Hortensia Magic Moonlight: description, species, care and cultivation

Affecting the luxury of long flowering hydrangea Magic Moonlight is a typical representative of paniculate species. She is unpretentious and delicious. This fast-growing deciduous shrub with strong straight shoots has significant advantages: high decorative and surprising ability to regenerate damaged by freezing stems. About this magnificent garden plant, agricultural techniques and care for it will be discussed in this publication.

Hortense Magic Moonlight: Description

Like many representatives of the paniculate, the Magic Moonlight is an upright bush that grows up to a quality of 2 meters. Strong, fast-growing shoots, covered with brown exfoliating bark, generously leafy and crowned with luxurious inflorescences, build up a sprawling crown with a diameter of up to one and a half meters. Hortensia Magic Moonlight blossoms on the shoots of this year. Flowering, generous and long lasting, begins in July and pleases gardeners until mid-September.

Flowers are collected in magnificent dense inflorescences in the form of a wide cone, the width of the base is very impressive (25-27 cm), and the height varies from 20 to 28 cm. In the inflorescences there are flowers of two types: sterile - larger, giving refinement to the plant, And fertile - small, subsequently forming seeds. The coloration of flowers is remarkable: they become greenish-white, they become pinkish in the course of time, and are closer to the autumn colored in dense crimson tones.

Flowering shoots are excellent in cutting, and correctly dried inflorescences are often used in decorating interiors and popular winter bouquets. But not only the inflorescences are decorative in this plant, emphasize the elegant beauty of culture and dense rough leaves of deep dark green color, oblong with pronounced apex and finely toothed margin.

Features of culture

Due to its unpretentiousness and high decorativeness, the Hydrangea Magic Moonlight is used in landscaping, garden and park interior. It is very effective both in compositions and ensembles, and in single plantings, massifs, hedges. Despite the fact that the culture is undemanding, there are some moments in agricultural technology, ensuring the fulfillment of which, gardeners achieve a luxurious and long flowering, creating a festive entourage to any natural landscape.

Endurance of the plant is not inferior to its decorativeness: Hydrangea Magical Moonlight successfully survives frosts to 26-29 ° C, which often accompanies winters in temperate Russian latitudes.

Plant preferences and soil preparation for planting

Magic Moonlight prefers sunny or slightly shaded loamy areas with slightly acidic air and water-permeable fertile soils. An important factor determining the degree of comfort for hydrangeas is a moderate regular moistening of the soil and avoidance of an excess of calcium in it. Before planting the site is prepared, digging and introducing a well-rotted compost, and for acidification (if necessary) add the red turf. With a pronounced clay structure of the soil during digging, a little large river sand is poured.

Hydrangea paniculate Magic Moonlight: planting and care

In northern and temperate latitudes it is preferable to plant hydrangeas in spring, in areas with mild winters. Acquire better well-developed 3-5-year-old seedlings: these young plants will successfully take root and bloom faster. Before planting, the soil is fertilized: 10 kg of humus, 100 g of superphosphate, 60 g of potassium sulphate are applied per square meter. The landing pit is excavated in proportion to the volume of the root system of the seedling, on average its width is 0.4-0.6 m, and depth is 03-0.4 m. The intervals between the bushes are kept within 2-2.5 m, Hedges - 0,7-1 m.

The seedlings are examined before planting, the dried leaves are removed and the broken ones are shortened. At spring plantings the plants shorten annual stems, leaving 3-4 pairs of growth buds on each.

Care of plantings: watering and fertilizing

After planting, a generous watering is required. During the following time, while the plant takes root, regular waterings are necessary. And in the future, an extremely hydrologically hydrangea hydrangea Magic Michal Moonlight will require the attention of the gardener in terms of moisture: a lack of water will immediately affect decorativeness.

The culture for mulching is good. Planting young plants mulching needles, chopped wood bark, peat or compost, preserving the optimal microclimate and moisture in the near-space. The layer of mulch should be 7-8 cm. This technique significantly reduces the labor of the gardener: it is not necessary to weed and loosen the soil.

Hydrangeas need fertilizing:

• In the autumn, a complex mineral fertilizer with an increased content of phosphorus and potassium.
• In the spring, a solution of 20 g of urea in 10 liters of water. A young plant needs one bucket of solution, an adult - 2-3.
• During the growing season, infusion of overgrown manure (10 liters per bush).

Trimming

Formation of the crown is necessary to maintain the ornamentation of flowering shrubs, which includes the Hydrangea Magic Moonlight. Comments of gardeners on the annual crop are unambiguous: they significantly increase the beauty of plants, stimulate the formation of flowering buds. The number of inflorescences and their size depend on the formation procedures: the more radical the pruning, the larger and more effective they are.

Pruning is carried out in two stages: in the fall, all the inflorescences are removed, making the bush easier, and in the spring before the sap movement begins, it is necessary to dilute the adult culture by carving out all weak, frozen or growing branches inside the crown. Shoots-one-year-olds are shortened so that 3-5 pairs of growth buds remain on them. This pruning is important not only to enhance the decorative qualities of hydrangeas. It helps to avoid thickening the bush and prevent the occurrence of diseases of various origins.