Indoor saxifrage: description, planting and care at home with a photo

Saxifrage is a common ground cover plant used for landscaping the site, creating rockeries and alpine slides. Possessing a high decorative effect, she fell in love with both simple summer residents and eminent landscape designers. But the saxifrage can not only decorate the garden plot, but be a spectacular and beloved houseplant.

Description of the plant

Saxifrage is a herbaceous perennial belonging to the Saxifrage family, which includes more than 400 species. In the wild, the saxifrage grows in temperate climates throughout the Northern Hemisphere.The saxifrage is able to thrive in conditions that most plants cannot.

It got its name due to its ability to grow on rocky soil, at the foot of mountains and on rocks. The saxifrage clings with its roots to small cracks in the stones and gradually destroys them. The popular name for the culture is "gap-grass". Widely used by gardeners and landscapers around the world as a groundcover.

Saxifrage - a rhizome flower with long creeping shoots. Reaches a height of 5 to 70 centimeters. The plant feeds on numerous thin and branched roots. They are both at the base of the bush and grow in the internodes of shoots touching the ground.

Leaves petiolate, collected in a basal rosette, and vary greatly in different species. They are diamond-shaped, oval, heart-shaped or feathery. They can be both smooth and pubescent. The color of the foliage also varies, but always forms a calcareous white coating on it.The leaves are dark green, silver, gray and bluish.

Varieties and varieties of saxifrage for home cultivation

Some species and varieties of saxifrage are grown not only in flower beds, rockeries and alpine hills, but also at home. It is especially effective to use it as an ampelous plant.

Saxifrage weave

This is an elegant ampelous plant belonging to the Saxifrage family. In nature, it grows in the Asia-Pacific region, in rock crevices and on rocky cliffs. Most often, this species is grown at home. Weaving saxifrage is a beautiful and showy herbaceous perennial. It is highly decorative, and caring for a flower is not difficult.

Saxifrage leaves are round, straight and concave, green on top with silvery veins, and reddish on the underside.They are assembled into dense, flat rosettes. All parts of the plant are densely pubescent. From the leaf axils of the saxifrage, thin mustaches, painted in red, grow en masse. At the ends of the mustache, small rosettes are formed, similar to small spiders.

Blooms from May to September, the flowers are inconspicuous, smallish. Peduncles grow from the center of the leaf rosette. Flowers of irregular shape, pink or white, are collected in loose panicles. An excellent option would be growing in hanging planters. Adult plants acquire special decorative effect. They are literally hung with many intertwined mustaches of various lengths, dotted with rosettes of various sizes.

Saxifrage cotyledon

The second name is the stupid. Often found in the mountains of northern Europe, the Alps and the Pyrenees. In Norway and Iceland, it often grows on hardened volcanic lava. It has high decorative qualities, outwardly similar to succulent plants, in particular, echeveria.

The leaves are dense, fleshy, green in color, with edges covered with small teeth. They are oval or reed-shaped, collected in a rosette. Leaves with an intense glossy sheen, the edges are covered with white limescale.

Numerous white flowers are collected in paniculate inflorescences (up to 40 centimeters wide), located on high (from 20 to 60 centimeters) peduncles. They are aligned, star-shaped, whitish-pink in color. Interestingly, the size of the inflorescences is many times the size of the plant itself. Blooms throughout June.

Arends' saxifrage

Original ground cover perennial that forms a thick, bright green carpet. It is an attractive and easy to care for plant. It is widely used by designers when creating rockeries and alpine slides. The first to cultivate plants that grew in the wild was the German breeder Georg Arends.

Arends' saxifrage is somewhat similar to moss thickets. The lower leaves die off every year, and new foliage grows in the area of the tops. Therefore, saxifrage shoots are brown at the base and green at the top. When flowering, the appearance of the plant changes greatly.

At first, 15-20 cm numerous flower stalks grow over the plants. And then the juicy, green leaves are covered with a thick carpet of white, pinkish and red star-shaped flowers. Interestingly, red flowers appear much less often than white and pink. Today, the Arends saxifrage is represented by a wide variety of varieties, and planting them will add originality to any flower bed:

• Bluetenteppih;
• Highlander;
• Shneeteppih;
• Flamingo;
• Purplemantel.

Post-Purchase Actions

After buying a saxifrage pot, be sure to put it in partial shade. If the substrate is dry, it must be well moistened. Transplanting a plant into a new pot can be carried out no earlier than a week later. Moreover, not transshipment is carried out, but planting, with preliminary cleansing of the root system from the old substrate.

An important point - before planting, to protect against diseases and soil pests, the rhizomes are soaked in a solution of fungicide and insecticide.

Rules for caring for indoor flower

The saxifrage is an undemanding plant. But it will show all its beauty, motley, rich color of leaves only with proper care.

Illumination and temperature conditions

Saxifrage can be grown in partial shade. Pots will be placed on the windows located on the western or eastern side. Avoid exposure to direct sunlight.This will lead to the loss of juiciness of the leaves, they will become faded, lethargic and wrinkled. The saxifrage acquires the greatest decorative effect, depth of color and clarity of pattern under diffused lighting.

During the growing season, the plant needs to maintain a temperature regime from +20 C to +25 C degrees. With a greater increase in temperature, frequent ventilation or transfer of plants to fresh air (outdoors or on a balcony) is necessary.

The saxifrage tolerates wintering well. But one condition must be observed - the temperature comfortable for the plant during this period is not higher than +12 C, +15 C degrees.

How to water

Watering in winter should be done carefully, trying not to get water on densely pubescent foliage. Otherwise, fungal diseases will quickly develop, and the plant will simply rot. In summer, moderate but regular watering is carried out, as the topsoil dries up. Use soft, settled water at room temperature.When watering, it is highly undesirable to “flood” the plant or allow water to stagnate.

Moisture

The saxifrage is characterized by excellent tolerance to dry air. With a cool wintering, you can do without spraying from a spray bottle. But in the hot summer months, systematic, but light spraying is necessary, with a frequency of 2-3 times a week.

Soilmix

Saxifrage grows in nature in harsh conditions, therefore, when grown as a houseplant, it is not particularly demanding on the soil mixture. But for its good development, the soil must be air and moisture permeable. The substrate is easy to prepare yourself or purchase ready-made in the garden center. The correct soil mix should consist of:

• 2 pieces of leaf ground;
• 1 piece turf;
• 1 part non-acidic peat;
• 1 part coarse sand;
• and finely detailed stones.

Fertilizer

Fertilize saxifrage only during active growth. And it is better to underfeed than to overfeed. Nitrogen fertilizers are practically not used, but the use of phosphorus-potassium fertilizers several times during the season will only benefit.

Features of transplant

Shrub transplantation is carried out when the roots of the plant massively peek out of the drainage holes. This means that there is not enough room for the root system in the old pot. Transplant a flower at any time while the plant is in a state of active growth.

Diseases and pests

No matter how unpretentious the saxifrage is, it is still affected by some diseases and pests. These are spider mites, mealybugs (root pests) and green aphids.

From the worm will help the strait of soil or root lock in the solution of Aktara insecticide, and from the rest - spraying with Aktellik insectoacaricide.

The main diseases that saxifrage is susceptible to are powdery mildew, rust and spotting. In the fight against them, copper-containing preparations, in particular copper oxychloride, will help.

Breeding Methods

Reproduction of saxifrage is not difficult. Can be grown by dividing the bush, rooting rosettes or sowing seeds.

Seeds

Saxifrage seeds have high germination. After sowing, they germinate within a week, but before that they must undergo stratification. When sowing, the seeds are scattered on the surface of the soil and slightly pressed down. After careful spraying, the seed container is covered with a film and placed in a warm place. For germination, it is necessary to maintain a temperature of +18 C to +20 C degrees.

Shoots

When the plant fades, you can propagate by dividing the bush. Rosettes are carefully separated from the mother plant by hand. Then rooted in the shade, as independent seedlings. Mandatory protection of young seedlings from direct sunlight.

Rosettes

The most effective way to propagate is rooting rosettes. Near the flowerpot with saxifrage we put small pots with a substrate or small cassettes - up to 10 cells. Sockets are placed in the center of the pots and pinned to the ground. Then the soil is abundantly spilled, and then regularly sprayed, until rooting. After the roots grow back, the mustache coming from the mother plant is cut off.

Growing problems

The main problems in growing are overflow or, conversely, stagnation of water, violation of the temperature regime during wintering, burning of leaves in the sun, damage by some diseases and pests.

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