Agave - growing at home and basic rules for crop care
Content:
Agave at home is a reality. All conditions of watering, lighting and location are not difficult enough to comply with.
Agave: growing at home
The choice of lighting, soil and air temperature for agave
Agave plant: photo
There are three main factors on which the success of growing agave at home depends: the quality and nutritional value of the soil, sufficient lighting, and a suitable air temperature. Agave is a representative of the asparagus family, and as you know, in natural conditions, they grow on stony-sandy soil, that is, for growing at home, the soil must be the same. The best solution is to use and mix: coarse sand, leafy soil and turf soil. In order for the drainage to correspond to the qualities needed, it is necessary to add crushed brick chips to the soil mixture.
She prefers sills of the south and south-east direction. He also loves light very much, because if you put it in the shade, then it will gradually begin to die. Agave needs about ten hours of lighting per day. And due to the fact that daylight hours are reduced in winter, additional lighting will need to be turned off. Also, this culture is sensitive to heat, cold is destructive for it. That is why in the summer it needs a temperature of twenty to thirty degrees Celsius, and in the winter in the range of eighteen to twenty degrees Celsius.
Conditions for growing agave at home
Agave plant: photo
Watering for agave should be moderate. Since its natural environment is an arid desert, it does not need huge volumes of liquid either. From March to September, at the very peak of the growing season, the crop is watered twice in ten days, just so that the soil has time to dry seventy to eighty percent. From mid-autumn to February
watering is reduced to once every thirty days. It is important to ensure that the watering liquid does not stagnate in the soil, because this can cause the root system to rot. This plant does not need spraying, because the air humidity familiar to us is perfect for it.
Agave needs feeding and fertilization only during the growing season, that is, in the spring and summer it needs to be fed once two weeks, and in the fall only once a month. Closer to the winter period, you can stop fertilizing the plant. For the purpose of fertilization, you can use special products for succulents, which will contain a minimum of nitrogen. It is recommended to feed and fertilize the plant, together with watering.
Agave plant: photo
Wide ceramic pots are best suited for agave, it is imperative that they have drainage holes in the bottom. What you need to do: 1) At the very bottom you need to lay a sludge layer of gravel, crushed stone or expanded clay; 2) Next, lay out the soil from coarse sand, leafy earth and sod land; 3) After that, the plant must be planted in the chosen
capacity, trying not to deepen the neck of the root system. It needs to be entirely on the surface.You need to fill up the empty spaces with soil, but not ram it, because this can block air circulation and oxygen access to the root system; 4) Also, the culture must be fixed by putting small stones around it; 5) At the very top, you need to lay a layer for protection, namely: coarse sand, small shells and small gravel. During the active development and growth of the agave, it must be transplanted every year. After the plant becomes an adult, that is, after five years of life, it must be transplanted once every three years.
Unfortunately, agave is not capable of blooming indoors, therefore, the propagation method with the help of cuttings is most suitable for her:
- From a strong and healthy plant, you need to cut off one leaf, disinfect the cut site with coal powder;
- After about a day, the cutting can be placed in a mixture of coarse sand and peat soil;
- After the cutting takes root, and this will happen in about a month, it can be transplanted into an individual pot.
Agave: disease and pest control
Agave plant: photo
A resistant plant like agave has its enemies, for example: mealybugs, thrips, scale insects. The mealybug affects the root system of the plant and sucks out nutritious juices from it; only specialized chemicals will help in the fight against it. In the case of scale insects and thrips, the foliage of the crop will be affected. If you noticed them early
stage, then wiping the leaves with soapy or beer solution may well help you. But the main danger for agave is the wrong content and insufficient attention. If you take care of this plant poorly and disdainfully treat it, then soon there may be problems.
For instance:
- Due to too much watering, foliage may begin to wilt and wrinkle;
- With a large amount of fertilizers in the composition, of which there is a lot of calcium, the sharp tips of the foliage of the crop will turn yellow;
- If watering is not enough, then the foliage of the plant will lose its elasticity, juiciness and fleshiness;
- If there is not enough light for the agave, it may stop growing and develop, it may even die;
- If a sunny day in the life of a plant is too long, then the bush will begin to become covered with spots of a dark brown hue.
In addition, the agave plant can get sick with gray rot, or black rot, this can happen due to waterlogged soil and high humidity. With the fight against these infections, only special antifungal agents can help.
