimeters. The petals are rolled tubes.
- "Pomponette" - this variety of daisies has compact bushes, spherical shape, pompon inflorescences of small size.
- "Bella Daisy" - the variety received an award at the Fleroselect competition. Such daisiesbloom early. They have a terry basket, brightly colored pink. Its diameter reaches two or more centimeters.
- "Rob Roy" is a miniature daisy with red flowers measuring one to two centimeters in diameter.
How to choose a place and prepare the soil for planting
Cultivation of daisies in open ground is carried out in a sunny area. It is important that the flowers do not get a shadow from tall plants, especially from trees. Of course, the perennial daisy is unpretentious and can grow in any conditions, but its flowering in this case will not be so lush.
The flower grows on normal garden soil, but feels more comfortable in structured loams. Before sowing seeds, the soil is cleared of all weeds using herbicides. Then loosen to such a depth that air flows well to the roots. This distance must be greater than their size.
Features of seed preparation
Before sowing daisies, the seeds must be covered with a solution containing trace elements. This saturates them with substances necessary for plant growth. In addition, thanks to the shell, the seeds are reliably protected from harmful bacteria and insects. The processed planting material is similar in appearance to balls, therefore the method of growing from it is called drageeing. Such seeds are planted individually, and, compared with conventional seeds, they need to be watered more often. With insufficient moisture, the shell is not completelywill dissolve, which will negatively affect the growth of the flower.
Sowing daisies in open ground
Planting, depending on preferences or possibilities, is carried out with ordinary and pelleted seeds. In the first case, they are taken in the amount of three or four pieces, placed in cassettes and planted in the ground. The pelleted planting material is already in the shell; no additional manipulations are required with it. When to plant daisies?
Sowing seeds should be carried out in late spring or early first summer month in a moist and fertilized soil with humus or peat. Planting depth should not be large, two centimeters is enough. Seeds are sprinkled with the same soil in which they are planted, but pre-mixed with a small amount of sand. For quick germination, plantings are covered with a film for several days, so moisture is better preserved in the soil. It is important to consider that drying out of the soil is unacceptable.
Seedling growing
Most often, gardeners breed a flower using seedlings. To do this, you need to grow it from seeds that are sown in boxes or containers with soil in early spring, in March. Seedlings are grown indoors or in a greenhouse. Seedlings are planted in flower beds in May. When planting an earth ball from the roots, you do not need to shake it off.
Holes are made in the area allotted for daisies. It is desirable to leave the distance between them at 20 cm. Using the transshipment method, the plants are placed in pits, covered with soil, which is well compacted. After that, the plantings are wateredplenty of water, and the soil around the bushes is mulched. With this method of cultivation, flowering of daisies occurs in the same year.
Vegetative propagation in the open field
Cultivation of flowers is carried out in two ways: cuttings and dividing the bush. In the latter case, reproduction contributes to the preservation of valuable plant varieties, since with age the flowers become smaller and lose their decorative effect. The best time to divide the bushes into parts is the end of summer or the beginning of the autumn season. Before starting the procedure, all the buds and flowers are pinched, the leaves are cut off, and the roots are shortened to five to eight centimeters. This will help the delenki settle down faster. In the same period of time, cuttings are harvested. To do this, side shoots are separated from the bush along with the leaves, and then planted on the beds. Their rooting will pass quickly, within a crescent. Such daisies will only bloom next year.
Features of care
Growing flowers outdoors is not difficult. The main thing is to provide them with proper and timely care. Daisies need watering, fertilizing, loosening the soil, weeding. The roots of these flowers lie at a shallow depth, so the plants need to be watered regularly, since the lack of moisture affects the size of the inflorescences: they become much smaller, and the specific appearance is lost in terry varieties.
After each watering, the soil must be loosened. In order not to often weed weeds, the area with flowers can be mulched. This willprotect the soil from evaporation of moisture in it and prevent the bulging of roots close to the surface of the earth, which occurs due to the drying of the soil.
Daisies are especially difficult to tolerate hot weather. Therefore, during the dry period, the soil should be moistened abundantly and often. If it dries out, the flowers will simply die. Each irrigation procedure should begin with draining the soil, otherwise excess moisture will linger in it, and oxygen will not be fully supplied to the roots.
In different periods of growth, plants need to be fed. At the initial stage, they need nitrogen and potassium. A weak solution of these trace elements is used as additional nutrition. The next top dressing should be carried out before the start of the flowering period with a mixture prepared independently. To do this, two spoons of nitrophoska are diluted in a bucket of water with a capacity of 10 liters and a composition called "Agricola-Fantasy" is added. The same fertilizer is watered several times throughout the season.
You can use another mixture for feeding, which includes potassium sulfate, superphosphate, ammonium nitrate in equal proportions. Care includes a procedure such as removing wilted buds. This significantly prolongs the flowering period and its quality.
How to collect seeds?
For those who prefer their own, home-made planting material to purchased planting material, you should know that the seeds are harvested when they are fully ripe on the plant. But this process does not take place simultaneously. Therefore, the seeds must be collected notless than once or twice a week. To do this, inflorescences that are in the stage of withering are cut off from the plant. This must be done in dry weather. If it rains, then the seeds will be washed away, and there will be nothing to collect. Seeds are shaken out of them on a lined paper or cloth and sent to the room to dry. It must have strong ventilation. After the procedure, the seeds are poured into a paper bag and placed in a dry place for storage.
Preparing daisies for winter
Because these flowers are perennial, they are left to winter outdoors. But for the period of cold weather, they should be covered with improvised materials so that they do not freeze out and grow in the spring. To do this, use peat, fallen leaves, branches of needles. In autumn, before the onset of frost, the area where the flowers grow is mulched with humus. The thickness of the layer should not be less than one centimeter. When spring comes, the overwintered daisy flowers are transplanted to another site, deepening the roots well.
Features of home care
Flower growers who grow daisies consider it a great success to have this flower in their collection. The easiest way to grow daisies indoors is to transplant flower rosettes of annual flowers from the street into indoor pots. This should be done in the first half of autumn, until daily temperatures drop to 8 oC and below. At this time, the flowers are at rest and are preparing to bloom again.
So that the daisy in the pot grows normally andbloomed luxuriantly, it should be planted in light soil with good drainage. To increase fertility, humus and sand should be added to the soil. The flower will grow well in sunlit windows. When planting daisies in the autumn, their flowering occurs in the first month of winter and will continue until it ends.
Planting indoor daisies
These flowers are propagated in several ways. At home, the most relevant way is to divide the bush, since this procedure rejuvenates daisy flowers, after which they grow more actively and open buds faster. For this method of reproduction, young plants are not suitable, you need to take two-year-olds and older.
The best time for dividing a bush is summer, the month of July. Usually during this period, flowering stops. To carry out the procedure, you need to get the bushes from the pots and divide them into small parts. For each separated bush, you need to cut off all the buds, leaves and shorten the roots. Only then plant them in separate pots and put them in partial shade until they are accepted. At this time, you need to water the plants more often.
Many flower growers propagate indoor daisies with cuttings. They are taken from he althy plants in the last month of spring or in summer, at the beginning of the season. The cuttings are side shoots. They are dug into the ground, which should be soft and loose. It takes half a month to root the cuttings. The flowering period for such daisies will come only next year.
The easiest way to propagate daisies is by seeds. They are scattered on the surface of the soil and sprinkled. To do this, use sand or loose substrate. Shoots will appear in seven to ten days. When the seedlings grow up, they are transplanted into pots, where they will grow constantly. Flowering of such daisies occurs depending on the time of sowing seeds. If this procedure was carried out in early spring, then the plants will bloom in the same season. When sowing seeds in summer, the flowering period will come only next year.
Home care
Indoor daisies need abundant watering, which should be carried out regularly. The lack of moisture negatively affects the flowers: they become small, their fluffiness disappears. Caring for daisies also includes feeding them. Growing in a pot with a limited amount of soil, the flower needs to be fed at least once every half a month. To do this, use a fertilizer consisting of organic and mineral compounds. They are called complex for indoor flowers.
For landscape design
Daisies are flowers that look especially good in combination with spring plants such as tulips and hyacinths, lilies of the valley and daffodils, primroses and primroses. Small, but very expressive and bright violets or forget-me-nots, densely planted with flowering daisies, will set off and complement their unobtrusive beauty.
