Episode - home care

Most often, indoor plants attract attention either with their decorative leaves or flowers. But such a flower as an episode possesses both the first and the second, due to which it is popular with florists.

Since this plant came to us from another continent, South America, then for a successful growing at home, special care is needed. In what exactly is it, and consider in our article.

How to care for the episode ?

Episia is a perennial ampel house plant that belongs to the family of Gesneria. It happens with long hanging stalks, and with short, sticking up shoots. The distinctive features of the flower include amazing leaves and bald lateral mustaches. Thanks to silvery veins, located on velvety leaves, it seems that the entire flower emits light. And among this sparkling green peep out the red, bell-like flowers.

To flowering lasted as long as possible, and the plant itself retained its decorative appearance, it must create certain conditions:

1. Location. Since this light-loving plant, it needs a lot of sun, but it should be protected from direct rays, so the most suitable are the western and eastern sills. If you put a flower on the northern window, it will be necessary to lighten it, and if it is shaded on the south one.
2. Temperature regime. The episode feels comfortable at any temperature not lower than + 18 ° С.
3. The soil. This flower needs an easy, nutritious mixture. You can make it yourself from leaf land, river sand and peat, taken in the proportion of 2: 1: 1. You can also add some moss sphagnum and charcoal. Or you can buy a regular substrate for flowering indoor plants and add a leaf mixture.
4. Watering. In the warm season, water should be every 2-3 days or more, if the top layer of the soil has dried. In winter, irrigation requires a rare, about 1 time a week. When growing young plants, the humidity of the air must be high. Over time, this is no longer a prerequisite for growing a flower.
5. Top dressing. The flower needs fertilizers only in the flowering period. You can make preparations for flowering plants, diluting them in water, at a rate of 1 g per 1 liter. It is also possible to water the complex mineral fertilizer during the active growth period, only the recommended dose on the label should be reduced by half. To make top dressing follows in the evening, it is obligatory after watering.
6. Transfer. Every 2 years in the spring, it is necessary to transplant the episode into a new pot. For this, the capacitance is taken at 4 cm wider than the previous one. It is better to take with low sides, then the plant will grow naturally, hanging down its branches and flowers. In a new pot it is better to pour new earth and necessarily check all the roots, if necessary old and rotten ones must be removed.

It is very important when growing this flower, do not change the location of the pot and do not twist it, otherwise there will be no "luminous leaves" effect.

Episode reproduction

You can grow this flower in various ways: seeds, young rosettes and leaves. But more often and easier to do it in the second and third ways. In this case, the cut planting material is planted in a mixture of peat and sand.

Regardless of the way in which you will propagate the flower, the most important condition for successful rooting is maintaining high humidity and indoor air temperature.

Adhering to the above features of care and reproduction in the home of the flower of the epic, you can decorate not only your home, but also to please your friends and relatives.