Begonia - home care

Begonia is among the most unpretentious plants. Care for her is not difficult, because she is able to live almost anywhere - from comfortable winter gardens to provincial dusty offices.

There are up to 1000 species of begonias, among them there are perennial, and annual grasses, shrubs, semishrubs, and lianas. Their appearance is very diverse. Even tiny herbaceous plants often vary in size - from tiny, only 2-4 cm, to fairly large ones.

And how diverse is the color of the begonia leaves! They can be painted in a variety of shades of green, with the upper side either and remains monochrome, or covered with patterns and spots of silver, yellow and red.

The underside of the leaf strips of begonias is often colored in violet, red, brown in a variety of shades. Stems, leaves, and often flowers of begonias are covered with pubescence of varying degrees of stiffness and density. Coloring flowers is very diverse, but limited to a gentle "warm" gamut - in most cases there are pink, red, white, much less orange and yellow tones, sometimes with a slight greenish tinge.

Begonia room care for yourself requires the utmost care, because these flowers are divided into a couple of groups, they are somewhat different in their requirements. If you have a deciduous-decorative appearance, then such varieties are shade-tolerant and sometimes even very, too shade-loving. They should be carefully shaded from bright rays. A tuber begonia, and still begonia blooming love sunny, they are photophilous, and to successfully grow them, you need to provide them with light windows.

Begonia: Care

The general rule is the need for high (usually not less than 60%) air humidity. Therefore, in winter, the species "leaf" (royal begonia, for example) requires additional abundant air humidification, a minimum in the form of spraying. Most shrub species are more tolerant of winter dry air, but spraying them unequivocally does not hurt. But the club begonia winter care requires rest, in cool and dry conditions.

In the summer, all begonias are, without exception, thermophilic. They are also hygrophilous - for the most part the usual regime is abundant watering in the summer and moderate in the winter.

Do not be sorry for the time - sometimes wipe the begonias leaves from the dust, but only with a dry cloth (just damp smudges dirt on the surface of the leaves). From time to time it is quite useful to take your plant to the bathroom and arrange a warm shower for it.

What kind of soil should I use? In this regard, you can give only a few brief and ambiguous recommendations - after several good practice samples, most likely, you will be able to choose the composition that best suits your conditions.

The so-called "mixture No. 2" -layers humus, clay-turf earth, peat and river coarse sand are used as the main "base" for begonias in this ratio - 1: 2: 1: 1.

General recommendations for use:

1. Do not water the dry soil with a fertilizer solution - in order to avoid burns of roots, the ground in the pot must first be watered abundantly with plain clean water.

2. Do not fertilize the plant soon after transplantation. We should wait for a couple of weeks, so that the plant a little "sick" and slightly moved into growth.

3. Do not need to fertilize plants that are in a state of wintering (rest).

4. In autumn it is better to use fertilizers with the "autumn" formulation, with a significantly reduced amount of nitrogen.

5. During periods of active growth, fertilizing can be increased, 1p / 10-15 days. After all, the less active growth of a plant, the less it requires feeding.

Summarizing the above, we can say that not such a whimsical plant is begonia. Care for her is simple, if you follow the main recommendations.