Content
Common shingle, despite its unpretentious appearance, is often used by designers when creating various landscape compositions. The tussocks of an unpretentious ground cover, covered with numerous snow-white flowers, harmoniously fit into the landscape, giving natural beauty to alpine slides, rockeries and mixborders in a natural style (naturgarten).
Cerastium flower most often with petals cut into a third
Description and characteristics
Common yaskolka - lat. (Cerastium Holosteoides) belongs to this family. Cloves (Caryophyllaceae Juss). Other botanical names for the same species are sod, bony or lanceolate chickweed (Cerastium fontanum). Cerastium is a herbaceous one-, biennial or perennial plant, 10-30 cm high with erect and vegetative creeping stems. The root system of the common chickweed is fibrous, widely branched, the roots are located near the surface of the earth. The lower rounded or ovoid leaves are collected in a rosette. Stem foliage - greenish with a silvery sheen, has a lanceolate shape, pointed at the end. The plates are opposite. The leaf is 3 cm long and 1 cm wide. All parts of the plant are covered with glandular and simple hairs.
Blossoming of common chickweed is long - from the end of April to October. The bush puts forward low corymbose loose inflorescences in the form of semi-umbels with 8-10 buds and green filmy bracts, the lower of which is leaf-shaped. White flowers with a diameter of 5-6 mm in the shape of a bell are located on long pedicels, have 5 petals, incised in the upper part. The stamens and pistil are shorter than the petals, the filaments of the anthers are bare. The fruit is a cylindrical box with small brown (up to 0.8 mm) lumpy seeds.
Common Yaskolka is an extremely unpretentious plant, easily tolerates periods of drought, and has a high frost resistance. It can grow on poor soils, do without watering and dressing. Cerastium has a high immunity to diseases, is practically not damaged by pests. Common shingle is an aggressor plant, if you do not limit its growth in breadth, after a few years the curtain of the ground cover reaches 80 cm in diameter, oppressing the flowers growing nearby.
Under natural conditions, common shingle grows on stony scanty soils. When planted in fertile soil, it blooms less, increasing the green mass. It prefers to grow on hills, in well-warmed places, where there is no stagnation of water in spring and during periods of rainy weather. The plant loves lighted places. A ground cover planted in partial shade stops blooming.
Common yaskolka has medicinal properties. It contains tannin, rutin, beneficial flavonoids and organic acids. Decoctions and herbal infusions are used in folk medicine for vitamin deficiency, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, tumor neoplasms.
The flower forms a dense turf, which is not afraid of even malicious weeds.
Where grows
Common yaskolka is a cosmopolitan plant. The natural area of its distribution covers the whole of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia, Siberia, Altai Territory and the Far East. The flower is found in pastures, meadows, glades, high banks of water bodies.Growing in fields next to agricultural crops, common chickweed becomes a weed, competing with plantings for water and nutrients. The flower is capable of producing a large number of seeds.
Reproduction methods
Common chickweed reproduces easily. The main ways are:
- sowing with seeds in the ground;
- growing from seed through seedlings;
- division of the bush.
Common shingle seeds are sown directly into the ground in the fall. Self-seeding of the culture often occurs. When growing seedlings, the seeds are planted in March, the first shoots can be seen in a week. When two true leaves appear, the seedlings dive. Young bushes are planted in the ground in early summer. The division of the common yaskolka curtain is carried out in spring or autumn with a sharp knife or shovel. The plant is cut into 2-3 parts with equal root sections and transplanted to a new place.
Yaskolka ordinary differs in long flowering - from April to October
Growing and care
The flower requires a minimum of attention. The moisture schedule is moderate, the plant can only be watered during dry periods. Top dressing is carried out during flowering, nitrogen fertilizers are used with caution. As far as possible, loosen the soil near the bushes, trying not to damage the surface roots. Common shingle is not afraid of weeds, a dense curtain suppresses their growth. Main activities:
- pruning to give the plant a ball shape and stimulate repeated flowering waves;
- removal of dried peduncles;
- periodic division of the overgrown bush.
Young immature plants are mulched with peat. Cerastium does not need shelter for the winter; under a layer of leaf litter or spruce branches, a flower culture can vanish.
Pests and diseases
Common chickweed is not affected by pests, is not susceptible to fungal and viral diseases. When grown in lowlands, it can get sick with physiological pathology - rotting of the root system. Causes of occurrence:
- stagnation of water in the soil;
- excessive watering;
- growing on heavy clay soils;
- excess fertilizing with nitrogen fertilizers.
What plants is combined with
The exceptional unpretentiousness of common chickweed, long flowering and the ability to create a dense cushion without weeds from the shoots, led to the widespread use of the plant in landscape design. The ground cover is planted in the foreground of mixborders, in the lower tier of hedges made of conifers, borders are drawn along the paths. Yaskolka ordinary is suitable for growing in flowerpots and containers.
The flower can grow in crevices between stones with small areas of soil. This ability of the plant is used in the arrangement of rock gardens, rockeries, stone gardens. Common chickweed goes well with bulbous plants, excluding small primroses, which are too weak to be adjacent to an aggressive plant. The ground cover looks great in compositions with rhizome irises, tulips, and different types of lilies.
Snow-white flowers on thin stems emphasize the bright color of perennial petals
Conclusion
Yaskolka ordinary is an unpretentious plant, the cultivation of which is available on any soil and does not require special skills. The flower multiplies easily, rarely gets sick, is not damaged by parasitic insects. Correct pruning of the bush helps to give the ground cover a beautiful spherical shape and allows it to be used in a variety of compositions that mimic the natural landscape.
