Buttercup (lat. Ranunculus) is an extensive genus that includes more than 400 species of herbaceous flowering plants distributed throughout the globe. Belongs to the Buttercup family. These flowers are unpretentious, preferring wet soils.
Description
Buttercupis a perennial plant 30–70 cm high. It has a fleshy tuberous rhizome. The stem is thin, straight, branched in the upper part, covered with foliage alternately located on it. Leaf plates are trifoliate, smooth, light green, up to 4 cm long, up to 2 cm wide.
Flowers can be simple, double or densely double. Their color palette is very diverse. There are bicolor varieties of buttercup. Flowering is observed from the beginning to the end of the summer season. Flowers stand for a long time in the cut, keeping fresh for 5 – 7 days.
The fruit is a multi-nutlet with thickened lionfish seeds inside.
When breeding buttercups, it is worth remembering that they are poisonous, so you need to work with them with gloves.
Varieties of buttercup garden
Despite the abundance of species of this crop, only a few of them are used in ornamental gardening.
The garden or Asian ranunculus (Ranunculus asiaticus) has received the greatest distribution in culture, on the basis of which a large number of beautiful varieties have been obtained.
This species is grown as an annual. It is a bush up to 40 cm high, with straight branching stems. Flowers can be simple and double, a variety of tones, depending on the variety.
A photo of the most popular varieties of garden ranunculus is also described:
“Double Pink Buttercup” – has dense terry inflorescences of a piercing pink color scheme.
“Bloomingdale Rose Bicolor” – terry variety with snow-white buds. A thin pink border runs along the edge of numerous petals.
“Purple Pikoti” – forms large white inflorescences, on the petals of which lilac pollination is applied.
“Bloomingdale Orange Bicolor” – a bush 30 – 40 cm high with expressive lush buds of orange color. The petals have a thin red border. The diameter of the flowers is 8 – 9 cm. The variety belongs to the abundant and long-blooming ones, therefore it is often found in gardeners’ plots.
“Bloomingdale Blue Bicolor” is a low-growing variety with a height of 20 – 25 cm. It is valued for its double white buds with a purple edge on the petals.
“Red” – an exquisite variety with large inflorescences of rich red color. Often used for making bouquets. The length of the stems is 30 – 40 cm.
“Pikoti” – the flowers of this variety outwardly resemble peonies. Petals pink and white.
“Elegant” – a variety with lush buds, consisting of many tightly fitting petals of light and dark pink.
Next, you will learn how to grow buttercups from seeds and nodules, as well as receive recommendations for planting and caring for plants when grown outdoors.
Cultivation
This culture is obtained using seeds and tubers. As the practice of experienced gardeners shows, it is better to purchase seed in a store, because if you manually collect it from flowers already on the site, germination will be quite low.
Seeds are planted for seedlings in the last days of February or with the onset of spring. To do this, take low containers, fill them with soil for growing seedlings, or with a substrate prepared from peat, leaf soil and sand.
The seed is evenly distributed over the soil mixture, without pressing it, then covered with a thin layer of earth. The soil is moistened with a spray gun, then the crops are covered with plastic wrap to create a warm, humid environment.
Crops are kept in a bright, cool place with an air temperature of 10 – 14 degrees. When caring for crops, you should remove the shelter every day for 1 to 3 hours, remove accumulated condensate from it.
Moisten the substrate moderately and only after its top layer has dried. Sprouts will hatch in 2-3 weeks. After this happens, you need to move the containers to a warmer place with a temperature of 18 – 20 degrees.
Young plants should receive enough light, so they should be kept on a south or east window sill. If necessary, you will need to use phytolamps.
When the second pair of leaf plates is formed at the seedlings, it is dived into peat pots to avoid damage to the roots when transplanted into open ground.
Planting seedlings in the ground
The grown seedlings are planted on the site in late spring. By this time, the return frosts should be completely gone. If you plant young plants earlier, there is a high probability that they will freeze.
When choosing a site, you should focus on the preferences of the buttercup. This is a light-loving crop that can bloom profusely in bright sunlight, but also successfully forms buds in light shade.
The place where the flower will grow must be protected from strong gusts of wind and drafts. Despite the pretentiousness of the soil composition, this culture feels most comfortable on fertile, slightly acidic substrates.
Before planting seedlings in open ground, prepare a site, dig it up, make holes at a distance of 20 cm. A layer of drainage is laid on the bottom using expanded clay or brick chips.
Seedlings are placed in holes in a peat pot, or, if plastic dishes were used, they are transplanted by transshipment. The holes are covered with earth, the seedlings are watered. Flowering of buttercups obtained by this method can be expected in a year.
Reproduction by nodules
This culture can be successfully propagated by tubers. To do this, in the fall, after flowering is completed, an overgrown perennial mother plant is selected, they dig it up, divide the rhizome into parts, breaking off the tubers.
Planting material is stored until spring in a dark, cool place. After the snow melts, the tubers are kept in warm water, then planted on a plot to a depth of 7–9 cm. Sprinkle a layer of mulch on top of the planting.
Care
- Watering. When caring for a buttercup, it is important to adjust watering. This plant is moisture-loving, but does not tolerate stagnant moisture in the soil. When carrying out water procedures, moderation is important. It is necessary to irrigate the bushes so that they are properly saturated with moisture, but at the same time, they must not be flooded. Excess moisture is fraught with the occurrence of rot, fungal diseases, mold. At the end of flowering, watering this crop can be halved.
- Topdressing. In order for the buttercup to please the eye with lush buds and bright foliage, it is necessary to feed the flower throughout the summer months with an interval of 20 to 30 days. For this, a liquid mineral composition is suitable, which is useful to alternate with biohumus. Once a year, with the onset of spring, the soil is enriched with humus.
- Wintering. Most varieties of this crop do not tolerate low temperatures, therefore, before the onset of frost, the aerial part is cut off, the tubers are removed from the ground and transferred to a room with a temperature of 10 – 15 degrees. Store until spring in wooden boxes with peat or in boxes.
- Fight against diseases and pests. When growing buttercups, the gardener may encounter flower diseases such as gray rot and powdery mildew. These diseases affect the plant if the irrigation regime is not followed, when the soil does not have time to dry out between water procedures. In addition, in rainy summers, fungus can infect the roots. To prevent the occurrence of diseases during planting, a layer of drainage is laid at the bottom of the planting pits. In the process of caring for a flower, they pay special attention to watering, paying attention to the condition of the soil. Fungicides are used to control powdery mildew and gray mold.
The most common insect pests include the nematode, cabbage butterfly and aphids. Insecticides help get rid of pests.
Applying
Bright, beautiful and unpretentious to growing conditions, buttercups are widely used in landscape design. They serve to create colorful colorful flower beds, successfully combined with other ornamental plants.
This flower is planted in group plantings, combining several varieties of different color buds and stem lengths. Thus, it turns out to create spectacular compositions even in the most nondescript area.
Buttercups can be scattered in all the empty places of the garden to add bright spots to the green area, and in this way enliven it, make it elegant, pleasing to the eye. Many varieties are bred in pots and flowerpots. Potted compositions serve as decoration for balconies, loggias, house adjoining territory.
Buttercups are often used to make bouquets. Pink, cream, red, snow-white flowers look especially impressive against the background of bright greenery. Such bouquets remain fresh and attractive for at least a week.
