2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Sagina (lat. Sagina) - an ornamental-leaved winter-hardy plant belonging to the Clove family. The second name is bryozoan.
Description
Sagina is a prostrate annual or perennial, endowed with miniature linear or needle-like leaves and tiny white flowers. This plant can be both surface and creeping. As a rule, the height of the sagina does not exceed fifteen to twenty centimeters.
Narrow-linear sagina leaves up to one and a half millimeters wide are devoid of stipules and grow together near the bases into short sheaths.
The diameter of the small white flowers of the sagina ranges from three to ten millimeters. All of them are bisexual and sit on rather long pedicels. Such flowers can be located singly, and they can also form low-flowered dichasia. The flower cups are formed by four to five oblong or ovoid sepals, most often obtuse and fused to the very bases. Each flower has usually four to five petals, four to ten stamens, and four to five stamens.
The fruits of the sagina look like oblong-ovate capsules, which open with four to five valves right down to the very bases. And the smooth kidney-shaped seeds of this plant are devoid of appendages.
In total, the sagina genus has from twenty to twenty-five species.
Where grows
Sagina is quite widespread on almost all present-day continents.
Usage
Most often, sagina is used as a sustainable ground cover plant. By the way, in Russia it was not recognized as a decorative culture for quite a long time, but then they began to actively use it in the construction of Japanese gardens. And once sagina was very successfully bred as a fodder plant.
Growing and caring
Sagina is best planted in sunny areas with loamy or sandy loam soils, ideally with garden soils. If the soil on the site is too heavy, then first you need to add at least a little sand for digging.
Moisturizing this plant requires moderate - even in the case of a very prolonged drought, you should not water the sagina more than two to three times a week. Sprinkler irrigation is especially suitable for wetting it. And if the sagina grows in open areas, then it is recommended to water it exclusively in the evenings - if you ignore this feature, the scorching rays of the sun can easily burn the delicate greens.
In order for the sagina to grow well and fully develop, it also needs periodic feeding. In the first year of life, this plant especially needs fertilizing with ammonium sulfate, which is applied twice during the season: first - in early spring, and then also at the very beginning of summer. Also, three times a year (also in early spring, and then in summer and autumn), the plant must be fertilized with superphosphate.
Despite the fact that the sagina is a very winter-hardy plant, in snowless winters it can still sometimes freeze out. So it's better to provide this beauty with proper shelter with the onset of winter.
Sagina is propagated by small bunches of sod - as a rule, they are planted either in early autumn or with the onset of spring. This beautiful plant propagates just as well by seeds sown before winter. And the saginas grown by seedlings are moved into open ground only with the onset of May, when the soil warms up properly and stable good weather is established. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain a distance of five to ten centimeters between plants. And, of course, it is important not to forget to thoroughly water the area after planting them.
