Streptocarpus

Gesnerium family. Homeland South America. This plant is very similar to gloxinia, but blooms much longer (all summer), does not have tubers.

Rex's streptocarpus Streptocarpus rexii is a herbaceous plant with a rosette of oblong leaves. Leaves with a serrated edge, pubescent, green. Flowers on tall peduncles about 2.5 cm in diameter. Corolla of a funnel-shaped flower, five-lobed, light purple with purple stripes. Rex streptocarpus has become the original species in the breeding of new hybrid varieties, which are distinguished by brighter colors of flowers - pink, red, blue, lilac or pure white. Almost all plants in the store are hybrid streptocarpuses, in which only the name of the variety is mentioned.

Streptocarpus varieties

Streptocarpus is afraid of drafts and cold air in winter. For safe flowering, it is important to comply with all conditions of detention.

Streptocarpus care

Temperature: Streptocarpus are rather unpretentious in terms of temperature, in summer they grow with normal, which is dictated by the weather - optimal for growth and flowering is 22-25 ° C. Strong heat, above 28 ° C can cause wilting of plants, inhibits flowering. In winter, the temperature is determined by the possibility of lighting - if there are southern windows or good lamps for illumination, streps will perfectly grow with them all winter and periodically bloom. If the windows are dark, and there is no way to light up gesnerium in winter, you need to find a cool place where it is about 13-14 ° C, but not lower than 12 ° C, and where plants can survive until February-March.

In a dark room with a high temperature in winter, the plants stretch very much, the leaves become dark green pale or yellow-green. There is an option to cut off the bushes in the spring - a young healthy growth with the March sun is born, but in a couple of such winters the plant is greatly depleted and in the end degenerate completely, it will die from any violation - excessive watering, drying, draft, etc.

Lighting: Streptocarpus loves bright diffused light, with shading from direct sunlight in summer. The best place for this plant is the east or west windows. In nature, streptocarpus grow in a light forest under the openwork shade of trees or shrubs, and even in crevices between rocks, and as a rule, they receive at least 4 hours of sun in the morning or evening.

Watering: Uniform throughout the year. Water for irrigation should be soft, filtered. In summer, they water abundantly, allowing the land to dry out, in winter watering is reduced, since due to a decrease in illumination, plant growth slows down. Remember that the soil should dry out between watering - streptocarpuses are susceptible to root rot. Perhaps it is worth using irrigation from the pallet, but you need to arrange it with such a cut so that the top layer of the earth does not get wet at all, moisture does not fall into the center of the outlet. At the same time, never allow the plant to be in the water, drain the excess from the pallet as soon as part of the water is absorbed. Let the soil remain dry enough between watering. If in doubt, touch the ground with your finger - it is dry to the next watering at a depth of 3-4 cm - it is time to water (provided that the temperature is above 18 ° C).

Air humidity: Streptocarpus leaves do not like water to get on them, but at the same time, this plant loves moist air, below 40% is generally unacceptable for it. Therefore, periodically it is necessary to spray the air around the plant from a small sprayer. But this is a temporary measure - for a couple of days of summer heat. In the heating season in winter, when hair sticks out on the head from static electricity (humidity less than 30%), only a humidifier can save, or such radical measures as moisturizing curtains and curtains and hanging the battery with a damp sheet. But you will have to wet the tissues 2-3 times a day. Another way is to put pots with plants on wide pallets with wet moss-sphagnum.

Transplant: Annually in the spring. Pick up a pot or container not very deep, rather wide, because the roots grow more in width. Soil for streptocarpus planting:

• 2 parts of peat, 1 part of perlite (vermiculite), 2 parts of fine gravel (particles measuring 2-3 mm), additionally 2 tablespoons without a slide of lime per liter of land.
• 2 part of the store soil (for seedlings, for vegetables, flower), 1 part coconut fiber, 1/2 part moss sphagnum.

Top dressing: After a transplant after 1.5 months, you can feed every week using fertilizers with a high proportion of Potassium, a small amount of Nitrogen. Fertilizer dilute a quarter of the recommended dose. When choosing fertilizers, take into account that gesnerium needs not only macroelements (NPK), but also other minerals - they need sulfur, magnesium, calcium, boron, i.e. we are only interested in complex fertilizers, possibly special for senpoli, which need to be bred half as much with weekly use, and in the usual dose when feeding once every two weeks.

To avoid imbalance of nutrients, excessive salinization of the soil, overfeeding with fertilizers, we recommend washing the soil at streptocarpus once a month: Put pots in the bath and water the plants so abundantly that water flows from drainage holes until it is light. Then dry the soil thoroughly for the next watering.

Reproduction

Propagate gesnerium by dividing the bush during transplantation, seeds, leaf, part of the leaf.

• The easiest way to get a few wonderful streps in this way: you got a cut sheet, put it on the board, cut off the petiole and cut out the central vein. You get two halves of a sheet. They need to be stuck in a mixture of peat and vermiculite (taken in equal parts) cut down - like slices of bread in a toaster, to a depth of 10 mm. This method is called the "toaster method" - it was invented by the American breeder Ralph Robinson.
• But you can just cut a small leaf from your mother's bush and put it in a glass in clean water to root. The difference is that you can get a dozen miniature strep rosettes from a leaf, and one bush from a leaf with a petiole.

An important condition for vegetative reproduction is high air humidity and enough light. Therefore, it is better to root the leaves in a mini-greenhouse or put a container with burners on a pallet and cover with wet moss sphagnum. Growing young rosettes require more moisture than adult plants, as tissue exchange is more intense. But it is also not worth pouring soil before the reproduction of blue-green algae. To prevent plants from suffering from blackleg or other rot, always sterilize the substrate for planting, and when transplanting large plants, use pieces of birch coals.

By the way, when the sockets of young streptocarpus grow up, they need to be seated in small pots with a diameter of 5 cm, or peat-peregrine tablets, after soaking them.

Streptocarpus from seeds

Here are used photos of our growers: sharlota, barsuchok, OlgJ, Elena Beautiful, tamaravn, etc.