The technology of growing decorative cabbage

Ornamental cabbage is two years old a plant that will be an excellent decoration of the garden. There are many varieties that allow you to create an original landscape design. The culture is adapted to a temperate climate, it can withstand freezing, care and cultivation are simple, even beginners can do it.

Technology for growing decorative cabbage

Characteristics of decorative cabbage

Decorative cabbage ( Brassica oleracea var. Acephala) is a common garden variety (Brassica oleracea) .According to some reports, such varieties began to be grown in ancient Greece, but modern varieties were created by the Japanese. From the Land of the Rising Sun, an ornamental plant has spread throughout the world. It is famous for the variety of colors and the bizarre shape of the leaves. It is grown as an annual, less often a perennial culture.

The height of ornamental cabbage is from 30 cm to 120 cm. It is edible, although more often it is used exclusively for animal feed.Plants differ in the shape of the heads, in some they are completely absent. Most of the leaves are curly, painted in different colors. The width of the leaf plate is 10-30 cm, the length is 20-60 cm.

Varieties of variety

In shape of the head

There are such varieties:

• Egg-shaped;
• Obvoid-egg;
• Elliptical;
• Truncated ellipses.

According to the shape of the leaf

The edges of the leaves have denticles, which makes the bush curly, resembling lace. On this basis, the following varieties are distinguished:

• scalloped-coarse-curled;
• scalloped-finely curly;
• moss-curly.

By color

Colors can be different. Most often found:

• green with white stripes;
• light green;
• green with a blue tint;
• with pink or lilac spots;
• bluish-green;
• red;
• burgundy;
• dark purple;
• yellow;
• cream;
• white.

The garden crop ripens in late summer or early fall. If you bring cabbage into the house, it “Blossoms” until the end of December. The culture is very resistant to frost, able to withstand the harsh Russian climate, grows in almost any conditions. The bush does not freeze even with a 5-degree frost. Some varieties withstand -10-12 ° C.

Ornamental cabbage varieties

There are many varieties of ornamental cabbage

Today, there are several dozen varieties of ornamental cabbage. Let’s try to divide them into groups, depending on the appearance, country of origin.

Japanese varieties

Japanese pink-like varieties resemble large roses. They have curly leaves, a bright centerpiece and a green edging. All of them are hybrids, so they buy ready-made seeds for planting. The most popular varieties and their brief description:

• Tokyo. The shape of the head is round, the leaves are wavy and corrugated. The average height is 35 cm. The bush is pink, red, cream shade.
• Osaka (pink, red and white). It resembles a small hybrid of Tokyo in shape. It grows to 60 cm in height, the head of a head of cabbage has a diameter of about 45 cm. The leaves are terry and smooth at the edges, their shape is smooth.
• Nagoya (pink and white). Round leaflets at this layer at the edges have a multilayer dense fringe. Rosettes are large, up to 60 cm in diameter.
• Peacock. A bush about 30 cm high, leaves with deep cuts. The color of the middle is cream or purple-pink.
• Princess. She has a loose wide outlet. The stem is not too tall, up to 30 cm. The color scheme is this: a dark green edging and a purple center.
• Colors of the east. The head is 30-35 cm in diameter and 40 cm high. The leaves are gray-green at the edges, purple in the center.

Japanese hybrids can be transplanted into flower beds when summer flowers have bloomed. One plant occupies an area of ​​40-60 cm, therefore such decorations are very economical.

Palm varieties

Palm varieties are large varieties that do not form heads, but grow in height . Their leaves hang to the tops, resembling palm trees. From here varieties and hybrids got the name. The most popular decorative palm cabbage in landscape design:

• Lark tongue. It extends 120 cm in height. The leaves are highly corrugated, rugged at the ends, hanging down in a beautiful cascade. Their length can reach 120 cm. Why it is so called, it’s hard to say, because nobody really saw the tongue of a lark.
• Tall red. In appearance, the plant is similar to the previous variety. The leaves are painted in burgundy or purple, their length is up to 60 cm, they do not hang in a cascade.
• Kale varieties. It has a height of up to 70 cm. The leaves are very strongly corrugated, lyre-shaped. The color depends on the variety, it can be green, gray, and red.

Palm-shaped decorative cabbage in landscape design is used to occupy an empty space in the middle of a flower bed. Often it becomes the central element of the composition. She looks beautiful in flower pots and tubs.

Planting Rules

To get decorative cabbage seeds for cultivation, you need to leave the bushes for the second year. In the southern regions, they can calmly winter in the garden. For reliability, the soil is covered with straw or agricultural film for the winter. In the middle lane and in the north, it is better to dig plants along with a large lump of earth. The roots are wrapped in film and hung upside down somewhere in the basement or in any other cool room. There is no need to care for heads of cabbage. In the spring they are again planted in the garden.

Flowering begins in mid-summer. When the flowering arrow fades and pods appear on the stem, they must be wrapped in gauze or cloth so that the birds do not eat. The pods are torn off when they become completely dry. Seeds stored for 5 years. Hybrid decorative cabbage seeds are best bought at a specialty store. Varietal qualities of the hybrid may not be preserved when the material is independently obtained. As a result, it turns out that we sow one variety and another grows.

Growing seedlings

Planting decorative cabbage and caring for seedlings are simple. You can start the procedure at home from mid-March to mid-April. The best seedlings grow in soil, which consists of equal parts of turf land, peat and river sand.Seeds are planted in containers with a height of about 15 cm, they are deepened into the soil by 1 cm. Sowing is carried out so that between seeds there is a distance of 3-5 cm. Then it will be possible to grow healthy and strong seedlings.

The first week of pots, where decorative cabbage is sown on home seedlings, kept in a cool place, at a temperature of 8 ° C-10 ° C. Then the seedlings are rearranged in a warmer and well-lit place. The optimum temperature is 14 ° C-18 ° C. The first shoots appear after about 4 days. When there are 2 real leaves on the shoots, they pick.

Seedlings are transplanted into small 6 × 6 cm pots, one plant each. During the growing season, young plants are fed twice. Suitable nitroammophoska or Kemira station wagon. 1 m² take 1 tbsp. l fertilizers.

For the prophylaxis of the black leg in seedlings, watering rules are strictly observed. The soil before sowing seeds is moistened, and then only slightly irrigated. When the decorative cabbage grows up, it is moderately watered as the earthen coma dries. It is necessary to take out seedlings in open ground after 35-40 days, after the sowing of decorative cabbage was carried out. If there is a greenhouse in the garden, you can plant the seeds there in early May. After a month, they pick a flowerbed.

Growing in open ground

Seedlings must be planted in open ground in late May or early June to grow heads of cabbage before the end of summer.Previously, the pots with plants are quenched, put in a cool place with a temperature of 12 ° C-16 ° C. Growing and caring for decorative cabbage is quite simple. The main thing is to choose the right site. The culture is photophilous, therefore it needs to be planted in an open, well-lit place. The lighter the more beautiful the plant will look.

Soil decorative cabbage likes loamy or sandy. Before planting a bed they push, make holes about 20 cm deep. The distance between the bushes should be 30-60 cm, depending on the variety. First, the wells are watered with water, then the seedlings are placed there at a slight angle and sprinkled with earth.

Watering and feeding

Further cultivation of ornamental cabbage requires regular watering and proper fertilizing. Culture loves moisture, but in conditions of overflow it grows poorly and is sick. It is enough to irrigate the soil with water every other day. Daily watering will be needed if there is drought in the yard. Water at the roots should not stagnate. No more than 1 liter of liquid is poured under one bush.

Fertilizers should be applied several times during the season:

• 10-14 days after planting, urea or mullein at a dilution of 1:10 is applied.
• After another 2-3 weeks, you need to make mineral fertilizers (10 g of ammonium nitrate and potassium chloride, 20 g of superphosphate are diluted in 10 l of water).

If necessary the procedure is repeated every 20 days, alternating urea (mullein) with mineral fertilizers.You can grow a culture without additional fertilizing, but then the bushes will not be so lush and beautiful. When 8-9 leaves appear on the decorative cabbage, it is necessary to loosen the ground. It is important to weed the beds in time. Weeds not only drown out the growth of bushes, but also become a good place for propagation of pests.

Fight against diseases and pests

Decorative cabbage is quite resistant to diseases and pests, but wrong care, bad weather, can cause plants to become sick. It is not always easy to protect heads of cabbage from pests, especially if they crawl from neighboring fields and sites. Some of the most common growing problems and how to solve them are:

• Fleas. These pests are afraid of ash, tobacco and red pepper. From these components a mixture is prepared in a ratio of 1: 1: 1 and heads of cabbage are pollinated. You can just wash off the parasites with thin streams of water from a watering can.
• Slug. To protect themselves from these lovers of cabbage, the ground around the bushes is sprinkled with crushed shells or needles, pests are scared away by dill, calendula, basil. To combat slugs, you can also use the drugs “Meta”, “Thunderstorm”, “Slug”.
• Caterpillars. So that butterflies do not lay eggs on leaves, you can plant marigolds. These flowers decorate a flower bed and reliably protect plants. If the tracks still wound up, it is best to assemble them manually. A solution of superphosphate (1: 100 with water) helps to scare away butterflies.
• Root rot or black leg. The best prevention of this disease is proper watering. Fungicides, for example, Fitosporin, are used for treatment.

Using cabbage in landscape design

Decorative cabbage on the flower bed will delight the eye until late autumn, because many summer residents so value this culture. In recent years, it began to grow more and more often.It is used to create landscape design even by professionals. The plant can be planted in tubs, decorate with them borders, even create beautiful vertical flower beds. Here are some useful tips:

• It’s best to buy several varieties of contrasting flowers, you can create beautiful drawings from them in the flowerbed.
• High cabbage is planted in the center, 1-2 shrubs, around plant varieties of roses. They can also be planted on the back line near the fence.
• With the help of large pink cabbage, you can plant a large space. To do this, no more than 30-40 plants will be needed.
• Ornamental garden cabbage can first be planted in the greenhouse, and then transferred to the garden.
• If you plant the plant in a pot in late autumn, and then bring it to the house: it can stand there until Christmas.
• Cut heads of cabbage can be put in a vase: they retain their appearance for about a month.

Decorative cabbage on the flower bed will look beautiful and original . A variety of colors will delight the eye, even when most colors fade. At the same time, there will be no difficulties in growing. Before choosing a variety, be sure to carefully inspect the site. Plan how to plant cabbage, what shades to combine.