Little beautiful crocuses as a symbol of awakening from hibernation, rather unpretentious plants. Properly planted, with a minimum of care, they will break through the snow for many years in a row. Other plants they do not interfere, as they bloom before everyone, so crocuses will be appropriate on any lawn.
Types of crocuses
Crocuses that grow in gardens and lawns are two species:
- Botanical, which, in turn, are divided into spring and autumn. Among the spring crocuses the most popular are golden and tommashini, which has pink or purple colors, funk-shaped slightly elongated shape with bright yellow stamens. Golden-color crocuses are known for their lush flowering. On one club can be up to ten flowers. Petals for such flowers are darker, blue-purple color.
- Hybrid or Dutch crocuses are distinguished by large flowers with very extensive gamut colors, there are crocuses such as monophonic and two-color. It is these crocuses that love to exhibit those who sell onion by bulbs in the photo, because they immediately attract attention with their sizes and beauty.
Both of these species have a variety of color, you can often find white, yellow and all shades of purple crocuses.
Planting flowers
In order for crocuses to feel good on the lawn, they need to choose such a landing place, which on the one hand heated by the Sun, and on the other - there is a little in the shadow of trees branches. Soil for this plant should be well drained.
It is necessary to plant a crocus bulb in the ground in the fall, for one and a half or two months before the onset of frosts. It is necessary to focus on the temperature of the soil, it should be more than 15 degrees at night. The most suitable months are September and the beginning of October, in the southern regions of Russia can be planted in November. Planners of crocuses, adhering to these rules:
- Basse the soil with a shovel or cultivator. The depth of loosening should be about 20 cm.
- Scatter on top to the ground compost, layer in 5 cm, and mix.
- Select for landing the most healthy good tubers.
- Put the bulbs into a solution of manganese, to protect them from fungal diseases.
- Drop the holes at 10 cm deep and put the tubers in them, sharp end up. Purchase not to the top of the earth and help it well to the bulb.
- You can plant either evenly from each other one by one, at a distance of 4 cm, or piles of 10 flowers, so the effect of flowering them will be brighter.
- Planted bulbs need to pour.
If there is mouse-pools on your lawn, then it is necessary to plant crocuses in the cups made in the form of a wire mesh. Otherwise, mice can just bother unprotected blouse flowers.
Since crocuses are flowers that are greatly multiplied, it is enough to plant about 20 pieces at a time, and next year there will be much more.
Caring for crocuses
Crocuses - Flowers unpretentious and special care do not require how to care almost every novice gardener knows. The main thing for them to be:
- Weeding.
- Swimming.
- Watering.
- Feeding
Feed crocuses about a month after landing. To do this, use 50 grams of calcium nitrate per square meter of soil. Six months, that is, in the spring, again the plants need to be filled. To do this, you can take this fertilizer or not a calcium, but a potassium or ammonium salter. Some gardeners use urea to feed the plants in early spring, but experts say that this is useless fertilizer, because at this time of the year the plants do not absorb nitrogen.
In the second feeding, the plant needs before the beginning of the growing season, and for the third time already after the crocus is wondering. In mid-May, it is necessary to feed the plant by phosphoric fertilizer, not more than 40 grams per m 2 .
As for humidity, any flower descendants know that it is better to let the crocus, it is not enough for a little than the overabundance. Plants although they will not die, but bloom will not be so magnificent as usual. Therefore, if the winter was snowy, then crocuses will be enough moisture in the ground and it is not necessary to water them completely until hot, drying weather. Usually crocuses are watered once a week, approximately 30 liters on m 2 To wet the earth well.
It is necessary to continue to water crocuses and in the summer, when they are already swinging, to keep the tubers during drought. For the winter with a cold climate, crocuses can be covered with a layer of mulch centimeters for five, so humidity will be saved. On lawns it is not recommended to mow the grass until the stalks of flowers are dried.
It is possible to jump on crocuses in growth stimulants weekly, while you can save the fourth part of the fertilizer. Among stimulants are the most popular:
- Heteroacexin.
- Zircon.
- Epinoma Extra.
After their use, crocuses will be more magnificent and it is better to multiply.
Storage of Lukovitz
When the crocus leaves please and get sick a little, the most favorable time will come for digging them, because later they will not be able to find them in the grass. And if you dig without seeing exactly where the tuber grows, you can damage it. After you dig up the tubers from the Earth, with them such manipulations:
- Bring the tubers: whole and good in one strand, defective - in the trash can. Do it without any hope of pity, the defective will not grow anyway, only spend time on them.
- Healthy bulbs free from the ground and remove dead scales.
- If there are some small damages, then you can anoint them with green and pour out the earth.
- Put the tangle for a week in the shadow, let them get angry.
- Sort the bulbs in size and put in boxes with holes for air ventilation. The room should be well ventilated and not hot. There, tubers will be kept until September, when there will be a turn to plant them in the ground.
The bulbs dig for various reasons:
- To transplant to a new place.
- To remove unhealthy plants.
- To handle the lawn with copper vigorous and focus.
- To divide the nests and thereby preventing density. Because with intensive division in the further plants will only interfere with each other normally grow.
- To sell tubers.
Crocus diseases
If you put healthy crocus bulbs, then many diseases can be avoided when growing. For the landing, you need to choose the bulbs that are hard to touch, do not have spots rot and have not yet sprouted. But nevertheless, such a plant resistant to disease has its own enemies:
- Wiremen are larvae of beetles, their activities can be noticed in the form of holes on the tubers. They live for about four years and there are very many of them in early May. During this period, it is necessary to make small deepening in the soil and put in them overwhelming herb or hay, and top to cover with boards. If you have wires on the lawn, they will quickly interfere in these holes and there will remain to live, because this is the most fertile environment for them. To get rid of these larvae, you need to burn this grass and repeat several times the procedure.
- Slug - fans of soil plants, if you have crocuses near Timyan or Floxes, then they can comprehend the attack of the slug. The method of struggle is one - to remove slugs from the plants.
- Viruses - they can be recognized on the crocus due to the deformed flowers that cannot be completely disclosed. Also on the leaves there are grayish stains. The diseases of the disease are the wave and mice. In order for the virus does not spread throughout the lawn, you need to carefully dig a plant and throw it away. It is necessary to do it, as soon as the patient plant was noticed, since the virus spreads very quickly. If you are not sure about the diagnosis, fall out this plant separately and observe, it happens that Crocus heals himself in a few years.
- Fungus - If crocuses were planted in late autumn, they do not have time to put big and powerful roots. And they are overwhelming fungi. In the spring, such plants look weak and painful, the tubers have soft and begin to rot. Such plants need to urgently dig and destroy. The risk is increasing several times with fungal diseases during crude and warm weather. To avoid this disease, you need to carefully examine the tubers when disembarking, whether there is mold or mold dispute on them. When you land new clubs of crocuses, when landing, retreat a little from the existing plantings to accidentally infect flowers. If such tubers were found, then sprinkle their ashes and leave to dry for a week. It is also not recommended to grow crocuses for many years in a row in the same place.
Pest control measures:
- Do not put flowers next to a non-cultural site.
- In winter, you need to cover the crocuses with branches of a spruce noodle.
- When landing, use special plastic baskets that are designed to protect against pests.
- After planting the bulbs of the soil, tamper.
- You can put the turntables and reversals with ultrasound on the lawn.
- The whole stock of tubers do not need to be planted nearby, it is better to divide them on how much parts and put on the entire lawn.
