Periwinkle - beautiful and delicate flower, often used in compositions with ornamental shrubs and flowers when decorating gardens, parks and avenues.
Today there are up to two dozen species of this plant, each has its own external features, but when grown, they all require almost the same approach.
The choice of location and soil for planting periwinkle
Periwinkle can grow anywhere in the garden, but it is desirable if it is a hill or slope. The plant is unpretentious to the lighting, it is suitable for sunny places and full shade.
Optimal will be a place with penumbra. Experienced growers are advised to plant periwinkle under the crowns of fruit trees: cherries, apples and pears.
Vinca cultivation will be successful on any soils, but the most useful will be loose, drained, fertile land with a neutral reaction. On such a land, the plant will be more lush, vivid and bloom more abundantly.
When and how to sow periwinkle
Sowing plants are carried out both in spring and in winter. Under the condition of poor soil, re-ripened compost is introduced into it when digging. In order for periwinkle to develop the root system, it is possible to apply phosphate fertilizer right before sowing.
Clay-like heavy soils are “diluted” with peat and rotted manure or compost. Such additives will work as a drainage and improve the penetration of moisture.
Important! Seeds before sowing should preferably be disinfected with a solution of manganese.
For sowing, dig small grooves and sow to a depth of a centimeter. Vinca seeds sprinkled with earth and watered abundantly after planting.
If you plant periwinkle to curb soil erosion on a slope, planting is best done in a staggered manner with a distance between plants of 15 cm. For other plantings, the distance can be up to 35 cm, it is a perennial, and it thrives well.
The combination of periwinkle with other plants
Periwinkle - not an aggressive plant and gets along well in the garden with different species and cultures. The plant is perfectly combined with primrose, lungwort, spillage, forget-me-nots, goryanka, geykheroy, serves as a frame for lilia.
Planting periwinkle on a fern substrate looks impressive. The plant will beautifully shade decorative low coniferous bushes, it will be an excellent border for a bed with flowers of gentle pastel tones.
Did you know? Many nations endowed periwinkle with magical properties: they were planted around houses to protect them from lightning, wondered by flowers for marriage, and wore flowers at their chests as a guard against evil forces.
How to care for periwinkle in the garden
Periwinkle does not require special care. He does not need frequent watering, quite enough rain. It is necessary to monitor soil moisture only in the early stages of plant development. In the very hot and dry summer water every ten days.
Do not worry about weeds, it does not interfere with the plant. Loosening is also at your discretion: if you have brought peat into the soil before planting, it should be good to let in moisture and air and nutrients coming from it. To enhance the development of lateral shoots, young twigs need to pinch.
Vinca fertilizer is better to produce organic matter during the period of growth, bud formation and flowering. After flowering before the rest period you need trim bushesso that they look neat and do not consume nutrients before winter.
Attention! Periwinkle is considered to be winter-hardy, but it should still be covered, as untimely thaws can destroy a flower.
When to harvest and how to store periwinkle seeds
Seeds are harvested after full ripening of fruit boxes. Each variety is a different time, fruit boxes are also slightly different. In periwinkle small, for example, it is two leaflets bent in the shape of a sickle, inside which are brown seeds.
The fruits are ready for harvest in September. Selected seeds are sorted and dried in a dark place.
Then fold, better in fabric bags, and store in a cool dry place.
Interesting! The French, like the Celts, considered periwinkle magical violet. When identifying the witches, a periwinkle leaflet was thrown onto a heated pan with fat, naming the name of the alleged witch. If the sheet was not discarded, the woman was found not guilty; if she was discarded, a bonfire was waiting for the unfortunate.
Other ways of breeding periwinkle
Periwinkle can be grown not only from seeds. It multiplies and vegetatively.
Cuttings
Periwinkle cuttings carried out in late August - early September. At the same time, spend cutting the plant, pruning shoots are quite suitable for breeding. On the selected and prepared (fertilized with peat) area make a shallow hole.
The cutting is buried vertically, leaving two or three leaves above the surface. If you plant several cuttings at once, make a distance of 30 cm between them. Water the sapling after planting.
Sliced cuttings are planted without any preparation in August - September. In the future, periwinkle propagated by cuttings, will cover the entire area allotted to it.
Dividing bush
Dividing bush spend in early spring, until the branches began to grow actively. The selected shrub is excavated, the lateral process is separated along with part of the roots. The hole for planting do the depth of the root system. The separated bush is placed in a hole, straightening the roots, sprinkled with earth and watered. The distance between the bushes is 30 cm.
How to deal with possible pests and diseases of periwinkle
Pests bypass the periwinkle side, but aphidseems omnivorous and omnipresent. You can fight with aphids using the folk method. Prepare a soap solution and spray the plant.
Periwinkle is a disease-resistant plant, with the exception of powdery mildew and rust. Fungicide preparations help to fight with them: Skor, Topsin, Kvadris, Topaz (against powdery mildew); Kuproksat, Topaz or Bordeaux liquid (rust).
Powdery Mildew Prevention is to water the periwinkle in the garden. With excessive soil moisture, the plant is too vulnerable to fungal diseases. It is also worth treating the seeds before sowing.
Often in the winter forest you can see the green leaves of periwinkle, they retain both color and vitality even in the cold. Perhaps this ability and gave reason to consider the plant magical.
A periwinkle put into water will be alive until all the moisture has evaporated, but simply escaping a flower into the ground is able to take root independently. In the garden or park, when the periwinkle blooms (June), the mood rises and even strangers want to smile.
