2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The popular houseplant Bouvardia with glossy dark green leaves and fragrant tubular flowers, collected in umbrella inflorescences, is afraid of the cold. Under favorable conditions, it blooms profusely and for a long time, filling the room with a pleasant aroma. Enterprising people grow bouvardia in greenhouses, using it as cut flowers for bouquets
Rod Bouvardia
The beautifully flowering evergreen shrubs, often grown as biennials, represent the genus Bouvardia. In their homeland, in the American tropics, bouvardia are perennial plants with glossy decorative leaves and fragrant tubular flowers, collected in inflorescences - false umbrellas that bloom on the tops of annual shoots. The flower tube ends with a four-lobed limb of white, pink, red color. In hybrids bred by breeders, the diameter of the inflorescences reaches 15 cm, while in the most common species in culture, it is much smaller.
Varieties
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Bouvardia yellow (Bouvardia flava) - bushes growing up to 1 meter in height, covered with lush green glossy leaves and yellow tubular flowers with a characteristic four-lobed limb.
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Long-flowered bouvardia (Bouvardia longiflora) - meter bushes with ovoid-pointed leaves and white flowers, exuding a pleasant aroma reminiscent of jasmine. True, some people complain that their flowers are not fragrant. Perhaps this situation is due to a lack of lighting, since the plant loves the sun very much.
Long-flowered bouvardia hybrids are lower in height, grow up to 70 cm. Their leaves are oval in shape, with a glossy surface. From June to October, flowers bloom in different shades: white, pink, purple, red.
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Bouvardia jasmine-flowered (Bouvardia jasminiflora) is the most famous dwarf species, growing up to a maximum of 60 cm in height. Its white flowers bloom in winter and are similar to jasmine flowers in their aroma and appearance.
Growing
Bouvardia is considered a difficult plant to grow. She is afraid of cold and excessive heat; likes well-lit places, but does not tolerate direct sunlight; takes "vacation" during the year, the so-called rest period; blooms profusely for only two years, and then the plant is recommended to be replaced with a new one.
But everything does not look so depressing if you provide the plant with comfortable conditions for growth, flowering and short-term rest.
Today, bouvardia is often grown in greenhouses, using abundant cut blooms for the bouquets we purchase from flower shops. In the summer months, even in our temperate climate, the plant pots can be taken out into the open air.
Flower pots for growing bouvardia are filled with a mixture in which, in a ratio (4: 2: 1), sod land, peat soil or leaf humus, clean river sand are present.
As already noted, the plant does not like not only frosts, but also extreme heat, feeling best at a temperature of plus 13 degrees. When the flowering ends, the bouvardia begins a dormant period, at which the temperature should be lower, but not lower than plus 7 degrees. During the growing season, the plant does not need fertilizing.
In the room for the bouvardia, we choose a lighter place, but taking it out in the open air in summer, we determine the flower pots in the shade.
In the spring and summer, the plant needs regular watering, which decreases during the dormant period.
Reproduction
The plant is propagated by cuttings, more often these are apical cuttings, less often root cuttings. After the formation of roots, which form quickly under favorable conditions, young plants are transplanted into pots with a diameter of 15 cm, filled with the mixture described above.
To stimulate abundant branching of new shoots, last year's shoots are cut short. Young plants are pinched 3-4 times and transferred.
Enemies
If the plant is not well-drained, the roots can rot, leading to wilting of the entire plant. Sick plants are thrown away. Yellowing of the leaves indicates a lack of iron in the soil.
Bouvardia is very sensitive to an increase or decrease in air temperature, so a comfortable 13 degrees should be maintained.
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