Terrace aquilegia

Aquilegia has several names - dove, orlik, catchment, columbine. This is a beautiful flower, like a bell, but with 2 rows of multi-colored petals. Columbine can be of different colors - yellow, pink, blue, purple, which means that it can bring a special, fresh touch to your flower garden. There are many varieties of aquilegia, one of the most interesting is terry aquilegia, the photo of which is not to be confused with anything.

How to grow aquilegia from seed?

Aquilegia flowers are very delicate, and growing them is not so easy. However, if you follow the recommendations given in this article, even a novice gardener will cope with this moody plant.

Like many others other flowers, aquilegia is grown from seeds in 2 ways - by sowing in open ground and by growing seedlings. The latter method is more effective because it allows you to get stronger and healthier plants.

Start thinking about planting a catchment should be in late February - early March. Equally important is the fact how fresh your seeds are. If you collected them in the fall and kept the whole winter in the refrigerator, you can start sowing without additional tricks. If you bought seeds in a store or collected them more than a year ago, you need to take care of their stratification.

Stratification is performed as follows: the seeds must be placed in a damp cloth (wet sand will also fit) and put in a refrigerator or prikopat in the snow. Thus, the seeds are aged for a month, and then you can begin to sow.

Sowing is performed in several stages:

1. The soil is being prepared. As the best option, a mixture of equal parts of garden soil, leaf humus and sand will be suitable.
2. The soil is poured into the boxes where the seeds will later be planted. Parallel grooves are made at a distance of 3-5 cm from each other, into which the seed is pressed every 3-5 cm into the ground. It is not necessary to drop seeds that have been sown, just lightly sprinkle them with earth or peat.
3. Sowed soil needs to be poured over with warm water and covered with a film or glass to maintain a moist microclimate.
4. Once every 2-3 days the soil must be watered, but so that the water does not stagnate. Approximately in 3 weeks shoots will appear, from this moment the film (or glass) is no longer needed.
5. The root system of terry aquilegia is quite fragile, so you should take care that transplanting into open ground for the plant cost “little blood”. For this, as soon as the shoots will have 3-4 true leaves, they need to be dived. Seedlings are sparking one by one in a separate pot. This will require a sufficiently deep capacity, approximately like an ice cream cup, because the root system of aquilegia is rather deep.

For the winter, Columbine must be covered with spruce leaves or sawdust to prevent the plant from freezing. Aquilegia enters the full color on the 2nd year after planting, but already on the 3rd year it needs updating - it must be dived or replaced with new seedlings.

The decoration of your plot can be exactly aquilegia terry - growing from the seeds of this plant is quite troublesome, but the result is worth it. Delicate and fragrant flowers of the catchment can be a source of your pride, besides, they perfectly get along with other low-growing cultures - for example, with a viol.