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In landscape design heather compositions can create an amazing game of heather colors -
video In landscape design heather compositions can create an amazing color play of heather - heather compositions can create an amazing color hedge care game -
video hedgingA heather shrub, not more than 70 cm tall, evergreen and blooming under autumn, will revive any landscape. Indispensable plant in rockeries and stone gardens.
Description shrub heather
The legendary shrub has a history of its appearance on earth, as the most unpretentious plants, which the Creator settled on unusable land. As a reward for agreeing to live in an eternal struggle, God endowed the plant with valuable qualities:
- with the beauty of the eternal greenness of the leaves;
- healing properties;
- aroma and bloom at sunset.
Low creeping shrub grows on acidic soil without close standing of groundwater. The plant does not like swampy soil, grows in symbiosis with mushrooms, which help to convert the lean soil into food, but can exist only on acidic soil. Without symbiosis with the mycelium, the plant will die. Heather looks like a plant, won the autumn wilting nature.
The leaves are folded into a tube, do not fall for the winter. Flowers after a long flowering do not crumble, do not change color, and create a beautiful spot. Garden heather is represented by 20 varieties with different height of the shrub and various shades of flowers, small bells, sprinkling with a branch in abundance. Heather flowers are melliferous, used to treat inflammatory diseases in traditional medicine.
A decoction of wild heather twigs has long been used in bathing newborns to disinfect water in the bath. Infusion was considered healing. The water was taken well, heather tea was antiseptic.
Reproduction and planting of heather.
The plant requires an acidic soil and a dry, sunny ground with a light shade from nearby tall trees. This is the perfect imitation of the forest edge. To create an acidic soil at the site of planting will require the introduction of high-moor peat, sand, and leaf humus with coniferous bedding. A layer of fallen needles can be found in spruce thickets or collected under the pines. All mineral fertilizer blends also have an acidic environment.
Planting ornamental shrubs is best done in the spring. Over the summer, the bush will take root and will go strong in winter. Imported varieties planted in open ground can only be in the spring for obvious reasons. In order to prevent water from stagnating at the bottom of the landing pit, it is necessary to arrange drainage from broken bricks, gravel, sand. It is necessary to create compositions with planting seedlings at a distance of up to 40 cm and a depth of 30 cm, while the root neck is not deepened.
If the soil is clay, make drainage, laying sand and broken bricks at the bottom of the pit. You can create planting with the distance between the bushes of seedlings of 30-40 cm, the depth of planting is also 30 cm, without deepening the root collar. Planted plant needs regular watering until it takes root. Landing and caring for heather in the first year will not cause difficulties.
Seedlings can be purchased at a specialty store, or take part of a bush, or grow a cutting. Seedling should be 1-2 years old. If the seedling is purchased in a container, then it must be alive, with shoots and the substrate - moist, but not wet.
When planting, the seedling's neck does not deepen, and the planting hole is mulched with bark or peat.
Care for heath
The plant is weedy. In a year, shoots grow by only 2 cm. However, after three years, young bushes need to be pruned annually so that new shoots appear. Otherwise, the bush loses its decorative effect. The plant loves limited watering, without stagnant moisture. Full mineral fertilizers such as Kemira and phosphate fertilizers will add decorativeness to the bush. Heath care during the growing season consists of shallow loosening of the soil, timely watering and mulching of the planting hole. For winter, the plant needs shelter. In April, the bush is opened.
Bushes of marvelous beauty will be with the gardener who does not spare time for annual shortening of old shoots. Then on the bush will be more young flowering twigs. Once you see a photo of a heather plant in bloom, an amateur will try by all means to obtain planting material.
It is not difficult to propagate a plant; all parts of a plant are suitable for this, and it is possible to grow up as a pot plant. For the gardener, the amateur may be interested in breeding with tip cuttings. In the fall, cut the shoots without flowers and root them in a container with peat and sand. In winter, the plant will get stronger, and it can be planted in the ground. But separate containers with plants and in a landscape look good. Their root system is small and there is enough power supply.
These same young plants are an excellent breeding material. In nature, heather bushes are renewed with seeds and rooting of twigs falling to the ground. Therefore, the thickets of this plant become impassable from the springy multi-year litter. In order for the bush to remain elegant in the garden, regular pruning and care is required. Creating a heather flower bed in the fall will not be so sad in the autumn garden. Life goes on, flowering does not end long. And so I want to leave as a souvenir a photo of common heather in the autumn garden.
The benefits of heather
A story about this amazing plant would be incomplete, without knowing its healing power. Especially useful autumn heather honey known connoisseurs. In addition, traditional medicine uses dried flowers of the plant, its leaves and young shoots.
Self-medication rarely benefits. Before using traditional medicine you need to consult a doctor and get a prescription drug.
Make infusions and decoctions of the dried material. Contraindications for constipation and low acidity are contraindications. It removes the inflammatory processes occurring in any human organs. For skin treatment, use powder and ointment. With heather make baths for diseases of the joints. Even the hair is beneficial to rubbing the infusion of flowers. It turns out that heather is a domestic healer.
