Saxifrage (saxifrage)

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

An unpretentious perennial plant, often undersized. Saxifrage leaves, collected in a rosette, look like moss bumps. Abundant, multi-colored and relatively long flowering in May-June will be a bright decoration of any flower garden. The saxifrage looks especially picturesque on alpine hills and decorative stone walls

Description

Several hundred species of this herbaceous plant are similar to each other with perennial rhizome, basal rosette of leaves and five-petalled stellate flowers.

The plant got its name for its love to settle in the crevices of rocky mountains, where nature managed to bring soil. The leaves and inflorescences emerging from the crevices create the impression that it was they who, with the power of their greenery, were able to split the rocks and pave the way for life.

When it comes to describing the leaves of saxifrage, here the similarity of plants disappears. The root rosette consists of leaves of various shapes, which can be fleshy-succulent or leathery. The leaves of many saxifrage species secrete lime, which stains their edges grayish.

Regular stellate flowers, most often, form paniculate inflorescences of various colors: white, pinkish, purple-pink, yellow, carmine-red, multicolored. Flowering lasts from May to September.

Flower nectar attracts the attention of insects, which contribute to the pollination of the plant. But the option of self-pollination is also possible.

The fruit is a capsule containing numerous small seeds.

Growing

The variety of saxifrage species makes it difficult to formulate general recommendations, since the species are so different from each other that the conditions for their cultivation are sometimes directly opposite to each other.

But, nevertheless, there are not so many species from this variety, they prefer to settle in our flower beds. These are, as a rule, such species that are distinguished by their love for light, which means that the place for their planting must be sunny. They also differ in frost resistance, otherwise they would simply not have taken root in our harsh regions.

The soil is suitable for them light, fertile, drained.

Reproduction

Saxifrage is propagated in the usual ways for gardeners: sowing seeds, green cuttings or dividing a bush.

The seeds of many saxifrage species need stratification, so it is safer to sow before winter. Saxifrage seeds are small, so they are not embedded in the soil, but simply covered with a thin layer of sand. They are kept in the cold from several weeks to several months. When the boxes are brought into the heat, shoots appear in 2-3 weeks. If the seeds have not sprouted, then the soil in the boxes is kept moist all summer and left in the frost for another winter. Some saxifrage are distinguished by such a long period of germination.

Seeds of hybrids ("Arendsii hibridae") do not require tiresome stratification. They can be sown in May directly into the ground, or in March for growing seedlings.

Dedicated to cuttings in June-July, covering the rooted cuttings with a layer of leaves for the winter. In August, after the end of flowering, the bushes are divided.

Use in the garden

The saxifrage is suitable for creating borders in flower beds.

Depending on the height of the plant, and it varies from 5 to 70 centimeters (although more often, nevertheless, a stunted saxifrage is grown in gardens), saxifrage will be appropriate on different plans of a mixborder in combination with such ornamental plants as muscari, sedums and stunted irises …

The most successful place for saxifrage is alpine slides and decorative stone walls, on which they fully justify their name.