Yellow gentian - care and cultivation

The yellow gentian is most often found in nature on the territory of alpine meadows and in the Carpathians. It is a large herb with a powerful root system. Young plants form only a rosette of leaves, and flowering begins only when the gentian reaches the age of 3-4 years.

In height, the stems of yellow gentian can reach one and a half meters, and the leaves - 30 cm. The flowering of the gentian begins in June and ends in July, that is, the entire flowering process lasts only 2.5-3 weeks.

To grow yellow gentian on your site, you need to prepare the soil in advance for planting it. A prerequisite is the absence of stagnant water. You need to dig up the ground deep enough, carefully select all weeds, add 5-6 buckets of compost. The yellow gentian grows well on neutral soil, therefore lime can also be added to the prepared substrate.

When planting, you need to maintain a distance of 50-60 cm between plants. After planting for a gentian, you can not worry for 5-10 years, its bushes grow well for such a long time in one place.

Gentian propagates exclusively by seeds. If you dig up the rhizome of the plant, you can see new growth buds on it. And this fact, it would seem, suggests that gentian can be propagated by dividing the rhizome, but this is not the case. Plants separated in this way practically do not take root.

Gentian seeds are not planted immediately. Before planting, they must be kept on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator for about three months. In the first year of life, plants develop at a very slow pace, therefore, they must be constantly monitored, watered on time and get rid of weeds.