Lupine planting and care in the open field in the Urals

For landlords looking to create a beautiful garden with vibrant flowers, a member of the Legume family is the perfect solution. Lupine, which is very easy to plant and maintain outdoors, stands out for its combination of aesthetic beauty and practical benefits: a plant that has the ability to enrich the soil with nitrogen due to its nitrogen-fixing root system with tubers is an excellent green manure.

Types and varieties of plants

Lupine, often used in landscape design, is also used in the food industry, agriculture and for the manufacture of medical supplies due to its protein (50%), iron, fatty acids and bitter alkaloids (up to 2%) content. Annual varieties of lupine, such as yellow, white, are usually used for industrial purposes. And for the design of flower beds, front gardens from one-year-olds, a hybrid, dwarf, changeable type of flower is used. But the most decorative lupine is perennial.

Lupine multifoliate

The winter-hardy native of the North American region is a perennial herb, reaching a meter in height. Candle-shaped inflorescences 35 cm high consist of small flowers that bloom in early summer and remain in this state for a month. Timely pruning of faded inflorescences allows the perennial to bloom again at the end of the summer period.

Among the most popular varieties are:

• pink Schlossfrau;
• carmine "Edelknabe";
• white "Burg Fraulen";
• orange "Apricot";
• red "Carmineus";
• white with a pinkish tinge variety "Princess Julianna";
• pink Roseus;
• snow-white "Albus";
• undersized variegated variety "Minaret";
• blue with white sail "Castellan";
• violet-ruby "Rubinkönig".

Lupine angustifolia

He is also blue lupine - a perennial representative of legumes with a height of up to one and a half meters. The name does not characterize the color of the flowers, which can be not only blue or purple, but also white and pink.

Lupine white

An annual plant, the height of which also does not exceed one and a half meters, has an erect stem, branching in the upper part, covered with palmate drooping leaf plates. Flowers of white, pink or blue hue form an inflorescence in the form of a brush, arranged in a spiral.

Lupine yellow

An annual herb with a slightly leafy central shoot, crowned with a racemose inflorescence, which consists of yellow flowers with a scent similar to that of mignonette.

When to plant lupins outdoors?

Planting time depends on the method:

• With the seed method of lupine cultivation, sowing directly into the ground can be done after the snow melts and the warmth is established in April.
• If it is planned to grow seedlings from seeds, then the procedure is carried out in early spring - at the beginning of March.

Important! It is permissible to plant lupins in the fall before winter - in September-October. Sowing at this time allows you to get a flowering plant by the end of next summer.

Seed planting

When sowing seeds in open ground with the first flowering, the perennial will delight the owner after a year.

To make this happen:

1. In the fall, the soil is prepared by digging the selected area to the depth of a shovel bayonet, applying fertilizers (superphosphate, wood ash) and adding sand.
2. With the arrival of spring, grooves are made up to 2 cm deep and half a meter apart.
3. Seeds previously disinfected with a solution of potassium permanganate or fungicide are placed in the grooves and sprinkled with soil.
4. After half a month, seedlings appear.
5. After the formation of the first pair of true leaves, the seedlings dive to a permanent place of growth or thin out in such a way that the distance between the specimens is at least 30 cm.

Growing seedlings

Before starting to grow seedlings, a soil mixture is prepared from sand, leafy earth and peat in equal proportions.

Then:

1. The prepared soil mixture is placed in a container with a drainage layer.
2. Seeds are sown to a depth of 2 cm and crushed with 1 cm peat.
3. The container is covered with a damp cloth and moved to a warm room, where the first shoots will hatch in 2 weeks.
4. After the appearance of the first pair of true leaves, new plants are planted in the prepared area of ​​the garden.

Advice! When using the seedling method, the duration of forcing seedlings should be taken into account in 3 weeks, so that the seedlings do not come up before the establishment of warm weather.

Propagation by cuttings

If grafting is carried out in the spring, then in the current autumn the plant will form the first inflorescences.

For this:

1. Cuttings are prepared from basal rosettes formed from growth buds located at the base of the central shoot, by cutting them together with the root collar.
2. Cuttings are placed in a mixture of soil and sand for a period of two weeks.
3. After the roots are formed, new specimens are transferred to the garden.

Carefully! When grafting, you cannot divide the bush: the taproot may not regenerate if damaged.

Proper care of perennial lupins

The plant is undemanding: lupine can independently enrich the soil with nitrogen and cope with pests. However, when cultivating a flower for decorative purposes, certain care requirements should be observed.

Soil and lighting requirements

The flower does not need a special soil, taking root on neutral, slightly acidic soil types in well-lit areas. Its root system, which feeds the soil with nitrogen, makes it possible to fully develop even on sandy soils.However, if the acidity level is too high, the flower may turn yellow, in order to prevent the development of such a scenario, the area for sowing lupine is lime at the rate of 5 kg of a mixture of peat and dolomite flour per 1 m2.

Watering and loosening

Watering the lupine should be moderate. However, the frequency and amount of moisture often depends on the plant variety, soil type and seeding time. After simplification, the soil should be loosened.

Weeding the soil on the site

In systematic hilling and weed removal procedures that stimulate growth and lush flowering, the plant needs its first year of development. Some varieties practically do not require weeding: alkaloid varieties are capable of releasing substances into the soil that have a detrimental effect on weed seeds.

Top dressing

Lupine is a green manure, so it does not need special feeding. But to ensure the riotous flowering per 1 m2 of soil under the plantings, 20 g of superphosphate and 10 g of potassium sulfate are introduced. Ash or dolomite flour is also periodically added to the soil.

Post-flowering care

To preserve the decorative effect of lupine before the arrival of winter cold weather, dried inflorescences and shoots are promptly removed. Carrying out such actions ensures the formation of young shoots and re-flowering at the end of the summer season.

Support for tall lupines

Tall varieties require additional support, which will maintain the integrity of tall stems in case of strong gusts of wind and intense rainfall in the form of heavy rains in May-June.

When to collect and how to store lupine seeds?

After ripening, the fruits of the lupine crack, and the seeds scatter. To avoid this, the seeds must be collected when the beans turn yellow, which are just beginning to dry out. The harvesting process is carried out in several approaches in sunny weather: while on the central shoots the beans begin to turn brown, on the lateral ones - the fruits remain green.

The procedure is carried out as follows:

1. Seeds are extracted from the pods, distributed over a paper sheet, on which they are dried in a warm and dry room without access to direct sunlight.
2. The seed is placed in a glass, paper or tissue container, where it will be stored until sowing.

How to prepare lupine bushes for winter?

Despite the frost resistance of plants, in latitudes with a temperate continental climate, it is better to prepare perennial lupine for wintering as follows:

1. In mid-October-early November, the aerial part of the plant is cut off.
2. The bush hounds, which allows you to cover the bare root collar.
3. Then the plant is covered with a layer of sawdust, under which it spends the whole winter.

Lupine: diseases and pests

Lupine, along with other legumes, is affected by insects and diseases. Sowing material and seedlings are often damaged by wireworms, beetle larvae and gnawing moth caterpillars. The greatest harmfulness is noted in the spring, which accounts for the slow growth of the plant and active nutrition of the pests. Weevils can also harm plantings. To combat soil-dwelling pests, which include the wireworm, pre-sowing seed dressing is used. A similar event will also protect the culture at the germination stage.

Adult plants, as a rule, are damaged by sucking pests (thrips, bedbugs) and leaf-eating scoops, for protection from which timely insecticidal treatments are carried out according to the manufacturer's instructions. Excessive watering and a violation of crop rotation can lead to the development of fungal diseases, from which rust, root rot, mosaic, and fusarium are released.

So, unpretentious lupine looks great in combination with other crops, being placed in the center of flower arrangements. The lower plants surrounding it are an excellent protection of the flower from strong winds.

Lupine (lat.name Lupinus) is a genus of ornamental plants from the legume family, which includes annuals and perennials of herbaceous and shrub types. In Latin, the word "Lupus" means a wolf, so among the people you can often find "wolf beans" as the name of the plant. Lupine is very common in nature and grows widely in the Mediterranean and Africa, where there are 12 plant species, 1 of which is perennial.

As for the western part of the planet, the species diversity there is even greater - 200 species grow from Patagonia to Alaska. American species of the wild plant were domesticated. The Incas cultivated volatile lupine, and in more modern times they ennobled the multifoliate lupine. The advantage of the plant is its ability to survive the absence of moisture. It is not surprising that it is found in the deserts of Texas, Arizona, California, Chile, Peru, in the Sahara.

But the history of hybrid varieties begins in 1911, when George Russell, a breeder from England, first bred the so-called Russell hybrid varieties. Since then, lupine has been a permanent part of many modern gardens.

Description of the lupine plant

Lupine planting and care in the open field How to grow lupine

All lupins have a taproot system that can grow into the ground up to 2 meters. Like all legumes, the roots have bulges to absorb nutrients and nitrogen to enrich the soil. The stems can be both herbaceous and more dense, the branches spread along the ground, erect or protruding.

The leaves have long petioles, are arranged alternately on the branches, have a finger-like complex structure. The inflorescence is an apical raceme of whorled, semi-whorled, or alternate type. Depending on the species, the brush can be small or even gigantic, about 1 meter. The flowers are also painted in different colors, depending on the species - white, red, pink, yellow, purple, cream, purple, etc.

At the end of flowering, lupine throws out seeds, which can differ in color, shape and size. So the beans of the Mediterranean varieties of lupine are slightly larger than their western counterparts. When the beans are ripe, they crack, scattering the seeds everywhere in the form of very small grains. Due to its easy distribution, lupins are grown both in flower beds and as a green manure (that is, to fertilize the earth with rotted leaves and stems). Therefore, even fodder lupines can be found on the farm.

How and when to plant lupins with seeds

Growing lupine from seeds is the easiest way to propagate a plant. In stores you can buy varieties and hybrids of various colors, which will allow you to "paint" the garden with the most variegated colors.

When to sow lupine outdoors

When to sow lupine How to plant lupine seeds Photo of seedlings in the garden

Lupine is a perennial resistant to freezing, the seeds of which will sprout, even if sown in the fall before winter. It reproduces well by self-sowing, however, if it is not a hybrid (the seeds will sprout, but the plants will not look like "parents"). Given the properties of lupine seeds to germinate in any conditions, sowing can be done very early, as soon as the land is ripe. It may even be late March or early April, right up to the end of May.

The seeds are large and very easy to plant. Usually, even in the ground, lupines are planted on seedlings: the plants sprout quickly, but develop for 1.5-2 months until they can be transplanted. It is advisable to organize a greenhouse altogether: put arcs and cover with a film. Then the lupine sown in March will delight you with flowering in the same year.

Lupins growing from seeds when to plant What do lupine shoots look like

How to plant lupine seeds in the ground:

• Embedding depth 1-2 cm.
• Distance in a row 8-10 cm.
• The distance between the rows is 10-12 cm.

When shoots appear, they are freed from weeds, the soil is slightly loosened. Watering is needed in moderation, after 2-3 days.When the plants reach 8-10 cm in height, they can be carefully transplanted, trying not to disturb the root system. Lupine tolerates transplanting well, is quickly taken and actively begins to build up green mass, the main thing is to ensure good watering.

Lupine from seeds for seedlings at home

Planting lupins with seeds Photo of seedlings How to grow lupins from seeds

You can grow lupine seedlings from seeds at home. Sowing begins in late February - early Marchto plant the plants in the ground in April. True, it all depends on the local climate: the main thing is that night frosts do not appear anymore.

The seeds are large, so the easiest way is to immediately plant them in separate cups so as not to suffer from diving. In addition, when growing plants without picking, at least two weeks of growth are preserved, which are lost when the roots are forced to regenerate again.

• You can use the usual substrate for flowers that are sold in the store.
• Cups must have drainage holes.
• Embedding depth 0.5-1 cm.
• Watering is needed in moderation, there should be enough moisture so that the substrate does not dry out, but maintains an air-permeable state. This means that stagnant water is unacceptable.
• Before planting on a flower bed, harden the seedlings: accustom them to light and wind, taking them outside daily. This should be done for at least 10-12 days, so that by the end of hardening the plants can withstand a full day in the open air without damage.

Planting lupine seedlings in open ground

How to plant lupines? For a flower, choose a soil close to neutral (slightly alkaline or slightly acidic), loamy or sandy loam, in a well-sunlit area. To prepare the site in the fall for planting in the spring, too acidic soil is treated with lime or dolomite flour, adding 5 kg of substance per square meter. This will be enough for 4 years. If the soil is very alkaline, it is treated with peat, pouring the same amount as lime in the previous version.
How to plant lupite in the ground, we look at the video:

• When the seedlings have grown and matured in spring, they are planted in ready and open soil at a distance of about 30-50 cm from each other.
• It is advisable to add humus to each hole.
• It is better to plant by transshipment. To do this, water the seedlings well and let stand for about an hour. The earthen lump can be carefully pulled out of the container and immediately placed in the hole without violating the integrity of the roots. Sprinkle with earth, lightly press with your palms.
• Water it abundantly so that the moisture is well absorbed and soaked the earth in the hole.

Lupins will bloom this year, but the bushes will still be small. It is advisable to cut off the faded inflorescences so that the bush does not waste energy on the production of seeds. So the plant will take root better in order to please with flowering in full force next season.

How to care for lupine

Lupine in landscape design photo

There is nothing difficult in this. So, for the cultivation of perennial lupine for the first year, you need to take special care of the plant, removing weeds in time and loosening the soil. After a while, the bushes will become strong and themselves will drown out the weeds. Sometimes hilling is carried out so that the root collar is not exposed and the lateral shoots are not isolated.

When 5-6 years have passed, the old bushes are removed, since their middle part dies off by this time, which dramatically affects the quality of flowering. If you are growing tall varieties of lupines, put supports to them to prevent deformation of the stems from the wind. To maximize the flowering of the plant, constantly remove the faded flowers before they dry. If you do this, you can achieve a double flowering of lupins. Watering is done in moderation, and in the spring - plentiful in order to accelerate the growth of the stems.

Feeding lupins

• Mineral dressing for plants is applied in the second spring.
• To do this, choose fertilizers without nitrogen, such as superphosphate and calcium chloride, which are applied in the amount of 20 and 5 g, respectively, per 1 m² of area.
• After that, every spring, the soil is fertilized under the old plants.

Pests and diseases

When buds are actively formed before flowering, the plant is prone to damage by aphids, and then larvae of a sprout fly or nodule weevils can develop on it. May beetles do great harm, literally eating flowers (beetles can fly even from neighboring gardens). To get rid of them, the plant and soil must be treated with insecticides, and the beetles themselves are harvested by hand.

A particularly dangerous disease is gray rot or root rot. You should also pay attention to spotting, fusarium wilting, mosaic, rust and phomopsis. If you ensure adequate flower cultivation, observing all the rules and regulations, and also not violating the crop rotation (lupine can be sown again on the site only after 3 years), there will be no problems with it. It is recommended to grow cereals on the site a year before planting lupines.

How to get lupine seeds

How to collect lupine seeds photo

When the plant fades, it actively forms beans. When ripe, they crack with maximum dispersion of seeds. This grower is not suitable, so you need to collect the beans earlier, when they are just starting to dry out or tie the pods with gauze, then the seeds will definitely not crumble.

Lupine care after flowering

After the lupine has flowered (and this happens in October), the peduncles are cut off, the seeds are collected, if this is planned by the gardener in advance. The bushes are spud in the fall to preserve the exposed root collar and mulch with sawdust - this is how they prepare for the winter so that the flower does not freeze.

Types and varieties of lupins with photos and descriptions

First of all, it is necessary to study the plant species that are actively growing in the wild.

Lupine angustifolia or blue Lupinus angustifolius

Lupine narrow-leaved or blue siderat photo

Herbaceous plant growing up to 150 cm in height. It has a slightly pubescent stem of an erect type, palmate-separate leaves, the lower part of which is also pubescent. The flowers have a white, pinkish or purple hue, which is why the species was called blue. It is grown as an annual green manure.

Lupine multifoliate Lupinus polyphyllus

Lupine multifoliate Lupinus polyphyllus photo

The plant is native to the Northwest of North America. It has a high degree of winter hardiness, which means it is perfect for our latitudes. The height of an adult organism is 80-120 cm. In this case, the straight stem is almost naked, and those leaves that exist have long petioles and finger leaves pubescent below. The inflorescences are 30-35 cm long and are formed by a large number of blue flowers. Flowering time is all June. If you cut off wilted flowers, you can wait for re-flowering in August-September.

Lupine yellow Lupinus luteus

Lupine yellow Lupinus luteus photo

An annual plant, the stem of which is also weakly covered with leaves and heavily pubescent. The leaves are arranged on long cuttings, the lower part of them is pubescent. They consist of 5-9 blades. The plant blooms in yellow and has a strong aroma similar to mignonette. The shape of the inflorescence is a whorled brush.

White lupine Lupinus albus

White lupine Lupinus albus photo

Plant height is up to 150 cm. The stem is straight, branches only at the top. The leaves are also palmate, covered with villi below, and smooth above. The flowers are white, light pink or light blue, do not smell, grow in a spiral.

These are the main species of this plant, but perennial, small-leaved, nutkan, dwarf, tree, hybrid, etc. lupine can also be cultivated.

Lupine hybrid

Lupine in the flowerbed photo Lupine flower planting and care

If we talk about hybrid varieties, the following are popular:

• Princess Juliana - plant height 110 cm, blooms with white-pink flowers, inflorescence size - 40 cm, flowering time - 40 days in June-July;
• Apricot - plant height 90 cm, has orange flowers, collected in 40-centimeter inflorescences. It blooms for 30 days in June-July.

Breeder Russell pioneered the development of lupine varieties, but they are still the finest of the modern varieties.

• This is a white variety Burg Fraulin,
• red-brick Mine Schloss,
• undersized Minaret, Splendid and other hybrids.

Lupine plant growing and care Blue lupine in the photo

Most growers are familiar with lupine, a beautiful decorative flower native to America. A little earlier, it was cultivated only for agricultural purposes, but now it is already loved by gardeners.

More than a hundred years ago, by crossing some wild forms of this plant, a good decorative option was obtained. And later, the Englishman Russell, who had been breeding for fifteen years, managed to get a modern look of lupine with a variety of colors.

What are lupins, planting and caring for them, how they reproduce - all this will be discussed in this article.

Description of culture

By type, lupins are divided into annual and perennial. In total, about two hundred varieties of this flower have been bred in the world, and about ten cultivated. But most often, perennial lupine is used to decorate the landscape.

Russell's flowers are hybrid lupins that are brightly colored and very beautiful. Lupine Russell, planting and caring for which does not differ from other species, is also very popular with flower growers.

The beginning of flowering of plants occurs at the beginning of summer. Their inflorescences are high, bright colors, there are even tricolors, and very much resemble pea flowers, it is not for nothing that lupines also belong to the legume family.

Lupine is not whimsical, grows quickly, tolerates shading and dirty air, in height it can reach from half a meter to one and a half meters.

At the end of flowering, it produces fruits - beans located inside the pods, which can be used for propagation. The plant requires renewal every five years.

The root system of the plant goes into the soil up to two meters, and the growing stems are formed into a bush of two meters in height. Lupine propagates by seeds, planting and care in this case are not very popular, and by cuttings.

The plant is used as a fertilizer for soils, as a fodder crop, as an ingredient in medicines. Lupine is used by anglers as bait.

Lupine varieties

The following plant varieties are quite popular:

1. Minaret. This is a group of perennial breeding species that are planted in isolation from one another. Otherwise, there may be a loss of variety due to crossing. Plants of this group are large, up to half a meter tall, forming cone-shaped multi-colored inflorescences from June to September.
2. Lulu. Perennial, early ripening, half-meter height variety. Plants are compact, begin to bloom again at the end of summer after cutting off the first inflorescences.
3. Fireworks. Annual tall (up to one meter) lupins with inflorescences of yellow, white and red colors. Seeds are sown outdoors in April. Reproduction occurs by self-seeding, if the inflorescences are not cut off. The next year, fresh shoots appear.

Soil requirements

In order to favorably grow lupins, planting and caring for which so as not to bring trouble, you need to provide a slightly acidic or alkaline loamy soil. If the soil is too acidic, then the flowers and leaf mass of the culture degrade, the plant grows weak, faded, painful. On alkaline earth, lupine falls ill with chlorosis. To avoid such troubles, acidic soils are treated with lime flour (5 kg per sq. M), alkaline soils are abundantly watered with a weak acidic solution or mixed with peat. In this case, lupine is more stable.

Planting and care in the open field is facilitated by the fact that there is no need to add nitrogen fertilizers to the soil, since, in interaction with the nodule bacteria, the plant independently produces food. This process occurs in all legumes.

Loosening of the soil is also not required, since the root system is pivotal, powerful enough - it softens the earth layer itself.

Seed propagation

If we consider pure varietal lupins, planting and care when growing from purchased seeds is difficult due to their low germination rate. And plants grown from seeds grow poorly. But already the seed material collected from these flowers will give good seedlings adapted to life (autumn planting). They are planted in the fall, and in the spring they give amicable shoots and begin to bloom in the middle of summer.

Most often, spring planting is practiced, when the seeds are sown in early April, and the plant begins to bloom in May or June.

The site for sowing is chosen in a slightly shaded place with diffused sunlight, the ground is loosened by 25 cm and fertilized with mineral fertilizers: superphosphate, ash, dolomite flour. When digging, the soil is mixed with sand and clay. In such a substrate, lupine will grow well.

Planting and care in the open ground provides that the seeds must be prepared for sowing: they must be soaked with 50% foundation.

The seeds are deepened into the grooves in the prepared area to a depth of about 2 cm and sprinkled with a peat layer, the planting is well moistened. The planting scheme provides for the distance between the bushes up to half a meter, taking into account their future growth. The seeds are covered with soil and sprinkled with peat. Flowers will rise in half a month, and bloom in early August.

Taking care of the seedlings is quite simple, it is enough to provide them with good lighting and regular watering. When stable warm weather is established, lupine is planted in a permanent place, and each sprout should already have 4-5 true leaves.

Growing seedlings

Seeds can not only grow lupine in the open field, but also get seedlings for early flowering. For this, seed is sown at the beginning of March.

To grow seedlings at home or in greenhouse conditions, it is required to prepare the soil: mix peat, sand and garden soil in equal parts. It would be nice to add pounded tubers of old lupine flowers there to enrich the soil with nitrogen.

In total, growing seedlings will take three weeks. It is necessary to calculate the time so that by the time the seedlings are planted, there is already a steady heat on the street, only then can perennial lupine be transplanted.

Planting and care according to the technology provides that seeds for seedlings are planted in well-drained containers 2 cm deep and covered with a centimeter layer of peat. Water well and cover with damp gauze. The containers are left in a warm place for two weeks, remembering to periodically moisten the soil. When two leaves have appeared on the seedlings, the seedlings are planted in a permanent place.

Propagation by cuttings

Vegetative propagation is most welcome, as it keeps plants from varietal mixing. Cuttings can be purchased, or can be cut off from an adult lupine on the site.

Renewal bud formation occurs near the very base of the stem. With a sharp knife, they are carefully cut out with a piece of the root collar. It is necessary to plant cuttings in individual containers with sandy soil immediately. Rooting of lupine will take place in 25 days. After that, the plant is already ready for planting in a prepared place on the site.

It is allowed to breed lupine with cuttings in both spring and summer. It is only necessary to take into account that in the spring they are cut off from the root rosette formed at the base. In the summer, lateral shoots formed in the leaf axils of lupine are better suited as cuttings.

Perennial lupine: planting and care, photo

Lupine is an unpretentious plant, therefore, in the first year after planting, it needs the following:

• Be sure to periodically weed the area, removing weeds and loosening the ground.
• Regular, abundant, but rare watering is required (a couple of times a week).
• If, after watering, the root collar is exposed, it is spilled without fail.
• At the end of summer, planting must be fertilized with phosphorus-potassium fertilizer.
• Before the seeds ripen, you need to cut the peduncles so that the plant blooms again.

In the first year, the leaf mass is increased and therefore lupins do not bloom.

Planting and care in the second year is that the plant continues to huddle. If it is planted in a place where the wind blows, you can make a support. It is necessary to apply mineral fertilizers for feeding: a mixture of 5 g of potassium chloride and 15 g of superphosphate per square meter.

Once every four to five years, the plants are renewed. Treelike lupins are sheltered for the winter.

Lupine flower: planting and caring for an annual

Annual lupine varieties thrive on fertile light soils. The plant requires moderate soil moisture, and in the spring you can feed it with mineral fertilizer.

It is also necessary to weed the soil in a timely manner, remove weeds and faded inflorescences.

Planting an annual is done as follows:

• it is necessary to sow seeds immediately to the place of constant growth;
• 2-3 seeds are placed in the hole with a distance of about 6 cm;
• after the emergence of seedlings, it is necessary to assess their density and, if necessary, thin out;
• after watering, the soil is loosened.

Lupine seed material remains viable for up to five years.

Lupine: diseases and pests

The pests and diseases dangerous to lupine are as follows:

• Aphid. It is required to spray with garlic water or special products.
• Nodule weevils. The fight is similar to the fight against aphids.
• Anthracnose. It is necessary to use such fungicides as "Ridomil", "Mikal" and "Arcerid".
• Rust.
• Powdery mildew.

When the plant is affected by the last two species, the leaves are covered with brown spots, and white rot appears at the root. To combat them, the affected areas are cut and destroyed. Usually fresh shoots grow healthy. With a strong spread of infection after cutting out diseased bushes, the land is processed by liming and digging.

Properties and uses of lupine

The article gives a description of what kind of flowers - lupins, planting and care, photos, but people still have some interest in this plant.

And it is caused by the fact that:

1. Its seeds contain 50% protein and 20% butyric, as well as a significant amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids.
2. This is an excellent feed raw material: the foliage of the plant contains almost 3% protein in fresh form and 16% in dried form. In grain, this parameter reaches 40%.
3. Lupine seeds are rich in content (about 2%) of the alkaloids lupanine and lupinine.
4. The seeds of the plant are capable of treating diabetes mellitus and lowering blood cholesterol levels. The protein glycoprotein in the seed can replace insulin.
5. In folk practice, lupine decoctions are used to treat acne, ulcers, skin formations, inflammation of the joints, prickly heat, spleen and liver.
6. Official research is being conducted to study the effect of lupine in cardiovascular diseases, its antioxidant properties.

In cosmetology, lupine oil is a part of creams and masks.

 

Lupine (lat.Lupinus) is a genus of the legume family, which is represented by both annual and perennial herbaceous plants, shrubs, dwarf shrubs and dwarf shrubs. Translated from Latin "Lupus" means "wolf", and the plant itself is sometimes called wolf beans. In total, about 200 species of lupine are known. Cultivated are only the variable lupine, which the Incas were still engaged in breeding, and the many-leaved lupine.

The root system of lupins is pivotal, sometimes extending 2 meters deep. The roots are covered with small swellings that absorb nitrogen from the air and enrich the soil under the plant.Stems are woody or herbaceous, branches are creeping, protruding or erect. Lupine leaves are alternate, on long petioles, palmate-compound, connected to the stem by a leaf cushion with a long stipule. Inflorescence is an apical raceme, on which a large number of flowers are whorled, semi-whorled, or alternately. The brush sizes in some species reach one meter, the color of the flowers is varied - yellow, white, red, pink, cream and purple lupins, as well as all shades of purple. Lupine seeds of different species differ in shape, size, and color. The lupine beans of the Mediterranean species are larger than the American ones. Drying, the beans crack and scatter seeds around them - very small grains of lupine. Lupine not only decorates flower beds, it is also grown as a green manure: stems and leaves of lupine rotted in the ground become an excellent fertilizer. In addition, fodder lupine is grown.

   

Lupine growing from seed

 

Sow lupine seeds for seedlings in a loose soil mixture for germinating seeds, consisting of peat (one part), sod land (one part) and sand (half part). Before sowing, the seeds are mixed with powdered root nodules of old lupins to accelerate the growth of nitrogen-absorbing bacteria. Seedlings will appear in a week or two, and if you want all the seeds to sprout at the same time, you need to cover the crops with wet gauze and keep them warm.

Seedling of lupine. It should be recalled that seed reproduction does not guarantee the inheritance of coloration and other traits of mother plants by young lupines. Lupine from seeds is usually grown for the purpose of a breeding experiment. Purple and pink colors dominate, therefore they can persist in the next generation, and the white color is most likely lost during seed reproduction. After the appearance of 2-3 true leaves, the seedlings are planted in a permanent place - do not delay the transplant, since the tap root system will become a significant obstacle to you.

 

 

Lupine planting in open ground

 

When to plant lupines. If you are using a seedling method of seed propagation, then sow the seeds in early spring, at the beginning of March. If you decide to sow directly into the ground in the spring, then sowing lupine is carried out in April, after the snow melts, but the site should be ready in the fall. Many flower growers prefer to sow lupine before winter, at the end of October. There are many advantages in autumn sowing and there are almost no contraindications: the seeds will not have time to germinate before winter, since they will ripen in the ground in very comfortable conditions. Seeds are buried in the ground to a depth of 2 cm, then the site is mulched with peat, in the spring the lupine will rise together and bloom by August. If you grow lupine in a seedling way, then, as already mentioned, lupine is planted when 2-3 leaves appear on the seedlings, and do not tighten so that there are no problems with transplanting.

How to plant lupines. Most lupins are suitable for slightly acidic or slightly alkaline loamy or sandy loam soil in a sunny area. To prepare the site for the spring planting of lupine seedlings, in the fall, the acidic soil is limestone or dolomite flour at the rate of 5 kg per 1 m², and this is enough for 3-4 years. Too alkaline soil is dug up with peat with the same calculation - 5 kg per 1 m². In the spring, germinated and strengthened seedlings are planted in the soil prepared in the fall at a distance of 30-50 cm from each other.

 

Lupine outdoor care

 

Lupine care is not difficult. If you grow perennial lupine, for the first year you will have to periodically loosen the soil on the site and remove the emerging weeds. Over time, adult plants will need to be huddled, since the root collar is gradually exposed, and the side rosettes are isolated. After five to six years of growth, old bushes will have to be removed, since the middle part of the bush dies off and the quality of flowering deteriorates markedly.Provide support for tall lupines so that their stems do not break in the wind. If you want lupins to bloom until the very cold, prune withered inflorescences without letting them dry out. After such manipulation, perennial species are able to bloom twice a season. Watering lupins should be moderate, but in spring watering should be abundant.

Fertilizer for lupines. Top dressing of lupins is carried out in the spring, in the second year of growth, with mineral fertilizers that do not contain nitrogen: about 20 g of superphosphate and 5 g of calcium chloride are applied per 1 m² of the area. Top dressing is carried out every spring until it is time to plant new lupins.

 

 

Lupine care after flowering

 

When the lupins bloom, around the beginning of October, you need to cut off the flower stalks and leaves, collect the seeds, if necessary. Bushes of perennial lupins should be earthed up to cover the exposed root collar with soil, and then covered with sawdust for the winter - lupins are very cold in winter.

When to collect lupine seeds. As soon as the lupine fruit ripens, it cracks, and the seeds scatter in all directions. To prevent this, you need to collect seeds when the beans turn yellow and just start to dry. This will have to be done selectively in several steps.

 

 

Lupine diseases and pests

 

During the budding period, lupine can be affected by aphids, at a later time - by the larvae of the sprout fly and nodule weevils. You will have to fight them by spraying the plants with insecticides. Of the diseases, rot (gray and root), fusarium wilting, spots and mosaics, phomopsis and rust are dangerous for lupine. You won't have to fight diseases and pests if you follow the agrotechnical requirements for lupine, and first of all, the rules of crop rotation: the placement of lupine again on the site can take place only after three years. The best precursor for lupine is cereals.

 

Lupine species and varieties

 

Here are some of the most common types of lupine:

 

Lupine narrow-leaved, or blue

 

Herbaceous plant with a height of 80 cm to 150 cm with a sparsely pubescent erect stem. The leaves are palmate, also pubescent below. Flowers are odorless, white, pink or purple, which for some reason was considered blue, and therefore called the species "blue lupine".

 

Lupine multifoliate

 

This species is winter-hardy, therefore it grows well in our latitudes. Height from 80 cm to 120 cm, stems straight and almost glabrous, lupine leaf is palmate, on a long petiole, pubescent below. Inflorescences 30-35 cm long consist of many blue flowers. It blooms for about three weeks in June, subject to the condition of timely removal of wilted inflorescences, it blooms again at the end of summer.

 

Lupine yellow

 

It is an annual with a sparsely leafy pubescent stem, the same pubescent leaves on long petioles, consisting of 5-9 lobes. Yellow flowers with a scent reminiscent of mignonette, collected in a whorled raceme.

 

Lupine white

 

Grows up to 150 cm in height. Its stem is erect, branched at the top. The leaves are palmate, densely pubescent from below in such a way that the villi form a silvery rim around the leaves. The upper side of the leaves is smooth. The flowers are odorless, white, pale pink or light blue, arranged in a spiral in the inflorescence.

In addition to these species, attention is also drawn to the following: changeable lupine, perennial lupine, small-leaved lupine, dwarf lupine, nutkan lupine, tree lupine and others.

In culture, such hybrid varieties of multifoliate lupine are most often grown as:

• Lupine "Princess Juliana" - up to 110 cm tall, white-pink flowers are collected in a brush up to 40 cm long, blooms up to 40 days from June.
• Lupine "Apricot" - up to 90 cm high, orange flowers, inflorescences up to 40 cm long, blooms from mid-June 30-35 days.

But the most beautiful and beloved by flower growers varieties of lupine were brought out by the breeder Russell: "Burg Fraulin" - with a pure white color, Mine Schloss - with a red-brick tint, a series of undersized bright hybrids "Minaret" or Splendid - a variety group of monochromatic hybrids and varieties with a sail of white or contrasting color.

 

 

Where to Buy Lupine Seeds

 

The Scientific and Production Association "Sady Rossii" has been introducing the latest achievements in the selection of vegetable, fruit, berry and ornamental crops into the wide practice of amateur gardening for 30 years. In the work of the association, the most modern technologies are used, a unique laboratory for microclonal reproduction of plants has been created. The main tasks of NPO Sady Rossii is to provide gardeners with high-quality planting material for popular varieties of various garden plants and novelties of world selection. Delivery of planting material (seeds, onions, seedlings) is carried out by Russian post. We are waiting for you for shopping: NGO "Gardens of Russia"