2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Ligularia (lat. Ligularia) - shade-loving winter-hardy perennial from the Astrovye family. Another name is buzulnik.
Description
Ligularia is a powerful herb, equipped with tall and straight leafy stems (their height is often in the range from eighty to one hundred and twenty centimeters) and large successive leaves collected in spectacular basal rosettes.
Ligularia flowers are collected in fancy baskets: the marginal ligulate flowers located in one row can be either whitish or orange or yellow, and the tubular median flowers of this plant are usually brown or yellowish. All baskets, in turn, form luxurious racemose or corymbose inflorescences. And you can admire the flowering of ligularia only in the summer. As for the fruits of this plant, they usually look like small achenes with funny crests.
In total, the genus of ligularia has about one hundred and fifty species.
Where grows
Most often, ligularia can be found in wet meadows in Africa, Asia and Europe. This plant is especially widespread in Southeast and East Asia. Ligularia feels best in forest clearings, on the banks of water bodies and in almost any well-humidified areas - only a few varieties of this beauty are able to endure arid conditions.
Usage
Since many varieties of ligularia are distinguished by very impressive decorativeness, they are quite actively used in landscape design and in ornamental gardening. These long-lived and completely undemanding perennials are endowed with the ability to create an excellent decorative effect! And if you remove the peduncles of the ligularia immediately after flowering, it will quickly give a truly incredible amount of fresh foliage and will not lose its decorative effect until mid-October!
Ligularia bushes will look especially impressive in the middle of lawns. In addition, they are widely used to create a background in mixborders or to clearly indicate the very center of mixed beds. Ligularia will take root perfectly on the shores of reservoirs - there it will look extremely natural. And the best partner plants for this beauty will be perennial asters, geleniums and all kinds of cereals. By the way, gray ligularia is also used in Siberia as a medicinal plant.
Growing and caring
In sunny areas, ligularia will grow well only under the condition of regular and very abundant watering - this plant will feel best in penumbra areas with moist and deep rich soils. However, ligularia will grow no worse than on undrained heavy clay soils.
Ligularia tolerates temporary flooding quite well, and it also hibernates very well, however, despite the fact that it is not at all necessary to cover it, it is still better to cut the aboveground parts of the plant for the winter.
Many gardeners are very fond of ligularia because it can easily grow on the same plot for up to ten to fifteen years!
Reproduction of ligularia is usually carried out either by dividing the bushes in the spring, or by seeds (both in spring and before winter). At the same time, it is important not to forget that the specimens grown from seeds will begin to bloom only in the third or fourth year. And the division and transplantation of ligularia, as a rule, is carried out every eight to ten years. Also, when planting this beauty, it is necessary to maintain a distance of half a meter or even a meter.
