Coleria Is An Unpretentious Houseplant With Beautiful Flowers

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

An unpretentious houseplant with spectacular flowers and decorative velvety green leaves - fluffy koleria. According to the horoscope, the zodiac sign Aries (March 21 - April 20) corresponds to the following plants: echmea sparkling and striped; spurge brilliant; garden geranium (with red and dark pink flowers); Indian and Japanese azalea (with red and pink flowers); gusmania reed; dwarf pomegranate; royal begonia; coleria fluffy.

Coleria (Kohleria) from the Gesneriaceae family is a perennial herb with a small scaly rhizome, erect unbranched pubescent shoots and opposite leaves of a broad-oval shape, pointed at the apex.

Its foliage is covered with burgundy velvety hairs, which are most visible on young leaves. Bright tubular flowers (up to 5 cm long) are also pubescent and vaguely resemble digitalis. The corolla tube is slightly curved and slopes downward.

At the apex, the corolla divides into five rounded lobes with white dots or streaks on the petals and fauces. Flowers, single or 2-3, are located on the axillary peduncle. A pistil and stamens hang over the entrance to the flower.

Of the fifty types of koleria available, the foxglove color (K. digitaliflora Fritsch.), The pleasant color (K. amabilis Hook.), But more often the downy - flowered color (K. eriantha Hanst.) And the Bogotan color (K.bogotensis) are grown indoors. … They all come from the monsoon equatorial forests of Colombia.

The first species is a plant with straight, lodging shoots with age (up to 80 cm high), with opposite ovoid-oblong light green leaves (12-15 cm long, 7-8 cm wide). The flowers have a bell-shaped corolla with a tube 3-5 cm long, swollen from below, narrower to the throat, and a wide-open limb with 5 obtuse lobes. The whole plant is densely pubescent with spaced white hairs.

The second type of coleria differs from the previous one in lower growth and wide, ovoid leaves, silvery-green, brownish-purple along the veins, and smaller (tube length 2 cm) bright pink flowers with crimson specks on the limb.

The sizes of the plants of the fluffy coleria are close to the foxglove. Unlike the two previous species, it is characterized by dark green velvety leaves with reddish pubescence along the edge and bottom along the veins and orange-red flowers (up to 5 cm long) with yellow dots on the lower lobes of the limb.

Coleria Bogota has stems up to 20 cm high, leaves are dark, brownish-green with light veins, flowers (up to 2 cm long) are crimson-red with white dots or strokes on the petals and throat.

Coleria is generally unpretentious when grown in apartments. For summer maintenance, she is given a warm place (18 … 22 ° C) with good illumination (with light shading from direct sunlight); it develops normally under artificial lighting. Although the plant loves high humidity (but is able to adapt to relatively dry conditions), spraying its pubescent leaves is not recommended, as water droplets leave ugly spots on them. For this reason, the container with a flower can be placed on a pallet with moistened stones.

Water the plant with moderately soft, slightly warm water. The soil should be moist all the time (they do not allow it to dry out or stagnate water in the pan). Some growers, calculating the height and volume of soil in the pot, water the plant through a tray. At the end of flowering, in the fall, watering is gradually reduced.

Coleria is a plant with a pronounced dormant period. Therefore, by November, appropriate conditions of detention are created for her. At this time, a room with a temperature of 14 … 15 ° C suits her, extremely rare watering is required, while leaves are not allowed to completely fall off. In the spring, with the beginning of the development of shoots, watering is gradually increased.

With good care, the plant develops quite quickly, therefore, every spring (ideally in March), experts advise to transplant it with simultaneous division of the rhizome. When using fresh fertile soil, fertilizing the plant is not required.

Colorado fluffy is propagated by apical cuttings and by dividing the rhizome during transplantation. For greater effectiveness and the formation of a beautiful bush, 2-3 rhizomes are planted in each pot (to a depth of 1.5-3 cm); water very carefully until new shoots appear.

For reproduction in the second way, the apical stalk is cut from the aerial part and rooted in the ground at a slight slope, covered with a glass jar from above. A soil substrate is used, consisting of leafy soil, high peat and sand in a ratio of 2: 1: 1 with the addition of a small amount of mullein and a well-soluble phosphorus fertilizer.

Spider mites, aphids and whiteflies may appear from harmful insects on koleria. At high humidity of the soil substrate and low air temperature, there is a risk of damage to the root system by rot.