Garden balsam is hailed as a natural nail polish, so how do you grow it?
Garden balsam is also called henna, daughter flower, garden balsam stem, and so on. It is often used in folk practice to dye nails, and its stems and seeds have excellent medicinal effects. So, how do you grow garden balsam? Let's find out together!
1. Land preparation and fertilization
Garden balsam has the characteristics of liking light, fearing moisture, tolerating heat, and having poor cold resistance. It has extremely strong vitality and good adaptability to the environment, so the planting site is generally chosen as a sunny plot with fertile, loose soil, good drainage, and convenient irrigation. Land preparation should be carried out together with base fertilizer, applying sufficient base fertilizer. The base fertilizer is mainly organic fertilizer. Mix the base fertilizer with the soil, then prepare the land again and make beds. The beds are about one meter to one meter five wide. Depending on the different climate and terrain, make high beds or flat beds.
2. Sowing and raising seedlings
Garden balsam can be sown in spring and autumn. When sowing, the temperature of the planting site is generally between 20 and 25 degrees, and the soil moisture should be around 60 to 70 percent. Before sowing, water the soil once. After the soil is thoroughly wet, sow the seeds evenly at a row spacing of 30 cm, and cover with a thin layer of soil to hide the seeds. Generally, seedlings emerge in about a week.
3. Field management
About 15 to 20 days after the garden balsam seedlings emerge, when the seedlings are generally 6 to 10 cm tall, thinning and evening out the seedlings should be carried out reasonably. The plant spacing is generally about 15 cm, and three seedlings need to be kept per spot. While thinning the seedlings, clear the weeds in the field, and carry out timely intertillage and soil loosening. Intertillage and weeding should be carried out at least three times each year. When the seedlings grow to about 35 cm, properly remove the old leaves at the lower part of the stem, pinch off the terminal buds to promote the growth of branches, and carry out reasonable topdressing, mainly with cake fertilizer, by making furrows and applying fertilizer, thereby increasing the yield of garden balsam. When garden balsam blooms, remove the early-opening flower buds to promote the plant's growth, and apply fertilizer once every half month.
4. Preventing diseases and pests
Garden balsam has strong resistance and rarely suffers from diseases and pests, but under high temperature and high humidity, powdery mildew and leaf spot disease may also appear. They can be treated with thiophanate-methyl wettable powder and carbendazim wettable powder. The red hawk moth is the main pest of garden balsam. It mainly damages the branches and leaves of garden balsam. It is best to catch it by hand, which can avoid the impact of chemicals on garden balsam. Of course, low-toxicity pyrethroid insecticides can also be used for spraying and killing.
The above is the small knowledge on how to grow garden balsam compiled for you by the editor of Tuliu.com. We hope it can help you!