Purple Laboratories AS AS 88 AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS игна игна В В В В В кал кал кал кал кал кал кал кал AS AS AS AS AS AS AStypes of green and grain beans have long and with pleasure been used by humans for food, as fodder crops and siderats. But at the same time, one more role of the plant is not forgotten. Curly beans are decorative and for three and a half centuries have taken pride of place among the green decorations of the garden, greenhouse and even a modest balcony. The advantage of decorative curling beans is:
- high growth rate, which allows planting large vertical surfaces during the spring and summer season;
- simplicity;
- variety of shapes and colors of inflorescences appearing on the shoots;
- long preservation of attractiveness due to the presence not only of spectacular inflorescences, but also of pods, sometimes striking an unusual appearance;
- the ability to use green mass of the plant for green fertilizers and composts;
- soil enrichment with nitrogen that accumulates on the roots of plants of this family.
The only thing to consider when planting beans is the thermophilicity of the plant and the need of the culture for light and abundant nutrition.
Properly using the ability of the plant to climb to a height of 2 to 5 meters and combining different varieties of climbing beans, you can equip unusual green arbors, create arches in the garden and ennoble the most unpresentable corners and hedges.
It is important that for gardening today several independent species are used, belonging to the legume family, but having unique properties and appearance. And all these cultures are valued both as ornamental and vegetable plants.
Common Beans( Phaseolus vulgaris)
Common beans of climbing varieties are well known and loved by Russian gardeners. An annual plant, originally from Latin America, perfectly combines the properties of a vegetable crop, supplying green pods and mature seeds to a table, and a high decorative effect. Curly beans in height can reach from 1.5 to 3 meters, a month after sowing forms the first inflorescences, and with proper care, dressing and watering, flowering and the formation of pods continues until mid-autumn.
The components of the decorative effect are small, but numerous flowers of different colors, and thick foliage, and pods of varying degree of maturity hanging from the stems. Regular harvesting of green beans on many varieties of curling beans stimulates the formation of new buds, which prolongs the age of living pavilions and fences.
Turkish beans( Phaseolus coccineus)
If the flowers of ordinary beans, depending on the variety, can be white, lilac, pinkish or creamy, then Turkish beans or, as they also call this catchy plant, red-colored beans strike the red blossoms. Interestingly, this species, which fell on the territory of Russia for two centuries before the usual vegetable beans, did not find wide distribution as a garden plant, but firmly settled in greenhouses and gardens.
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Turkish beans are very unpretentious and with minimal care grow to 3-4.5 meters. When planted early, the plants bloom from mid-June until the end of September. If only recently the dacha plots were decorated with vines, blooming only with bright red racemes, today there are varieties of climbing beans, giving two-colored, salmon, maroon and completely white flowers.
Plants are distinguished by numerous large foliage, which, like most legumes, has three separated lobes. In the presence of a strong support, the lashes willingly climb to a great height, easily weaving around the grids, fences and even the crowns of trees.
Young pods of this type of curling decorative beans are inedible because of the hard fibers and substances harmful to human digestion. The folds of such beans are densely pubescent. Inside the pod can be from three to six seeds of violet-pink color, which is characterized by contrasting dark strokes over the entire surface.
Mature seeds after soaking to taste and nutritional value are not inferior to shelling beans of cultivated varieties.
At the summer cottage, Turkish beans can be used to create vertical gardening and to create green shelters from the wind for heat-loving crops, such as eggplants, melons and grapes.
Dolikhos purple( Lablab purpureus)
Another spectacular annual plant of the legume family is rightly called curly lilac. With this ornamental shrub dolichos, lablab or hyacinth beans have a shade of flowers and the type of large, combining up to four dozen buds, inflorescences.
In Russia and other regions with a temperate climate, this water of decorative curling beans is sown in spring, and by the autumn the plants finish their vegetation. But in Africa and Asia, where the climate is warmer, and the length of the day is longer, dolichos is a large, constantly flowering perennial.
With favorable weather conditions, the variety of climbing beans of this type grows up to 1.5–3 meters and very quickly develop supports for them of various shapes and designs. Due to the abundant flowering and large three-bladed leaves, hyacinth beans create a dense decorative coating. Moreover, depending on the variety, the purple color can extend not only to the inflorescences and leaves of the beans, but also to the stems and even leafy plates.
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Today, gardeners have varieties that delight traditionally lilac and purple flowers, and reveal white, pink, purple and even two-color buds. The inflorescences appear from the sinuses, the flowers, which remain attractive for up to three days, open alternately, and the entire brush lives from 20 to 30 days.
Interestingly, dolichos is a rare decorative curly beans with a pleasant smell, so large inflorescences are sometimes included in bouquets. The flowers easily cut and remain in water for up to 10-14 days. With the completion of flowering plants do not lose their decoration. Purple, purple or dark green crooked beans are combined into clusters of 5–15 pieces and at the end of summer turn out to be no less effective than flowering beans. The length of the pod varies on average from 8 to 12 cm.
In the pods, elliptical seeds, compressed laterally, are black or brown in color. On seeds not exceeding a length of 1–1.5 cm, a white hem is clearly visible. The seeds are edible and have been used as food by the peoples of North Africa for many thousands of years, and today it is a type of curling decorative beans, suitable for planting in the garden and for growing in balcony boxes.
Vigna Caracalla( Vigna caracalla)
The snail, which flowers resemble this species of climbing beans, gave the name to an amazing climbing plant. Vigna Caracalla or, according to an alternative classification, Cochliasanthus caracalla is a perennial plant native to the tropics of South America. Vigna is one of the largest species of cultivated climbing beans. Shoots of cowpea Caracalla are able to climb to a height of 7 meters.
At home, the culture is perennial, but in a temperate climate, it is cultivated as an annual crop, and the species is quite thermophilic, therefore, wanting to save the plant for the winter, it is transferred to a room or to a heated greenhouse. Vignu, like other varieties of beans, has a high rate of development and growth. Therefore, even with a short summer of the middle band, curly decorative beans successfully braid hedges, terraces and arches. Vigna is attached to vertical surfaces with a strong mustache. The shape and type of leaves of this culture is not very different from other types of beans, but the flowers are truly unique.
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The petals that make up the corolla are twisted like a dense spiral. The flower diameter can reach 3-5 cm. The color, depending on the variety and age of the flower, can vary from white, yellowish or cream to purple and violet. The cowpea inflorescence is a brush, in which there can be 5–12 gradually opening buds.
Flowers of this variety of curling beans are fragrant and rather durable. If a plant planted in a garden is not exposed to frost and cold wind, its flowering lasts from July until the end of September.
As a balcony culture, a large plant is better to pinch in order to control the length of the shoots and periodically provoke flowering. For cowpea arrange support from the rope grid, which is immediately sent to grow stems. If you move an adult plant, you can easily break off rather fragile shoots.
Winged Beans( Psophocarpus tetragonolobus)
The most unusual type of curling decorative beans first entered the territory of Russia recently, just a few years ago. But winged beans are well known in Goa, in Thailand and New Guinea, and other countries in this region.
Here, beans with pods of an unusual shape for Russians have long been used in food. And for the preparation of culinary dishes are used not only green succulent shovels with four fancy blades and mature seeds, but also inflorescences, and powerful three-lobed foliage. In local folk medicine, the plant is recognized as healing, which is now confirmed by European experts.
As a decorative curling bean, winged beans are grown, as well as cowpea, trying to protect from wind and cold. In Russian conditions, it is an annual which reaches 5 meters in height for the spring-summer season.
Inflorescences in winged racemes are large, up to 15 cm in length. In each such brush, you can count from 5 to 15 blue, cream or two-color corolla with a diameter of up to 3 cm. Upon completion of flowering, this variety of curling beans forms amazing four-sided vanes, which, depending on growing conditions and varieties, grow to 10-25 cm in length. On individual plants there are truly giant beans up to 40 centimeters in length.
Inside the pod, it grows from 5 to 20 almost round smooth seeds with a diameter of up to 10 mm. Coloring edible grains can be varied. Different varieties of curling beans of this species have brown, brown, yellow and black seeds.
How to plant beans near a support - video