2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Water hyacinth (lat. Eichhornia crassipes) - a plant belonging to the Pontederia family, called the green plague in countries with mild climates. This is due to the fact that the water hyacinth that has begun to grow rapidly displaces other plants and is a serious obstacle to full-fledged navigation.
Description
Water hyacinth floats on the water surface and is endowed with dark green shiny leaves equipped with thickened petioles. Such "swellings" in the bases of the leaves help this aquatic beauty to stay afloat, since they all contain porous tissue with air chambers inside.
Toward the end of summer, pale lilac, blue, yellow or pink flowers appear in the water hyacinth, sitting on fairly dense peduncles. Their amazing decorativeness makes them comparable to orchids. By the way, in a cool summer, this plant may not bloom at all (however, the vegetative mass will still be actively growing).
Where grows
Water hyacinth came to us from South America, or rather, from its tropical part. And now it can be found in North America, and even in Africa. In addition, it grows very well in subtropical zones or in some other areas.
Benefit
Feeling great in heavily polluted water bodies, water hyacinth will help to clean even the most muddy pond in the shortest possible time. Its extensive root system, similar to a long and thick beard, actively absorbs suspended matter in the water. And then it recycles all the previously collected organic pollutants at lightning speed. Water hyacinth instantly absorbs phosphates, phenols, and all kinds of insecticides, and also absorbs silver and nickel with cadmium.
Growing and caring
Water hyacinth is usually planted in June. Since it cannot boast of frost resistance and is a rather low-tolerant plant, before the onset of the first frosts, it is transferred indoors - in winter, it simply will not survive in open reservoirs. In order for a water hyacinth to fully grow and develop, it needs a huge amount of nutrition and warmth, it is not without reason that it is considered a tropical plant. In the cold season, it is allowed to be kept indoors either in vessels with water or in aquariums.
Good illumination will not interfere with this aquatic beauty. It would be ideal to place it in a ring float in such a way that the roots of the plant are in the water, and the leaves lying on the floats do not touch it at all - this will help to avoid their rotting. Another good option for winter storage of a water hyacinth is to plant it in moistened sand, followed by providing it with regular watering. Best of all, this plant overwinters at temperatures from twenty-four to twenty-six degrees.
With the onset of spring, a beautiful plant is transferred to the well-heated water of a reservoir located on the backyard. Soon, having begun to multiply, it will delight the eye with its delightful inflorescences and juicy emerald greens. In both natural and artificial reservoirs with warm water, water hyacinth grows very rapidly and blooms amazingly.
This plant can boast of one very unusual feature - the more restless the surface of the water, the more fat its petioles will become. If the petioles grow in an elegant vase or in a quiet pond, they turn out to be more slender and longer.
As for feeding water hyacinth, both fertilizers intended for indoor plants and fertilizers for aquarium plants are equally well suited for this purpose.
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Water hyacinth, or eichornia, is also called the green plague, since in a number of countries with mild climates it poses a certain threat to water bodies - growing rapidly and displacing other plants, it interferes with navigation. But in the UK, it is grown as an ornamental plant for garden ponds. Indeed, this beautiful plant is able to noticeably enrich the flora of ponds in household plots, which is not distinguished by a special variety. Water hyacinth is also used as an aquarium
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