North American Earwax, a balcony popper!build your garden
Houstonia caerulea is a low-growing perennial herb native to the eastern part of North America and is often used as a ground cover under shrubs or in other shaded areas. Introduced to Japan as a garden plant in the Showa era, this herb is potted at a height of only about 5-10cm and has small, light, blue flowers that bloom from March to June on its young, green, dense foliage. Small flowers ranging from white to light blue appear on the stems. The corolla has four lobes with a lovely fresh yellow center.
Houstonia caerulea is a flowering lawn that can be planted in pots, compact, very can, and relatively shade-tolerant, ideal for tabletop pots with light conditions or hanging on the balcony as a pop-up pot for early spring blooms.
Growing Houstonia caerulea in pots, it is recommended that you choose a ceramic pot or root-control pot with a caliber of 13-15cm. The advantage of this is that first of all, it can strengthen the soil permeability to prevent low-temperature water evaporation slowly caused by rotting roots. Secondly, the rapid alternation of wet and dry states is more conducive to the growth of the ear grass root system. Regarding the choice of substrate, with the general peat and perlite-based nutrient soil, it is best to add some succulent granular soil, such as terracotta, volcanic rock, etc., to enhance the permeability and drainage!
Houstonia caerulea care:
Houstonia caerulea is a kind of shallow-rooted creeping growth plant, like lawn without an obvious main root, lateral branches after sticking to the ground can grow aerial roots to absorb nutrients. Ear grass is very cold and hardy, winter resistant to -5 degrees Celsius, but in the winter growth is very slow, small leaves brittle and thin easy to frostbite, winter is best in the greenhouse under the protection of the winter, and cut off the sub-zero bloom, the nutrients focused on supplying the expansion of the leafy plant, to the beginning of March officially into the ornamental flowering period. Other than that, maintenance is very simple.
- Light: ventilated bright place, high summer heat needs appropriate shade, move to the shade. But the fine leaves are easy to lose water, ventilation and a cool environment is the best.
- Temperature: hardy to more than -5 degrees Celsius.
- Watering:Fear of dryness, watering can be done after the topsoil is dry.
- Soil: terracotta, granular soil.
- Fertilizer: Supplement with liquid fertilizer twice a month after spring flowering, stop fertilizing when it warms up.
Houstonia caerulea's summer problems:Houstonia caerulea is a cool plant, the summer temperature in its native place is very low if the summer conditions are harsh, it must pay special attention to the summer!
- the basic principle of summer is to maintain a cool microclimate and avoid exposure to the sun and high-temperature baking, June-August is the key period, at the end of May, we should start to shade or put in the place of diffused light.
- avoid the use of high-temperature black pots and plastic pots, or in the summer pots and ceramic layers of outer pots to achieve the effect of lowering the temperature.
- the soil must not be too dry, keep the soil always in a moist but not waterlogged state.
- the end of the flowering period early planting backup, it is recommended that we let it stop flowering in late May, for planting, to a new pot to continue to maintain. Divided new seedlings due to the continued growth of the root system, the ability to summer is much better than the old seedlings.
