Pentas flower will decorate any collection of a florist

The Pentas flower is an unpretentious, abundantly flowering plant of the madder family, which grows in the subtropical and tropical regions of Africa, as well as on the island of Madagascar. You can imagine how Pentas decorates tropical greenery with its bright bloom!

Content:

• Pentas is a flowering houseplant
• Secrets of caring for Pentas
• Reproduction of Pentas

Pentas is a flowering houseplant

At home, Pentas is present in the form of an artificially bred dwarf hybrid called Pentas lanceolate (Pentas lanceolata). During flowering, the bush reaches a height of 50 cm. The leaves of the Pentas are pubescent, lanceolate, light green, 5–7 cm long. When the plant does not bloom, it still decorates the dwelling with its variegated greenery.

Inflorescences of Pentas are large, up to 10 cm in diameter. They consist of small stellate red, white, pink and purple flowers, they look especially unusual if plants of all varieties are planted in one pot.

The plant blooms in a conveyor way: while the inflorescences that have grown from some shoots are blooming, buds appear on others at this time. If you remove them from some shoots, then you can ensure a longer flowering period, because new buds will begin to grow in the place of the removed ones after a short period of time.

Secrets of caring for Pentas

In order for Pentas to take its rightful place among indoor flowers and delight with its appearance throughout the year, you should adhere to the following recommendations.

It is advisable to place pentas on sunny windows, excluding northern ones. The room should be regularly ventilated, the flower is not afraid of drafts. In the cold period, Pentas prefers coolness, but the temperature should not be lower than +16 degrees. At high temperatures in winter, the leaves of Pentas dry out, and the shoots stretch out and become bare, as a result of which the flower loses its decorative appearance.

The optimum temperature for keeping a flower in the spring-summer period is from +20 to +25 degrees. In summer, Pentas is taken out into the open air: into the garden, onto the balcony, or terrace. If this is not possible, then the flower must be kept in a well-ventilated area. In any case, on a summer afternoon, the flower must be shaded from direct sunlight.

In the warm season (spring-summer), the flower feed 2 times a month, using complex fertilizer, where nitrogen predominates.

In spring and summer, Pentas is watered abundantly, making sure that the topsoil does not dry out. In room conditions, Pentas needs additional air humidification.

But the plant must be sprayed carefully, trying to prevent the liquid from getting on the flowers. You can put the pot on a tray with wet pebbles.

During dormancy (after flowering) Pentas watered moderately. Water for irrigation should be soft, at room temperature. It is necessary to ensure that rotting does not occur in winter, which provokes waterlogging of the soil at low temperatures.

The pentas quickly stretches upward, so the plant forms pinching or cropping. The procedure must be done before the flower buds are visible. In order for the plant to produce more flowers, its height should be limited to 45 cm.

Young plants are transplanted every year, and adults after 1-2 years.For Pentas, the most suitable is a soil consisting of sand, leafy and sod land in proportions 1: 2: 2. If it is not possible to prepare such a mixture at home, you can buy it at a flower shop, where they sell a soil mixture specifically for decorative flowering plants.

Reproduction of Pentas

The flower can be propagated by cuttings and seeds:

- Cuttings of Pentas are carried out in the spring, for which cuttings up to 10 cm in size are cut from the apical shoots. Cuttings are planted in containers with soil prepared in the way described above. At a temperature of +18 degrees, rooting takes place for 10 days. Rooted cuttings are planted in small pots, where they grow until the roots are entwined with a clod of earth. A plant with a well-formed root system is transplanted into larger pots in which the Pentas will grow throughout the year. And only after a year, the plant is planted in a pot, where it will bloom.

- Pentas seeds are propagated throughout the year. Seeds are sown on the surface of the soil, practically without deepening them, and germinate for about 3 weeks at a temperature of + 23 ... + 25 degrees. The seed container must be kept in a well-lit area at all times. A month after the emergence of seedlings, the plants dive into the pots and keep them at a temperature of + 18 ... + 21 degrees. And a month later, Pentas is transplanted into pots up to 12 cm in diameter.

Gardeners grow Pentas as an annual plant. In this case, seeds are sown in containers in January, and seedlings are planted in open ground in May. But, Pentas develops normally only when the night temperature does not drop below +7 degrees. If the weather is favorable, then the plant blooms beautifully, decorating plantings of any kind with its colorful flowers.