2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The stormy season of late autumn has come. The temperature is approaching zero, and bright orange lanterns of decorative physalis are still growing on the flower beds. They attract the attention of passers-by. One gets the impression that little suns have sat down to rest on thin stems. Let's get to know them better
History has more than one hundred years of cultivation of physalis as a cultivated plant. Previously, he was often found in summer cottages. Its bright boxes are perfect for decorating flower beds. Especially advantageous "lanterns" look in the autumn, when most plants lose their former shine. In recent years, it has been undeservedly little used in flower beds.
Growing benefits
Physalis is a profitable culture with a lot of advantages:
• annual planting is excluded;
• tolerates poor soils;
• long period of decorativeness;
• retains bright colors in winter bouquets;
• easily multiplies;
• hibernates well without shelter;
• does not require the formation of a bush.
Let's take a closer look at all the benefits.
Botanical description
Physalis ordinary is sometimes called physalis Franchet, after the French scientist who first discovered this plant to the world. The flower comes from Japan. For the similarity of the overgrown shell around the fruit with a paper lamp, it is fondly called a Chinese lantern. Translated from the Greek language - "bubble".
The plant belongs to the Solanaceae family. The decorative forms have a powerful creeping rhizome, the barely branched stems, only slightly covered with sparse pubescence in the upper part. Height from 30 to 90 cm, depending on the variety and place of growth.
Opposite light green leaves are widened at the base, pointed at the end. Single inflorescences with a diameter of about 3 cm of a creamy shade sit in the axils of the leaf plate. They have no particular decorative effect. Flowering lasts from July to August.
The fruit is a berry, it resembles a small cherry surrounded on all sides by a green cup. In the phase of full ripeness, it acquires a bright orange color. Its diameter is 5-6 cm. With favorable pollination, 10-14 “lanterns” “bloom” on one stem. Each fruit contains 10-25 yellow-brown, leathery seeds, relatively large in size.
Ornamental varieties are not suitable for food purposes because of the bitter taste and small size of the berry.
Growing conditions
The unpretentiousness of physalis allows you to grow it on almost any soil. High natural fertility, timely feeding, light alkaline soils - increase the size of the bright bolls.
Adequate light prevents the plants from pulling out, keeping the bushes compact. Drought tolerance does not require frequent watering.
Unlike food physalis, decorative physalis has good frost resistance in central Russia. Does not require shelter for the winter. The aboveground part dies off, growing back from the rhizomes in the spring.
Place in the flower garden
Physalis bushes are a great backdrop for most perennials. Planted in groups in mixborders, they go well with gotensia, tall astilba, "golden balls", ratibida, Gaillardia, rudbeckia. Dark green branches of conifers perfectly set off the bright orange "lanterns" of physalis. The bushes next to the boulders look original, against the background of the lawn.
The decorativeness of plants does not disappear with the onset of winter. When the flowers are covered with caps of snow.
Low-growing varieties of physalis are planted in pots and hanging baskets, decorating the facades of houses, open verandas, and gazebos. In many countries, there is a tradition to give "Chinese lanterns", along with conifers, poinsettia, for Christmas to relatives and friends.
We will continue the conversation about the methods of reproduction of this wonderful flower, the preparation of winter compositions in the next article.
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