Bacopa ampelous - growing, care, planting

Bacopa is a perennial plant that has a lush bloom. The culture belongs to the plantain family and is widespread in many countries. The flower has decorative properties and is unpretentious. It is actively used in landscape design to decorate the garden. If planted on a Bacopa site, care and cultivation are of interest to many gardeners.

Bacopa: care and cultivation

These are herbaceous creeping perennials that often grow near water bodies and in swamps. The culture is characterized by long flowering. The height of the bushes ranges from 10 to 70 cm. The flower is characterized by a short fibrous root system and creeping creeping stems.

Bacopa is a beautiful ornamental plant

The leaves are small and have jagged edges. They are alternate or linear. Flowers are solitary and rather small, no more than 2 cm in diameter. The color is different - pink, red, blue, purple, white. There are many varieties of Bacopa - Snow Avalanche, Boar, Pink Domino. They all differ in appearance and decorative properties.

There is also ampelous bacopa, the cultivation of which has certain characteristics. This plant is intended for planting in hanging baskets or pots. It has long shoots that hang down beautifully or spread along the ground.

This variety of bacopa is characterized by undulating blooms. Usually, flowers adorn the bush from early spring to almost late autumn. Planting and caring for ampelous bacopa have certain features. In winter, the plant should be kept in an unheated room. During this period, it does not bloom, and therefore needs minimal care.

Ampel culture can be grown in flowerpots

Reproduction

To grow a crop, you can use different breeding methods. The plant grows well from seed. Cuttings and cuttings are also used for breeding.

Bacopa: growing from seed

To grow bacopa from seeds, you need to perform a number of steps:

1. Prepare the soil. To do this, mix 1 part of leaf turf and peat and 2 parts of sand and humus. Before planting seeds, the soil should be disinfected. To do this, it should be calcined in an oven heated to 100 ° C for 3-4 hours. Then the earth must be cooled, leveled and tamped. For moistening, you can lightly cover the ground with snow.
2. Spread the seeds on the surface and press in a little. At the same time, it is not recommended to sprinkle them with soil.
3. Place the container under glass or transparent film. After that, the greenhouse must be placed in a warm and bright place. For successful development, future seedlings need to be provided with quality care. At temperatures above 20 ° C, the seeds will germinate in 2 weeks.
4. Moisten the soil as it dries. In this case, it is recommended to use drip spraying.
5. When 2 leaves appear on the bacopa seedlings, the film must be removed and the seedlings moved to the box. In this case, an interval of 2 cm must be observed. Small peat pots can be used for planting plants.
6. At this stage, the seedlings should be systematically fed.To do this, you need to take a special fertilizer for seedlings and dilute in a small concentration.
7. When growing bacopa from seed, it is important to maintain a constant temperature of 22 ° C.
8. If you plan to grow a flower at home, mature seedlings should be dived into a pots in which the plant will constantly grow. The bushes are transplanted into open ground when the night frosts pass.

After diving, you should feed the flower after a week. It is forbidden to oversaturate the soil with moisture. However, it should not dry out either. To prevent root rot, it is recommended to use drainage.

Bacopa care must include hardening. Before moving young plants into the ground, they must be taken outside. This will help adapt the seedlings to low temperatures.

The culture can be grown in seedlings.

Cutting Bacopa

Reproduction of bacopa by cuttings has certain features. First you need to prepare planting material. To do this, cut the upper parts of young and strong shoots no more than 10 cm long. Each cutting should have 2-3 leaves. It is recommended to soak the stems in a growth stimulator. After a few hours, the cuttings can be planted in the ground.

Caring for cuttings consists in choosing the right soil. It should contain a lot of nutrients. Moisture and air permeability is of no small importance. An excellent solution would be to use sandy soil with vermiculite.

In order for the cuttings to take root better, they should be covered with foil. This will help maintain optimal moisture settings. From time to time, the film should be opened for airing and watering.

The greenhouse with seedlings should be in a warm and well-lit place. When fresh shoots appear, it is recommended to pinch them. Thanks to this, the plant will bush better. When new leaves appear, the film must be removed.

Bacopa is often propagated by cuttings

Cuttings should be cut at the end of summer. In this case, it is necessary to remove too much overgrown plant stems. Also, this procedure can be carried out during the cold season - from mid-winter to early spring. During this period, it is worth dividing adult bushes for a planned transplant.

When grafting bacopa, it is worth planting plants in a permanent place at the end of spring. It is best to graft white crop varieties. They can easily tolerate a transplant.

Reproduction by layering

In order for bacopa to develop quickly, cultivation should be carried out precisely by layering. This breeding method allows you to get the fastest results. First, you need to prepare a box with a suitable substrate and place it near an adult bush.

After that, take the long stems of the plant, lay them in the prepared soil and press firmly. The cuttings are fed from the mother plant and grow well. After a short period of time, the soil must be carefully excavated and the condition of the roots must be assessed.

If the plant is well-rooted, the cuttings should be cut off from the mature plant and planted in a permanent area or left to grow in a box. At the same time, a new bush can already bloom by this time.

Landing

If Bacopa is grown, planting and caring for the plant is simple. For this, the seeds are placed in the prepared substrate and gently pressed inward.It is important to consider that it is not required to fill them with soil.

To achieve excellent results in growing a crop, it needs to be provided with high humidity, warmth and good light. To do this, cover the container with seedlings with a film. The room temperature must be at least 20 ° C.

An ordinary window sill will be an excellent option for growing crops. In this case, it is important to ensure that the sprouts have enough lighting. Subject to simple recommendations, it will be possible to get sprouts in 13-16 days.

Bushes should dive at the stage of appearance of 2 true leaves. At this stage, they are transferred to separate containers. The seedlings should be 2 cm apart. If the seed was presented in the form of granules, it is not individual bushes that should be dived, but bunches.

In this form, the culture should be grown at a very high temperature. It should be 22-26 ° C. Timely fertilization is also important. An excellent option would be a universal composition that is made weak enough.

Later, a second pick is performed. At this stage, the plants are planted in different containers. Saplings should be buried in the ground by 1 knot. This will provide them with excellent stability.

At this stage, a lower temperature will be enough for the plant. In the daytime, it can be 15-23 ° С, at night - 12-15 ° С. This temperature regime will help to harden the plants and prepare them for transplanting to a permanent site.

For lush flowering, the culture requires an illuminated area.

Transplanting seedlings

The culture should be transplanted to a permanent place after hardening. First, the bushes need to be watered well. This will make it easier to remove the bacopa from the pot and not damage the root system. The bushes should be planted according to a simple scheme - 30 × 30 cm.

Planting and care in the open field

For growing crops, you should choose a well-lit place. It must have reliable wind protection. A shaded area is also suitable for growing a flower, but in this case the flowering will be less abundant.

The culture is not too demanding on the composition of the soil. It can be planted in nutritious, slightly acidic soil, which is excellent for moisture and air permeability.

Taking care of your culture is easy enough:

• first of all, you need to properly water the plant. Bacopa is considered a moisture-loving crop. Therefore, it needs frequent and abundant watering. It is especially important to moisten the soil in hot and dry weather;
• the flower must be fed. You need to apply fertilizers 3-4 times during the season. For this, conventional complex preparations are used;
• to maintain the neat appearance of the plant, branches larger than 50-60 cm should be pinched. This is especially true when growing crops in hanging flowerpots. When properly formed, the bushes will look very attractive.

Do I need to pinch the bacopa

This procedure must be carried out. Thanks to this, the bush becomes more lush and attractive. In the process of carrying out the procedure, strongly elongated shoots are removed. After which the apical cuttings remain. From them, if necessary, you can get new bushes.

To get a lush plant, you definitely need to pinch it.

Diseases and pests

If the rules for caring for the plant are violated, it may suffer from gray rot or soot fungus. In this case, the crown must be thinned out and the bush must be sprayed with a fungicide. Usually 2-3 treatments are required.They are performed at intervals of 2 weeks.

Of the pests, spider mites, aphids, and whiteflies can damage bacopa. These parasites feed on the sap of the plant. To kill insects, acaricides or insecticides are used.

Bacopa is a beautiful ornamental plant that thrives outdoors and can be grown in pots. To get a lush bush, the flower needs to provide quality care.