Helenium
Description. This tall, beautiful autumn perennial originated from North America, but thanks to its unpretentiousness, Helenium, a perennial decorative plant that forms a lush, tall shrub column-shaped shrub with numerous stems, has well established in our latitudes. The height of the plants varies from 50 to 150 cm. Sturdy, woody, leafy along the entire height of the stem, they rise to a height of sometimes up to 2 m and are strongly branched in the upper part. Each branched shoot ends with a flower - a basket of chamomile form with a convex dense center up to 6 cm in diameter with the most diverse - yellow, bronze, dark red, brown and in combination of these tones - color. As a result, several dozen flowers spread on each stem.
There are terry and semimark varieties Flower in the structure resembles a daisy, the edges of the petal are notched. On each shoot up to 15-20 such flowers. Leaves are linear, light green. Blossoms from the middle of July - early August to the first frost. The main advantage of this species is a long, rather late and very abundant flowering.
Especially good are the early two-color helenium, which has yellow flowers with a reddish-brown tinge, and gaylard-colored - with dark-brown flowers with light yellow edges. There is a variety of red beauty with red flowers, there are also undersized forms of golden colors.
In the process of flowering, the flowers of many varieties of the genius have the peculiarity of changing color to a darker one, the petals slightly bend downwards, revealing a mottled velvety center. Helenium is used in group plantings to create bright color patches of late-summer and autumn flowering. Varieties and species with bright colors are good for use in the background of planting to create a background. Helenium is always used when creating color compositions in warm orange-yellow-red tones. Tall Gel-Nium varieties are suitable for decoration in the background of unattractive places and buildings.
Cultivation and care. Helenium is a rather unpretentious plant with moderate requirements to growing conditions. It prefers sunny places and loamy soils rich in humus and nutrients. Poorly transferring excessive moisture, therefore, in low-lying areas, the soil under the helenium must be drained.
Care for gelenium is simple: weeding, surface loosening, mulching with peat, watering, pruning for winter, timely transplant.
A biological feature of plants is the annual change in the autumn of the mother rhizome to independent renal buds of renewal. In old plantations, buds of renewal develop on the surface of the soil and, therefore, can freeze in severe winter. To prevent this, gelenium should be planted in 2-3 years, or sprinkled every year with peat-crumb with humus to old bushes. It is better to transplant and divide plants in the spring. You can propagate them and seeds. When sowing in the spring in boxes in the greenhouse, the young plant blooms after 2 years. In spring or autumn, the seeds can be sown in beds, in this case the plant blooms a year later. To permanent place helenium planted at a distance of 40 x 60 cm between plants, depending on the height of the variety.