Cinquefoil (Potentilla) is a beautiful and delicate flower from the Pink family. This plant can be both herbaceous and shrubby. Shrub cinquefoil is popularly called cinquefoil or Kuril tea. Some varieties of Potentilla have medicinal properties, but more often this plant is often used to create interesting landscape design. Cinquefoil is great for decorating a curb, alpine slide or hedge. It is very popular among gardeners due to the simultaneous combination of unpretentiousness and extraordinary beauty.
Description of the cinquefoil plant
Cinquefoil can be either a perennial plant or a shrub, or an annual or biennial. Stems can be erect, widened, ascending, and less often creeping. Leaves are multiple, feathery, bright green or gray-green in color. Shrub cinquefoil can grow up to one and a half meters in height and up to 1 m in width. Flowers are collected in pseudo-umbellate or thyroid-paniculate inflorescences. Flowers can be white, red, golden yellow, orange, pink and cream. Potentilla bloom begins in May and continues until September. The fruit is collected from a variety of glabrous or hairy achenes.
Growing Potentilla from seeds
It is necessary to plant Potentilla seedlings in late February and early March. Containers with planted seeds must be covered with foil and removed to a room where the temperature is 15-18 degrees. After the seedlings sprout, polyethylene must be removed. When the seedlings form two true leaves, it must be transplanted into peat pots. Seedlings grow rather slowly, but despite this, they must be planted in a flowerbed at the end of August. A plant grown in this way will bloom only after a year. Further, the cinquefoil will be able to reproduce with the help of self-seeding.
Planting Potentilla in open ground
Planting grassy Potentilla
In autumn, Potentilla seeds can be planted once in open ground. During the winter cold, the seeds will undergo natural certification, only the strongest and strongest will sprout. You can also plant seeds in open ground in spring, but it is better to grow seedlings first. Since this option is more reliable, most seeds will germinate and not be damaged by any insects at such a young age.
Planting shrub Potentilla
Shrub Potentilla seedlings should be planted in open ground in early spring in holes that should be twice the size of the root system of the seedling. The distance between the bile seedlings should be at least thirty centimeters. A layer of lime gravel should be poured into the seedling pits in order to make it well-drained. Then it is necessary to mix humus, leafy soil, sand, complex mineral fertilizer and pour the resulting mixture into the pits with a thick layer.Then place the seedling there and sprinkle well with garden soil, tamp and water abundantly. Within a month, shrub cinquefoil needs abundant and regular watering. In order for moisture to stay in the soil longer, it must be mulched with sawdust, bark or straw.
Potentilla care
Location
Most types of Potentilla are unpretentious and do not need special care, but there are those that are more fastidious, they need careful care. These varieties include white cinquefoil (likes to grow in the shade or at least partial shade), shiny cinquefoil (prefers dry sandy soil). All other types of Potentilla prefer to grow in bright areas, shaded at noon.
The soil
The soil should be well-drained, loose, slightly acidic and nutritious, with a little lime content. An exception is the Arctic Potentilla, which requires acidic soil to grow.
Watering
Caring for shrub and grassy cinquefoil is quite simple. Frequent and abundant watering for Potentilla is necessary only in the first month after planting, then it must be reduced to once every two weeks. If the soil was not mulched during planting, then after each watering it is imperative to loosen the soil and remove weeds.
Top dressing and fertilizers
Fertilizers need to be applied three times per season. The first feeding in May, the second in June and the third at the end of August. You can also spray the cinquefoil with water in the evening, the plant will react positively to this.
Pruning
For normal growth and development of Potentilla in spring, it is imperative to prune. This will give the plant a neat look. During such pruning, you need to remove all dry and damaged branches, as well as those that prevent other branches from growing or grow inside the bush. For older bushes, it is necessary to carry out anti-aging pruning; for this, most of the old and non-flowering branches should be removed, leaving young shoots.
Cinquefoil after flowering
After the flowering of the annual Potentilla ends, it must be removed from the site and dug up the soil. Shrub cinquefoil must be trimmed and treated with Bordeaux liquid.
Adult plants do not need additional shelter for the winter, as they have a high level of frost resistance. But cuttings and young seedlings must be covered with a layer of mulch and covering material.
Reproduction of Potentilla
Cinquefoil reproduces not only by seeds, but also by dividing the bush, cuttings and layering.
The division of the bush should be carried out in the autumn or spring. Propagate by layering and cuttings in the second half of summer. It is possible to propagate Potentilla by vegetative methods only when the plant is more than four years old. It is necessary to divide the bush with sterile and sharp objects into parts so that each has at least two living buds. Then the delenki must be treated with a root growth stimulant and planted in the soil.
Cuttings should be cut from strong shoots. Their length should be 10 cm. Cut cuttings should be germinated in a warm room for a month, then planted in open ground and covered well.
In order to propagate the cinquefoil by layering, it is necessary to cut a strong shoot and sprinkle it with soil. Before the onset of autumn, the layers will take root and can be transplanted.
Diseases and pests
If you follow all the rules for caring for cinquefoil, then you will have to fight against harmful insects and diseases. But there are also cases when cinquefoil can be affected by rust, spotting and powdery mildew. If signs of the disease appear on the plant, then it must be treated with special means in the near future. Of the pests, only scoops attack cinquefoil, but they can be easily dealt with, it is enough to spray the plant with special insecticides.
The healing properties of Potentilla
Only white, erect and goose cinquefoil has healing properties. Cinquefoil stimulates the central nervous system, enhances kidney filtration.It is used to treat dysentery and diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, as well as to treat diseases of the liver and pancreas. Potentilla contains many useful substances that allow you to fight gynecological diseases and inflammation of the oral cavity. To do this, prepare a decoction of Potentilla, rinse or douche.
Infusion of cinquefoil stems helps fight hepatitis and liver cirrhosis, increases bilirubin and relieves swelling.
But Potentilla has contraindications - Potentilla is prohibited for people with increased blood clotting and hypotension.
Types and varieties of Potentilla
There are a lot of types and varieties of Potentilla. More popular species and varieties will be described in more detail below.
Apennine cinquefoil (Potentilla apennina) - a perennial plant with pubescent leaves of a trifoliate shape and a silvery shade. The flowers are pink or white.
White cinquefoil (Potentilla alba) Is a perennial plant that grows up to twenty centimeters in height. Basal leaves are palmate-lobed. The flowers are white, collected in umbellate or racemose inflorescences.
Cinquefoil goose, or goose foot (Potentilla anserina) - leaves are pinnate, yellow flowers up to 2 cm in diameter.
Nepalese cinquefoil (Potentilla nepalensis) - perennial, can grow up to 50 cm. Stems are straight and branched, have a purple hue. The leaves are palmate-lobed and dark green in color. The flowers are large enough, red or pale pink in color. Flowering begins in July and lasts for 2 months.
The most popular varieties of this species: Roxana, Floris, Miss Wilmott.
Erect cinquefoil, or straight, or galangal (Potentilla erecta) - a perennial that can grow up to 20 cm. The stem is erect and branched. The leaves are trifoliate. Flowers are single. Flowering begins in July and lasts until autumn.
Silver cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea) - perennial plant with arched stems. It grows up to 30 cm. The leaves are scaly and five separate, on the back side they are covered with white hairs. Flowers are collected in paniculate inflorescences. Bloom lasts from June to July.
Hybrid cinquefoil (Potentilla x hybrida) - this species includes many garden hybrid forms of the plant. Stems are straight and strongly branching from above. They grow up to 1 m in height. The leaves are trifoliate or serrate. The flowers are velvety red, yellow, purple or pink
Most popular varieties: Master Floris, Volcano, Yellow Queen.
