Plants and Flowers

Purchase of a plant begins, first of all, with your purse. If an expensive purchase for experiment on a window sill will strongly affect your budget, it would be better to refrain from a purchase, especially if you see this plant for the first time and have no idea about needed conditions. All of us are impulsive buyers in sellers’ joy… But then it appears, that the bought plant needs absolutely other conditions, and you are unable to create them.

The plant is a living organism which can please you, but also can die. And it offends, if it was the plant which cost a lot. Do not forget, that besides cost of the plant, you should spend money for its maintenance. Most likely, you will buy a ground mix, fertilizers, a new pot, a new shelf to put it there, and also lamps for additional illumination.

So, learn about your future purchase as much as possible. Start with the Latin name. Do not trust the popular names. These names are thought out for buyers. For example, who will buy Dissotis rotundifolia? And an intriguing name “Spanish shawl” is other thing. The same name can be given to completely different plants. Don’t be lazy and find the Latin name, even if the seller does not know it.

Find as much as possible information about the maintenance. Having spent some time for search, you will save more time and forces later. How to water a plant, what light does it need, what its mature size – I is very important for the successful maintenance.

Before an approach of a cold night water plants which grow in your garden in an open ground. The plant should “slake its thirst”, so when its roots “will be switched off” because of cold, leaves have not lost the elasticity because of lack of water. If it happens, metabolism in leaves will be stopped, and they will freeze. The temperature of the ground is higher than air temperature; therefore watering won’t be harmful. If air temperature falls below zero, water all plant from a hose (warm water is preferable). At cooling and freezing water gives a lot of heat.

This advice does not concern plants in pots if you need to transport them - plentiful watering will lead to wet soil for a long time, which is bad for indoor plants in the winter.

You may warm a plant at a cold snap. For example, the small heater near a tree will allow to lift temperature a little. The best choice for this purpose is to use infra-red heaters with reflectors, which allow to heat up the removed objects without wasting energy for heating of air.

Next day after a cold night the plant should be “enabled to get warm�, being put on the sun. Tropical plants can survive a short-term cold snap (for example, one night), but they won’t survive cold for some days.

Tropical plants are afraid of a cold wind very much. The first symptom is the darkened and ragged edges of leaves. The cold wind implies the lowered air humidity and faster water evaporation from leaves’ surface. At that roots of a plant have not time to supply leaves with water as the temperature falls and all processes are being slowed. In result leaves dry. Therefore it is very important to protect tropical plants from a wind. When you plan where to place plants in a garden, plant them so that they have been protected from a wind (by the house or other plants). Even the small difference of temperatures (in one - two degree) is vital.

Tropical plants are afraid of sharp change of temperature, even for several hours. If the temperature falls gradually they have time “to get used” (evaporation from leaves decreases, etc.).

If you expect cold front or are going to transport a plant, bring it to a warm place, or close a plant from a wind, having wrapped up it in a layer or, even better, in a light cloth - for example, in a bed-sheet. In this case the bed-sheet has advantage as it allows a plant to breathe. The plant can be held easy under a white bed-sheet within several days – there will be enough light, and it can be watered directly through a fabric.

Tropical plants are called tropical, because they grow in tropics where it is always warm. However they are frequently grown in “not tropical” conditions, for example, in an apartment. Transportation of plants in the frosty winter is also not tropical conditions. Sudden decrease of temperature almost to zero point (in Florida it also can happen - two nights in a year) or a cold draft on the glazed loggia also are not tropical conditions.

The simplest way to determine when tropical plants feel cold is to look in a mirror at your nose: if it feels cold, the same feel your plants.

Some tropical plants can survive short-term decrease of temperature, others – can not. For example, the mature jackfruit can survive fall in temperature to zero point for some hours (but young plants will be killed thus almost at once). And its nearest “relative” a breadfruit tree badly tolerate fall in temperature even to +5 C – a huge plant in tropics, but nevertheless …

Tropical plants, unlike the others (even subtropical), “are designed” to actively grow within the whole year. They do not have such dormant period when the plant prepares for colds - shed their leaves, the trunk covers with a thick bark, and vital functions are almost at zero point.

Vegetation of plum and cherry trees begins rather early. Plants begin blooming in early May. But spring frosts, which frequently damage young ovary and flowers, can be a real problem.

The plum and a cherry trees strike roots well on fertile, air-penetrable soils with moderate humidity. Sandy and loamy chernozems are the most acceptable for these plants. Gardeners can easily remove lacks of soil on their site by adding corresponding fertilizers.

Plum tree is considered the most water-loving plant from fruit trees and don’t like dry soils. Its cultivation requires regular plentiful watering to receive good harvest.
But various cherry varieties differently react to amount of moisture. Especially drought-resistant varieties grown from a steppe cherry do not tolerate excessive soil humidity and develop poorly. Cherry tree can tolerate shade, as against plum trees. But both plants require sufficient sunlight for good harvests. The steppe cherry tree and its derivative varieties are the steadiest to severe winter conditions. The same can be told about Canadian and Siberian plum trees. Other varieties are less winter resistant, and can suffer during frosty winters without snow.

The plum and cherry trees has already been cultivated for a long time by gardeners and enjoy the big popularity. These fruit plants are high early-maturing; they feature good food qualities of fruits and their early maturing. Fruits and cherries contain necessary for the person sugar, vitamins C, B, Р, РР and others. There are organic acids, antibiotics, and also microelements. Plum fruit improve digestion and normalize intestines activity, and cherry juice is applied to treat upper airways. Fruits of these plants are used to make tasty jams, juices, syrups, jelly, and also liquors and fruit liqueurs.

Bunch-forming cherries enjoy big popularity among gardens’ owners because they are considered the most early-maturing. Seedlings start to fructify for the fifth - sixth year, and grafted - for the second - third year. The root system of such breeds lies rather superficially in ground. Depth of roots - to 15,7 inches in ground, and the top roots lie not more deeply than 6 inches. The stool shoots is formed of the additional buds on roots. Plums are formed on annual suckers and fruit branches which are not longer than 4 inches.

There is always a question about transplanting. Here are two variants: to keep an old soil or transplant, deleting it completely. Each of them has pluses and minuses.

First of all, having got a plant from a pot, you should examine roots very attentively and if necessary to cut off damaged or diseased. Examine soil for centers of plant pests. And only then begin transplanting.

If you have decided just to plant in a bigger pot without removing old soil, then just add some soil. Plus of this variant is that the plant should not spend forces for settling in an unfamiliar soil, and it is easier to adapt. A minus is that the old soil can hide pests. Besides the difference in structure of primary and added soils can negatively influence growth of a plant because of an uneven moisture capacity. This Dutch peat dries up and injures roots.

If you are going to transplant your cactus, then you should remove a store peat soil completely. The easiest way is to soak and flush root system under a jet of warm water. Having dried a cactus within 1-2 days, it is planted in a dry soil. Plus of this variant is that there can not be any pests and your cactus is put in a good soil. And a minus is that the plant will need time to adapt to new soil after such washing and to restore damaged roots. Sometimes cactuses cannot simply get used to such sharp change of soil conditions, do not grow new roots and perish.

Normal cactuses, in a natural appearance, so to say, are also sold.
First of all it is necessary to examine attentively a stalk, soil surface and a bottom of a pot for signs of plant pests or illnesses. It is nice, if you have a magnifier. If you only have noticed any reddish marks on a top, white cotton pellets in soil (not to confuse to a firm ripper!), any suspicious rusty stains or if the stalk has appeared suspiciously soft, it is better to refuse purchase. And And not only this cactus, but also anyone other from this container and even from this delivery. The matter is that imported cactuses are frequently affected with wreckers, especially such dangerous, as red web mite, mealybug (soil and stem), gallfly, nematodes. You may bring all these plant pests with a purchased cactus in the house and they will quickly move into new pots and plants.

But if the result of a survey has not shown signs of problem, buy it!
The following couple of weeks at home put new plant on quarantine, separately from all others. This rule is firm: if there is something, which you didn’t notice? Put the cactus in a light place, but not under the direct sunlight. After a long life in a hothouse and in a dark shop it can be burnt.

For more or less experienced collector of cactuses this is not a question, as the answer will be for sure negative. But what should do those, who liked so much thorny little ones in a flower shop?

Any collection had once its beginning. And the majority started with the most usual, simple in care inhabitants of our window sills. Last years our flower shops began to offer the whole coveys of young cactuses of the most different sorts and species brought from Europe. But, irrespective of the country-supplier, all of them are called “Dutch”. Perhaps, because Holland is the largest supplier of such production. Therefore many beginners now buy these cactuses with pleasure.

There are some advices concerning purchase of “Dutch”. First, all these barbarously attached eyes and dry florets do not belong to cactuses. Well, with eyes it is clear. But flowers sometimes are so skillfully stuck, and sellers are so, to put it mildly, naive, that there are no doubts: certainly, this is this cactus’ flower! Do not trust! Also try not to buy such plants. All these accessories are attached either with needles, or with terrible glue. Both are simply tragedy for these unfortunate plants.

Trying to remove all these “frills” the cactus is inevitably injured. Thorns, which will never recover, are removed together with these eyes-florets. Sometimes the flower is glued directly on top. Such cactus is not worth any money: the point of growth is plentifully filled with glue, it cannot grow any more.
There are two ways to remove glue: with the help of acetone and with the help of a scalpel. Acetone leads to stagnation. Cutting of glue together with a part of a stalk is more acceptable, though your plant will have a scar after “operation�.

Experts from Medical and biologic faculty of Pennsylvania University came to a conclusion that plants remember and radiate information fields in the same range, as a brain of the person. Flowers have their eyes - proteins, which react at any radiation, their gustatory receptors, and a brain, which is supposed to be in root collar.

Now it is clear, why relations of plants and people not always develop cloudlessly: wins that one with a stronger information field.

There are so many superstitions, connected with indoor plants, that one should know none, or believe all of them. In Siberia indoor plants are considered lightning rods and defenders from an evil eye. There are some plants jealous to family well-being: the ivy and spiderwort bring misfortunes. Fern, on the contrary, is put in dwellings with frequent quarrels. Monstera, ficus and cactuses also protect family.

But there is one indisputable property of all indoor plants: they make environment healthier. All, without exception, plants exhale phytoncides which perniciously influence pathogenic microbes. Amaryllis, for example, struggles against illnesses even faster than garlic.