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Aspidistra, which became fashionable about a century ago, among fans of home floriculture won the reputation of almost eternal plants. This culture is not afraid of a dense shadow, temperature drops and a long absence of watering.
Straight standing leaves of aspidistra are distinguished by their highest resilience. The plant, which forms dense curtains in nature under the canopy of the tropical forest, grows no worse at home. Today, more often in areas where the air does not cool below -5 ° C in winter, the aspidistra feels well and in the open ground, becoming a bright green adornment of the garden, edging paths and local area.
At home, the aspidistra is considered a slowly growing pot culture. The plant forms a branched powerful rhizome, from which additional feeding roots leave, leaves grow and small greenish or purple flowers, located at the ground level. Depending on the variety and species, aspidistra leaves grow to a height of 25-60 cm, and adult plants can form curtains up to half a meter in diameter. Therefore, growing such a culture in the house, it is better to take pots with a diameter of 15 to 25 cm.
Otherwise, care for the plant, indeed can be called minimal. The plant easily tolerates stay in cold and dry air, keeping in shade, drought and excessive watering. Even cut green keeps fresh for up to several weeks.
And yet, even long, spear-shaped leaves of aspidistra can be exposed to all sorts of dangers, diseases and pests. Alarm the owner of the plant can stain on the leaves, a situation where the aspidistra does not grow, or its leaves become yellow and lifeless.
Most often, deterioration of the appearance of plants becomes a response to lack of care and improper conditions of detention.
Without care aspidistra turns yellow and dries
Aspidistra prefers to live in partial shade or shadow, but it reacts badly to dry air, like other representatives of the green world. Incorrect growing conditions lead to the fact that the aspidistra leaves first turn yellow on the tips, and then dry. If the plant is close to the hot air streams from the heaters, the situation is aggravated.
You can correct the situation by rearranging the pot further from the heater and providing an acceptable humidity for the aspidistra.
Florists, who carry plants out to the garden during the summer, can face the fact that as a result of nocturnal frost, the tips of the leaves are damaged. If no measures are taken, transient necrosis affects all new sections of the aerial part. The leaves bloom and dry along the veins. And because of the arc venation of the leaf aspidistra leaf plates are split and lose functionality. Equally destructive on the foliage affects the hot summer sun, if the aspidistra is on the open for the rays of the site.
Features of watering and fertilizing aspidistra
Aspidists are not too sensitive to watering violations, but the abuse of such unpretentiousness of the plant is not infinite. At one "perfect" moment the aspidistra leaves turn yellow and dry.
And the plant signals chronic overmoistening of the soil with the withering and withering of the tips and edges of the leaf plates. It is enough to start watering, so that the spread of the disease of aspidistra stops. And that in the future, the green pet did not experience discomfort, water the flower is necessary, when the substrate in the pot dries up to 3-4 cm deep.
If the aspidistra does not grow, there is no new foliage for a long time, and the old one lost its luster and elasticity, it is likely that the flower suffers from a lack of nutrition.
In the period of active growth, the aspidistra, following the recommendations on the chosen fertilizer, is fed at least once a month. It is best if the plant receives complex products for decorative and deciduous crops. And the owner should take into account that nitrogen forces the plant to form a green mass. But the excess element negatively affects the quality of the leaves, which acquire a brown shade and dry.
The flower grower, who is interested in why the aspidistra does not bloom, can try to feed the plant with potassium and phosphorus. Perhaps such support, together with loosening of the soil surface, will help the aspidistre to form and open buds.
The cause of disease aspidistra - water
Surprisingly, ordinary tap water can cause aspidistra. The fact is that in some areas the water flowing from the tap contains many minerals and salts. Their excess easily harms green plants, which, like an aspidistra, try to remove moisture with dissolved salts in it through leaf plates.
When water evaporates, salts and minerals accumulate in the tissues of the leaf and cause their chemical burn, cause growth retardation. Therefore, watering and spraying the aspidistra requires a soft, durable or filtered water.
Why does not the aspidistra grow?
Sometimes adult aspidistra cease to grow, although they are regularly watered and kept in the necessary plant conditions. Why does the aspidistra not give new leaves?
The reason is to look inside the pot. Most often, the plant completely exhausted the potential of the soil, and the rootstock occupied the entire volume of the pot. Therefore, the pet does not develop. In this case, it is best to pass the aspidistra into a new, larger pot, or divide earth coma into several parts, from which after the transplantation several independent bushes.
In order not to face a situation where a healthy aspidistra does not bloom, when transplanting plants, one can not penetrate the rhizome. Otherwise, buds simply do not have enough short, in some species growing a few millimeters of petiole to overcome the substrate layer.
What other problems can arise at home, and how to determine what the aspidistra is sick with?
Diseases of the aspidistra
If the rules of care and maintenance are not observed, the plants undergo root rot and leaves blotch.
Anthracnose - a common fungal disease aspidistra, expressed in the fact that the leaves of the culture turn yellow, then gradually become brown and die. If the plant on the leaf plates have yellow rounded spots with an expanding circle of dry tissue in the center, then do not hesitate.
All affected leaves of aspidistra are cut off, spraying of the aerial part ceases, because through drops of water, the fungus is actively spreading and can be spread to healthy leaves and to neighboring plants. If the problem persists, the plant is transplanted into fresh soil and treated with a fungicide.
Fusarium on the leaves of aspidistra is characterized by the formation of foci of decay on the base of the petiole. But the dying out of the foliage is only an outward manifestation. Rotting and blackening the rhizome of the plant.
To help the sick aspidistra, improve drainage, cut off all affected areas of roots and crowns, change the schedule of watering and pick up a fresh loose soil. The plant is useful to treat with a fungicide based on copper. The procedures should be performed once a week, until all the signs of the disease disappear.
The best defense against fungal diseases is prevention, which consists in proper care and constant attention to the condition of the leaves of the aspidistra and the whole plant as a whole. After all, most fungal diseases develop with excessive or irregular irrigation, weakening the pot culture. Healthy plants do not cause trouble, but for a long time they willingly grow, bloom and please owners.
