How to Grow Mallow? Detailed Planting Methods and Precautions
Generally speaking, it is very difficult for plant seeds to go through a process like being roasted over fire. Never mind that seeds usually get burned to ashes after being roasted over fire; ordinary people would not roast plant seeds over fire either. But mallow is just such a rather unusual species. Before sowing mallow, we first need to roast the mallow seeds over fire.
How to Grow Mallow
Roast the seeds over fire until the outer shells crack, so that moisture can seep into the inside of the seeds and let the young sprouts emerge. After sowing the seeds, cover them with 1 cm of soil, and at the same time take care to keep the soil moist. If you want mallow to bloom continuously, it needs sufficient nutrients. Fertilizer mainly based on phosphorus should be applied 1—2 times a month. Diseased branches, weak branches, dead branches, overly dense branches, and spent flowers and stems should be pruned away at any time. To prevent it from producing too many side branches, single-flowered varieties should also have leggy and long branches cut short. This will likewise make mallow bloom more.
Mallow Planting Methods and Precautions
1. Soil
Mallow does not have high requirements for soil. You can choose sandy soil, or use slightly acidic nutrient soil or leaf mold. After potting the mallow, place the potted mallow in a sunny spot for half a day, which can encourage it to bloom.
2. Light and Temperature
Mallow likes an environment with plenty of sunlight and prefers a somewhat cool environment; it can tolerate cold. When growing mallow, the suitable temperature for growth is between 18°C and 25°C, and sufficient sunlight should be ensured. In the cold winter, the potted mallow needs to be placed indoors in a warm place with plenty of sunlight, with the temperature kept at 3°C-5°C.
3. Watering and Fertilizing
In terms of water and fertilizer, watering should lean toward dry rather than wet, to avoid root rot, especially in severe cold and hot summers. Because mallow blooms profusely, it needs relatively more nutrients, so during the growth period of mallow, you can apply some compound fertilizer of nitrogen and phosphorus. During the flowering period, fertilizer mainly based on phosphorus fertilizer should be applied to promote flowering.
4. Propagation Methods
Mallow propagation generally uses the cutting method and the layering method. For cuttings, you can choose healthy branches to root cuttings, and they will take root in about a month. The layering method mainly consists of two types: air layering and ordinary layering.
5. Pruning
During the growth process of mallow, pruning needs to be done frequently, cutting away dead branches, diseased branches, weak branches, dense branches, and spent flowers. This helps with ventilation and light penetration and encourages mallow to branch more and bloom.
6. Pests and Diseases and Their Control
During care, mallow will develop some diseases, mainly sooty mold, which can be treated by spraying with chemicals, and attention should be paid to ventilation to avoid disease. During care, mallow sometimes also encounters pest problems, mainly aphids and scale insects. When mallow is affected by these pests, you can spray with a 2000-fold dilution of 10% omethoate for control.
Propagation of Mallow
1. Cutting Propagation
Mallow can also be propagated by cuttings. First, we select a relatively strong mallow plant, cut off a relatively thick branch, about 10 cm is enough, keep the leaves and terminal bud on the upper part, trim the base of the cut branch flat, insert it into prepared fine sandy soil, water it appropriately, and then place it in a shaded place. It takes about a month to take root. After rooting, transplant it into cultivation soil.
2. Layering Method
In addition to the above two methods, mallow can also be propagated by layering. Properly trim a mallow branch close to the soil, then bury it in the soil, and wait for a period of time. After the buried mallow branch has taken root, you can cut this mallow branch from the original plant, and plant the rooted part into prepared soil. In this way, layering propagation is complete.
Precautions for Fertilizing Mallow
Before fertilizing, it is best that the soil has already become somewhat dry. Then you can loosen the soil appropriately and apply fertilizer, so that the plant can better absorb the nutrients in the fertilizer.
If the fertilizer concentration is relatively light, the fertilizing interval can be shortened. If it is slightly stronger, then watering should be done on the second day after fertilizing, so as to avoid accumulated fertilizer harming the plant.
If there is cloudy or rainy weather, fertilizer application should be appropriately reduced, or fertilization should be paused, because overly wet soil is very unfavorable to the growth of the plant. The best time to fertilize is in the morning or evening; do not fertilize at noon. When fertilizing, try to pour it slowly along the edge of the pot or away from the soil, so as to reduce harm to the plant from the fertilizer.
Actually, calling it unusual does not really make it unusual. We are not directly roasting the embryo of the seed but roasting the outer shell of the seed, so the part of the seed that can truly store genetic information has not been damaged. Instead, it is a kind of stimulation and catalysis for mallow. So not everything that seems dangerous is truly dangerous.