2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The flowers of this overseas beauty are very unusual and attractive. But touching or smelling them is quite difficult. Painfully they are prickly. Ehmeya cannot be called rare - it has long earned the respect and love of domestic flower growers for its exotic beauty and gentleness. How to please her?
Blooms until winter frosts
Attracting with fabulous flowers of a unique shape, decorative leaves and at the same time unpretentiousness in care, ehmeya is increasingly becoming a welcome guest on domestic windowsills. There are over 170 species of this plant from the bromeliad family, distributed mainly in South and Central America. Ehmeya belongs to ornamental plants due to the incredible beauty of flowers and leaves collected in variegated or one-color funnel-shaped rosettes.
In apartments, striped ehmeya is often grown. Her homeland is Brazil. This variety of plants is very beautiful with inflorescences with inflorescence pink shiny leaves. They bloom in summer and delight with their flowering almost until winter.
The most unpretentious is considered to be the sparkling ehmeya. Its belt-like leaves are two-colored: green on top and red-violet on the bottom. The paniculate inflorescence is decorated with small bright red flowers with a blue top and pink bracts.
Good both in the sun and in partial shade
In summer, the most acceptable temperature for ehmei is 20-26C, and in winter - 17-18C. Changes in daily temperatures combined with fresh air have a positive effect on echmea. Direct sunlight is not terrible for a plant that loves light, but it grows well in partial shade. Ehmeya should be placed near the east or west windows. On the southern windows, shaded in the hot daytime hours, echmeas grow well, characterized by hard and thick leaves. In the warm season, the plant can be "walked" on the balcony.
Dry or wet?
In conditions of high humidity and shade, the color of the leaves of a plant with dense leathery leaves is less saturated and decorative than that of ehmey, flaunting on light and dry windowsills. Moderate lighting and some shade on sunny days is fine for the softer-leaved Echmea species. In any case, the soil for these beauties should regularly be slightly moist. The plant requires regular watering with warm water. Watering begins when the topsoil is completely dry. To do this, first, water is poured into a rosette of leaves and gradually move on to irrigate the soil.
Overdried land is very harmful for ehmea - it literally withers before our eyes. It is worth reducing watering in the fall, and in the winter season, water the flower even less often, without touching the funnel - in order to avoid decay, it does not need to be moistened. Dry air, unlike dry soil, is well tolerated by echmea. However, many of its species respond to moisture very gratefully. In this regard, if the plant spends the winter in a warm place, then it is worth arranging daily spraying with lukewarm water from a fine spray bottle.
Preparing the soil mixture
Ehmey should be replanted every year. For this, a mixture of humus, peat, leaf and turf soil is used in equal proportions with a small addition of sand. You can use a commercial potting potting potting mix for the bromelet family. A substrate of crushed fern roots with sphagnum is well suited to the flower, as well as an earthy mixture of top peat and rough leaf soil with the addition of sphagnum, sand with horn shavings and pieces of charcoal. It is important to remember good drainage.
For planting, a not very deep container is needed, since the roots of the echmea are not so massive. For about three days, the transplanted plant is not watered, keeping it in a shaded place so that the roots can calmly recover. Ehmeya is fed in summer and spring, alternating 2-3 weeks. As a top dressing, liquid fertilizers are often used, both made specifically for bromeliads and for other flowering indoor plants.
"Children" or seeds?
Echmeya reproduces by seeds and "babies" - lateral shoots that have roots after almost complete withering away of the central stem. Seedlings can bloom already after 3 years, and from sprouts obtained from "babies" - after 1-3 years.
Seeds are planted in loose peat soil. The air humidity should be high, and the temperature should not exceed 22-25C. Young plants should be protected from direct sunlight until they get stronger. Seedlings dive three months later into a mixture of heather and leafy soil. Do not let the temperature in the room with ecchmea drop below 20C throughout the year. And don't forget to spray the young. A year later, future adult plants are transplanted into a regular substrate.
Finally, a few tips:
• To echmeya bloom early, it is placed with a few ripe apples in a plastic bag and tightly closed for 1-2 weeks. This neighborhood contributes to the blooming of the plant in four months.
• You should be careful with striped echmea: particles of poison from its leaves can cause skin inflammation.
• It is recommended that the leaf rosette of the plant be rinsed regularly to avoid the accumulation of debris and dust.
• Excess moisture is most often the cause of flower death. And if the plant does not have enough moisture, then its leaves begin to wither.
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