2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Houttuinia grows in nature from the Himalayas to Japan itself. In Transcaucasia, it is often found as an unwanted weed on huge tea plantations. This creeping and rooting plant feels great in the coastal zones - its amazingly beautiful leaves will be simply irreplaceable when decorating a wide variety of water bodies. And in Europe, hauttuinia is often ranked even as aquarium plants
Getting to know the plant
Houttuynia is a perennial with reddish stems, the height of which reaches thirty centimeters. The bluish-green leaves of this beauty are heart-shaped. Due to its powerful rhizomes, hauttuynia grows very actively in different directions. Moreover, its bizarre rhizomes are able to develop even under concrete paths - no rhizome perennial can boast of this.
Small white hauttuinia flowers are equipped with five petals each. The flowering of such a beautiful plant can be observed mainly in early summer.
The genus of hauttuinia includes only one single species - the hauttuynia cordate. And from a decorative point of view, a number of its varieties are very interesting: for example, the Plena variety has amazingly beautiful double flowers; the “Chameleon” variety has flowers, though not double, but luxurious motley white-yellow-red-green leaves; and the variety "Variegata" is characterized by a relatively small number of flowers, but at the same time it has the most colorful leaves of reddish-greenish shades with cream and yellow spots.
Using hauttuinia
Houttuinia is excellently capable of filling the voids that form between crops of higher heights growing in shallow waters. This beauty is also suitable for growing in rock gardens. Also, hauttuinia looks great when decorating small swamps and coastal areas of water bodies. And its variegated varieties in the foreground of flower beds are perfectly combined with low bridges thrown over water bodies. Houttuinia also looks great against the background of sedges with various decorative grasses.
In Japan, hauttuinia is used to make a wonderful tea with a tonic effect, and in Vietnam and China it is grown as a lettuce plant.
It has hauttuynia and some medicinal properties, but it is better not to experiment with it on your own in order to avoid possible allergic reactions.
How to grow
For hauttuinia, sunny places are most preferable, since even with relatively little shading, its variegated leaves quickly turn into ordinary green ones. But it is rather undemanding to soils and, although it loves well-moistened soils most of all, it will develop normally on an alpine hill.
Houttuinia should be planted in shallow water or in swamps. It is allowed to do this in the coastal zone with sufficiently moist soil. And the depth of its planting should be from five to ten centimeters. Also, when planting this plant, it is necessary to immediately limit the area it occupies. For this purpose, strips of plastic or metal are dug in along the perimeter to a depth of at least thirty centimeters.
It should be noted that when growing hauttuinia, an excess of nitrogen is extremely undesirable both in the soil and in the supplements periodically offered to this plant - nitrogen can negatively affect the ability of this beauty to endure the winter.
Reproduction of hauttuynia occurs by dividing the rhizomes or by cuttings. As for the division, it is best to spend it in the spring or in the summer, in the first half of it - then this beauty will have time to get stronger before the onset of winter. When grafting, carried out later, the hauttuynia planted in pots is left to winter indoors on the windowsills or transferred to cool greenhouses.
Houttuynia is very unpretentious and has good frost resistance. In central Russia, she is able to winter very well. If the winter is snowy and mild enough, it is quite possible to do without even shelter. But in snowless and rather cold winters, luxurious hauttuynia can freeze out. Therefore, it is recommended to grow this wonderful plant in containers or other containers, so that in such fierce winters, you can transfer the hauttuinia to a greenhouse or some other room.
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