2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
To survive in our wonderful, but passionless world, every living organism develops the ability to defend itself against enemies. Some use a smell for this, others paint their flowers in faded tones, and someone arms themselves with tenacious thorns, warning the enemy: "Whoever touches me will be punished!"
Bright and prickly
The world of plants that protect their life with spines and hooks has many species and genera. As a rule, these are very unpretentious plants, annoying gardeners with their intrusiveness, invading the world of man-made order with enviable constancy.
Annoyance is not the best teacher in life. Attentive, creative people, observing nature, make great discoveries and create objects that simplify human life.
So, in the middle of the 20th century, Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, once again freeing his faithful dog from the burdock thorns clinging to his fur, took a closer look at their structure. The result of such curiosity was the invention of Velcro fasteners, which received worldwide recognition and greatly facilitated the life of young mothers. After all, it has become much easier to dress babies who do not like this procedure so much.
Among the thorny plants there is the genus Thistle (Carduus). Its representatives are not only prickly, but also beautiful, modest, and therefore often find a place for themselves in rock gardens. Thistle is popularly called many thorny plants that have their own names.
Varieties of thorny plants
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Acanthus thistle (Carduus acantoides) is one of the most common species. A prickly erect peduncle of a biennial plant is crowned with purple or white flowers, collected in inflorescences-baskets. Thorny, deeply cut leaves cover the stem to the very inflorescences. A good honey plant and a bad weed.
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Globular muzzle or Echinops (Echinops sphaerocefalus) is a hardy perennial with decorative spherical inflorescences and pubescent stems and leaves. It is used in folk medicine, in mixborders, for bouquets of dried flowers.
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Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) is a fragrant prickly annual or biennial. Its thorny dark green leaves are collected in a rosette, and purple inflorescences-baskets fill the flower garden with aroma all summer.
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Common thymus (Cirsium vulgare) is a biennial weed with thorny purple inflorescences-baskets and leaves, thoroughly armed with thorns, located along the edge of the leaf and on its surface.
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Field thug (Cirsium arvense) is a less armed perennial with thorns only along the edge of the leaf and inflorescences-baskets are smaller than those of the common thistle.
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Thistle thorny (Cirsium spinosissimum) is a perennial with a light yellow basket-shaped inflorescence and thorny leaves.
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Cardon or Spanish Artichoke (Cynara cardunculus) is an ornamental rhizome perennial grown in our country as an annual. Its bleached adult shoots are used in cooking. For bleaching, the shoots are tied more compactly to each other and protected from light by wrapping them in straw or paper for 2-3 weeks.
Growing
Drought-resistant thorny plants are unpretentious to soils, but during the active growing season they need additional fertilizing with complex mineral fertilizers. In order for them to better show their decorative qualities, it is better to plant them in fertile, well-drained soil. In the dry period of summer, watering is required.
They prefer sunny places. For them, high temperatures are better, but not all species tolerate sub-zero temperatures, except perhaps only thistle and acanthus thistle.
Thorny plants are propagated by seeds, sowing annuals in March or September. For biennial species, the sowing time is May-June.
Thorns may not protect against all pests. Plants can be affected by gluttonous aphids, odorous woodworms, scoops and fungal diseases, powdery mildew.
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