Care
Lilliputian spirea is quite unpretentious. Growing a plant consists of the usual stages.
- Watering. The watering procedure is carried out 2-3 times a month, the number of waterings increases if the summer is too dry and sultry. Ordinary clean water is suitable for humidification.
- Preparing for winter. Young specimens need to be mulched for the winter. For this, foliage and geotextiles can be used. It is also a good idea to tie the fragile stem to a peg.
- Top dressing. Produced in summer. For example, for the first fertilization, a mullein diluted in 10 liters of water and 10 g of superphosphate is suitable. In the second year of life, the use of the drug "Kemira universal" is allowed.
- Pruning. If the variety is spring-flowering, then after flowering it is necessary to eliminate dry shoots and old branches. Summer flowering species are pruned from the fourth year of life. The procedure should be approached very carefully.
Main varieties
Coleus has up to 150 varieties. Let's consider the most popular among them.
Coleus Bluma
The plant was named in honor of the botanist Karl Blum, under whose leadership it was bred. It is a shrub up to 0.8 m high, with a tetrahedral stem and large, egg-shaped leaves. This species is the progenitor of most decorative varieties. It is characterized by a rich palette of leaf shades. It comes in many shades, from purple and deep red to pale pink and white.
Suitable for growing in open ground, while being distinguished by unpretentious care and frost resistance (survives until the first autumn frosts). During the season, it produces many cuttings, which can be first rooted in water and then planted in the ground (during the summer) or rooted as a pot plant.
Renelta
This variety includes all ampelous varieties of Coleus, which makes it possible to actively use the plant for decorating parks, loggias, terraces, shopping centers and offices. Sri Lanka is considered the homeland. When this variety was crossed with others, decorative ampelous varieties appeared, intended for home cultivation. This wren can be recognized by its characteristic color - a deep red color combined with green edging.
Hybrid
For convenience, all varieties of a hybrid variety can be roughly divided into high, medium and low.
- A tall perennial is a bush up to 60-80 cm high, formed by erect multifaceted stems. Leaves of hybrid forms can be varied - wide ovoid or narrower heart-shaped. They are located on long petioles, opposite. They have wavy edges and a velvety surface; their color can be either monochromatic or variegated.
- The average size of the Coleus hybrid reaches a height of 30-50 cm. It can be grown outdoors and indoors. There are both relatively unpretentious and more capricious shrubs to care for.
Forskolia
It is fair to single out the plant as a separate species. Today forskolias are actively used as a fat burning supplement. In the wild, it grows in the mountainous regions of Thailand, India, Nepal. The leaves are characterized by a high content of essential oils and therefore are very aromatic. The smell can be compared to the smell of camphor.
The plant is a shrub up to 70 cm high. In contrast to ornamental analogs, forskolias have not variegated, but monotonous green leaves. The color is more emerald, mint than grassy.It blooms with beautiful blue or lavender "spikelets".
