Rezukha's Non-falling Flowers

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

A groundcover perennial spreads a white carpet of long non-falling flowers in spring. Flowering lasts more than two months, decorating rock gardens, framing flower beds, emphasizing the beauty of tulips making their way through the snow-white canvas of a flower carpet. Protects the soil from drying out, attracts bees to the garden

The genus of Rezukh

The numerous genus Rezuha or Arabis, included by botanists in the Cabbage family, has more than a hundred perennial and annual herbaceous plants. Some of them, being good honey plants, are attractive to bees, decorative species that form white natural carpets in spring are attractive to people.

Varieties

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Rezuha prokurens (Arabis procurrens) - characterized by many thin stems creeping along the ground with oblong-lanceolate or ovoid whole leaves and white large flowers.

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Rezuha turrita (Arabis turrita) - a tall plant up to 75 cm high. Green obovate leaves on the upper side have a lilac-blue tint on the back, pubescent, serrated along the edge of the leaf. The cluster inflorescences are collected from numerous flowers of a light yellow color.

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Arabis light blue (Arabis caerulea) - an unpretentious and graceful plant climbs into the mountains, not afraid of slopes and talus and decorating them with blue flowers.

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Alpine Arabis (Arabis alpina) - ground cover creeping plant 25 cm high. Climbing stems with pubescent gray oblong or oval leaves are not afraid of frost, which contributes to its wide distribution. In spring, it is covered with white or pink small flowers, collected in a brush. Flowers can be single or double.

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Caucasian rezuha (Arabis caucasica) is a perennial evergreen undersized plant with a height of 10-20 cm. Gray oval leaves form dense thickets-cushions. Blooms for a long time with white flowers. There are varieties of Caucasian rezuha, in which double flowers bloom on long peduncles, and the leaves have a yellowish edge.

Growing

Rezuha feels better in partial shade, but can grow in sunny areas.

The plant is planted in open ground in spring or autumn, picking up soil with good drainage. For successful growth and abundant flowering, it is recommended to fertilize with organic matter and mineral fertilizers. Mineral dressing can be combined with watering. Rezuha tolerates drought well, and therefore does not require regular watering, except for the period of early development.

After the end of flowering, the plant can be cut at a height of 4-5 cm from the surface of the earth, sprinkled with sand or soil. Its gray-silver leaves will grow back quickly, decorating the flower garden until the very frost.

Reproduction

Propagated by Rezuha seeds and cuttings.

Seeds are sown in a peat-sand mixture in summer, leaving indoors until next spring, when the seedlings can be planted in open ground.

For propagation by cuttings, shoots are cut in summer, a couple of lower leaves are removed and planted obliquely into the ground to a depth of 3 cm. Cuttings are shaded from direct sunlight. After a month, the cuttings take root.

Use at their summer cottage

Unpretentious and cold-resistant plant species of the Arabis genus are excellent for growing outdoors.

They look harmoniously against the background of the stones of the alpine hills; will decorate the rocky areas of the garden and fill the cracks in the stone walls, where not any plant can take root; suitable for decorating flower borders; depending on the variety, they will comfortably sit in the foreground or middle ground of the mixborder.

Diseases and pests

The gall midge larvae, small harmless mosquitoes, as well as fungal diseases are referred to the malicious pests of Rezukh.