For many, it will be a real discovery that apart from the known cabbage types, suitable only for food purposes, there are also decorative her brethren, whose purpose is to decorate a personal plot. For the first time, ornamental cabbage appeared in the country of the rising sun - Japan, whose inhabitants saw in an ordinary garden culture an excellent ornament for the garden. It is about decorative cabbage, or rather about the peculiarities of its growing from seeds and care for it, and this article will be discussed.
Varieties of ornamental cabbage
To the decorative cabbage are some varieties of leaf cabbage, called Brassica oleracea. These varieties can be divided into two groups: tall ones, reaching a height of up to 1.5 meters, large corrugated leaves of which fall down a beautiful waterfall and medium-sized, forming beautiful rosettes, resembling enlarged copies of beautiful flowers. There are more than a hundred varieties of ornamental cabbage, but the most popular are the following:
- "Coral Queen" is a beautiful plant of blue-red color with dissected leaves, outwardly resembling coral;
- "Nagoya" is a plant about 50-60 cm high, with fringed red leaves;
- "Osaka" - decorative cabbage with large leaves of a corrugated structure, white-pink or red;
- "Piglon" - has the form of a rose with corrugated leaves of soft cream color;
- "Lacy frog" - differs by unusual perforated leaves.
Decorative cabbage - planting and care
- How to grow decorative cabbage? Cultivation of this unusual beauty begins in February-March planting seeds on seedlings. Seeds of ornamental cabbage are quite large, so they are planted one by one in pots with a peat-humus mixture. To obtain the mixture it is necessary to combine peat, sand and leaf land in the proportion 2/1/1. Planted seeds in such a mixture will sprout about the fifth day after planting. To improve the growth, seedlings of ornamental cabbage need to be fed. In a bucket of water, it is necessary to dissolve 20 g of nitroammophoska and pour the seedlings twice with this solution: the first time after the appearance of the second leaf, and the second - two weeks before disembarkation into the open ground.
- How to plant decorative cabbage? You need to start with the correct choice of the site for its landing. For full growth and development of decorative cabbage, a light sandy loamy or loamy soil rich in nutrients is required. Land for planting is better to choose sunny. Planting seedlings of ornamental cabbage can be done either singly or in groups, leaving intervals of at least 50 cm between plants. Landing in the open ground is performed in early May, when the threat of nocturnal frosts passes. It is also possible to grow decorative cabbage in pots or vases of large volume - at least 10-12 liters.
- Care for decorative cabbage necessarily includes the introduction of fertilizing. Immediately after planting seedlings in the ground, the soil should be fertilized with nitrogen and organic top dressing. To ensure that the cabbage has not lost its decorative coloration, it is not worth to feed it with manure .
- A very important condition for caring for ornamental cabbage is abundant and timely watering. Water it every 2 days, and if necessary - every day.
- Since the decorative cabbage forms large enough heads, for better stability it requires loosening and hilling the soil.
- An important advantage of decorative cabbage is its ability to easily transfer multiple transplants. Therefore, it can be seated, transplanted from place to place, forming the ideal beauty beds.
- Decorative cabbage well tolerates frosts and reaches its peak in autumn.