The popularity of mallow is due to the ease of reproduction and care, as well as its healing properties. What it is - below in the article.
Flower description
The plant belongs to the Malvov family. It has a rather long stem, which can reach a height of 2.5 m. Along its entire height, there are flowers with a diameter of about 12 cm, resembling bells in shape. The green leaves look like small hearts.
Mallow blooms from mid to late summer. The plant has the ability to tolerate low temperatures and drought well. Has a high immunity to disease infection.
Mallow (flower appearance)
Malva is actively cultivated both in Africa and Siberia. It looks great in the background of houses and hedges and in flower beds in combination with low or dwarf plants.
There are many traditional medicine recipes, the main component of which is mallow. The leaves, roots and flowers of the plant have many medicinal properties. They are used to treat or prevent such ailments:
- diseases of the digestive tract (infusions of flowers and leaves);
- dysfunction of the spleen (steamed roots);
- ARVI (tea from leaves and flowers);
- skin diseases, wounds that do not heal for a long time (lotions or compresses from leaves);
- improvement of the skin (lotions from flowers).
The healing properties of mallow are due to the presence in its composition of components such as vitamin C, carotene, sucrose. Often, decoctions and teas made from plant parts are used to enhance the body's immunity.
Mallow: planting and care
The beginning of the flowering period of a plant depends on the time of planting. You can propagate a flower using seedlings or seeds. If the preference fell on seed planting, for this it is better to choose the beginning of spring.
If the plant is propagated through seedlings, flowers will appear in early July. Seeds are sown at the beginning of winter. For this, it is recommended to use seed material 2 - 3 years of age, which was collected by hand or purchased in a store.
Before sowing, the seeds are soaked for 12-15 hours in water, the temperature of which is not less than 48 ° C. Thanks to this, it will be possible to soften the powerful shell of the seed and accelerate its germination.
Malva is quite difficult to transfer a transplant to a new place. In this regard, it is better to use peat cups for growing seedlings. They are filled with soil mixture, which consists of peat and fertile soil. Experienced gardeners recommend adding a few tablespoons of wood ash to it.
If the air temperature in the room where the containers with seeds for seedlings are located is within 18 - 25 ° C, the first shoots will appear in 10 - 14 days. This is an important condition to get early seedlings. After the first 3 true leaves are formed on the plants, you need to dive the seedlings. The mallow is transplanted in such a way that the distance between the plants is at least 2 - 3 cm.
Wood ash for fertilization
Before replanting the mallow to a permanent place, the seedlings must be hardened. To do this, they take her out every day.The hardening period is gradually increasing and is brought up to 5 hours per day.
Before sending to open ground, preliminary preparation of the site and soil is required. When choosing a place, it is better to give preference to a well-lit, draft-proof area that is located near a house or hedge. The latter will serve as a support for adult plants.
It is better to plant flowers on a hill. This is due to the fact that water can stagnate in the lowland, which will lead to decay of the root system.
Transplanting the mallow to a new place in the fall is best done on a site with loamy soil with a well-equipped drainage system. The soil must contain a large amount of humus.
Many gardeners are concerned about when to transplant annual mallow. The best time for this is the month of May. How to transplant a perennial mallow to another place in the summer? In this case, flower growers recommend carrying out the procedure at the end of August.
Perennial seeds are sown in open ground in spring, when the possibility of spring frosts is already excluded. Seed material is placed in holes no more than 3 cm deep. There should be no more than 3 seeds in one groove. It should be noted that the distance between plants should be within 40 - 60 cm. In this case, adult bushes will not interfere with each other. Next, the seed hole is covered with earth and lightly compacted. After that, the soil must be thoroughly watered with settled water.
If you are not completely sure that there will be no frosts at night, it is recommended to cover the site. For this, you can use ordinary polyethylene. The main thing is not to forget to open the beds in the morning.
Mallow care
Since the plant does not belong to the capricious and fastidious, growing and caring for mallow does not require a large amount of time and effort from the grower.
How to care for mallow:
- It is recommended to water the plant as the soil dries up. Watering is especially important in dry summers.
- In row spacings, weeds are periodically removed simultaneously with loosening the soil in the garden bed. This must be done carefully so as not to damage the root of the plant.
- At the time when buds are formed on the mallow, it needs to be fed. For this, it is better to use nitrogen-containing fertilizers.
- If a tall mallow variety is grown on the site, the plant will need to be tied up. If this is not done, it is possible that the stem may break in a strong wind. A fence or wall is used as a support, along which flowers are planted. The simplest option is a wooden peg, although it does not look aesthetically pleasing.
- To extend the flowering period of mallow, experienced flower growers advise timely pruning of dry inflorescences. If the gardener wants to get the seeds of the plant, you can leave a few wilted flowers. After a while, a small box will form in their place, in the middle of which there will be seeds. In autumn they can be collected.
Mallow flowering
Each grower should know how to cover mallow for the winter. Despite the fact that the plant is winter-hardy, this procedure is required. To do this, in the fall, the stem is cut at the root. The soil above and around it is mulched using humus or compost. The use of such mulch mixtures will also serve as fertilizer and additional soil nutrition for the summer season. It is recommended to use about 4 kg of mulch per 1 m² of plot. After that, the bed is covered with spruce branches, fallen leaves or straw.
Mallow planting and care in the open field does not exclude the fight and prevention of pests and diseases.If the plant is planted under iron fences or supports, there is a risk of contracting a disease such as rust. If brown spots are found on the leaves and stem, we can talk about the beginning of infection. You need to fight the disease only by removing all infected parts of the plant. Spraying the plant with a solution of colloidal sulfur can also help defeat rust.
If we talk about pests of mallow, then slugs are considered the most dangerous. They love to feast on the greens of the plant. There are several ways to deal with them:
- collect insects by hand;
- equip traps for them. For this, several saucers with beer poured into them are placed on the site. After a day, a large number of slugs will collect in the plate, which are removed, and beer is added to the dishes.
Having correctly selected a site for planting mallow, ensuring the availability of a functional drainage system in the garden bed, timely watering and feeding the plants and preparing the flower for winter, each grower will be gifted with abundant flowering!
