Silver bud willow fragrance desert osmanthus color dyed? Indoor growing water culture dry culture how to grow?
Silver bud willow, also known as silver willow, maomaogou, cat willow, cotton willow and silver bract willow, is a deciduous shrub of the genus Salix in the family Salicaceae. It is native to northern China and is much loved for its unusual and attractive appearance. At present, many people like to grow it indoors, so is the color of silver bud willow dyed? Can it be kept indoors? Is water culture or dry culture better? How do you grow it?
Is the color dyed? Can it be kept indoors?
The natural color of silver willow is silvery white, but to make it more attractive, people dye the flower buds in various colors. Every year at Spring Festival flower markets across the country, silver-white silver bud willow cut branches as well as those dyed red, yellow, green and purple are dazzling and attract many buyers. At present, large-scale commercial production is carried out in Shanghai, Yunnan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan and other places, and the products are also exported to Southeast Asia and even Europe and the United States.
In addition, because silver bud willow is mostly dyed, it can be placed in the living room and other places for viewing. If it is a bedroom, it is recommended not to place it there, because growing flowers in the bedroom will make the air at night stale and reduce the oxygen content, and the resulting drawbacks can affect people's lifespan.
Water culture or dry culture?
Generally dry culture is still better, because that way it lasts longer. If water is put in a vase for water culture, and the temperature is a little higher, the silver willow flowers will open after a few days and then fall off, so the viewing time is relatively short.
Of course there is another situation, which is that a flower enthusiast wants to propagate it themselves. Actually this is not difficult either. You can use scissors to cut off a branch about 10 cm long, then insert it into a pot for cuttings. Keep the potting soil moist in daily care and place it in a shaded spot, and it will take root in about 15 days.
Growing techniques:
1. Propagation techniques
Silver bud willow is always propagated by cuttings from mature branches, and they are inserted directly into the field. Generally, during pre-sale sorting in winter, the lower branches are cut off and trimmed into cuttings about 20 cm long with 4 to 5 axillary buds, tied into small bundles, stood upright indoors, and stored with river sand to maintain moisture. To save cutting material, the cuttings can be cut into pieces only 2 leaf buds long, about 8 cm. The specific cutting time varies from place to place. In the south, February is the suitable cutting period, while in the Beijing area open-field cuttings are not started until early April.
Taiwan, China also has a large amount of silver bud willow cultivation and export. Their practice is: after harvesting silver bud willow at the end of December, take the cuttings, pack them, keep them moist, and store them at 4°C. This method is simple and convenient and saves storage space. Two weeks after the Beginning of Spring is the suitable planting period. Cut the cuttings to about 20 cm long, soak them in a fungicide such as carbendazim for disinfection before cutting, then dry them in the shade before carrying out the cuttings.
2. Planting methods
It is best to choose a field whose previous crop was rice and plant it in paddy fields, so as to reduce the occurrence of damping-off. Plow and prepare the land, apply base fertilizer, make the beds, and then carry out cuttings.
The method introduced by Ye Zengji and others in Shanghai is: plow in early to mid-February, apply base fertilizer (apply 2500 kg of organic fertilizer per mu); make beds 1.7 m wide with furrows 0.3 m wide, and at the same time apply 15 to 40 kg of ammonium bicarbonate, 10 to 15 kg of potassium sulfate or potassium chloride, and 25 to 30 kg of superphosphate per mu, and cover the bed surface with black plastic film. Four rows per bed, insert the stored cuttings about 20 cm long at a plant spacing of 20 to 25 cm, about 6000 plants per mu. They sprout about 2 weeks after cutting. If there are missing plants, replant immediately so as not to affect the yield per unit area.
In the first year of cultivation as cut flowers, single-stem silver bud willow is grown from cuttings, and the cut branches produced are thick, brightly colored and full of flower buds. By the second year, taking advantage of the stubble's characteristics of early sprouting, early leaf fall on the lower part of the branches, and upward movement of flower bud nodes, multi-branched silver bud willow is grown. After harvesting the flowering branches, dig out the plants and replant new ones from cuttings.
3. Bud removal and pinching
After the cuttings sprout, 4 to 5 buds often appear at the same time. In the case of 2-year-old stubble silver bud willow, even more buds appear. When removing buds, keep only 2 to 3 buds per plant. When only single-head silver bud willow is produced, pinching is not needed. Because some exported products are multi-head silver bud willow, pinching treatment is needed to promote more than 3 branches in the upper part. When the new shoots reach 80 to 100 cm long, remove the tender tips at the top by 3 to 5 cm. The time should be early May, and at the latest no later than May 20. If pinching is too late, the resulting branches will not reach the requirement of more than 60 cm. To ensure the commercial quality of multi-head silver willow, new shoots with strong growth vigor must be selected for pinching treatment. This is usually done on 2-year-old stubble plants, because 2-year-old plants branch early, and their new shoots can reach a height of 1 m 10 to 15 days earlier than 1-year-old plants. After pinching, the final branch length can also reach more than 1 m. In addition, because the lower part of the new shoots of 2-year-old plants drops leaves earlier, there is a relatively long section at the base of the branch (about 50 cm) without flower buds. When used as single-stem silver bud willow, the quality is not as good as that of 1-year-old plants, but when used as multi-head silver bud willow, the absence of flower buds below the branching point does not affect commercial quality, and the selling price is about 1 times higher than that of single-stem silver bud willow. Among 1-year-old plants, some particularly vigorous new shoots can also be selected and, after pinching, grown into multi-head silver bud willow. When growing multi-head silver bud willow, more attention should be paid to strengthening fertilizer and water management.
Taiwan, China adopts the wide-row planting method, with a plant and row spacing of 30×150 cm. Usually after the cuttings survive, pinching is carried out 2 times. The purpose of the first pinching is to increase the number of branches of silver bud willow, so as to increase the yield per unit area; the second pinching is to increase the number of forked branches of silver bud willow, so as to increase the selling price of single-stem silver bud willow. When the 14th leaf unfolds, it is the suitable time for the first pinching. For the new vegetative line of silver bud willow, it is most suitable to leave about 5 to 6 branches. When the plant grows to about 100 to 120 cm tall, carry out the second pinching, which can turn single branches into forked branches, and the best number of forks is 2.
Silver bud willow has a stronger ability to sprout branches in the rainy season, so sprouting branches need to be removed in time to ensure that the retained branches have more nutrient supply. When removing them, be careful to break them off from the base, and it is best to remove them before the sprouting branches have lignified, when they can be broken off by hand. Generally, the sprouting branches of silver bud willow lignify in 3 to 5 days, so the longest interval for removing sprouts from silver bud willow should be once every 3 to 5 days.
4. Irrigation and fertilization
Silver bud willow likes moisture. If continuous high temperature and drought exceed 7 to 10 days in July to August, timely irrigation is necessary. Irrigation should preferably be carried out after 8 p.m. Fill the furrows with water, close the inlet, and let it seep in on its own, then open the ditch mouth at dawn the next day to drain the accumulated water. In September to October, when the weather gradually cools, irrigation should also be carried out if there is no rain for more than 10 consecutive days. Stop irrigation before leaf fall to promote branch maturity and fullness. In the rainy season, however, great attention must be paid to drainage to meet the requirement of “the field dries after the rain stops.”
Silver bud willow likes fertilizer. In addition to applying sufficient base fertilizer, 2 to 3 additional fertilizer applications are needed during the growing period. If the base fertilizer is insufficient, apply fertilizer once in mid-to-late April when the branches are about 10 cm long, applying 10 to 15 kg of urea per mu. May to June is the period of most vigorous branch growth, and a nitrogen-based compound fertilizer can be applied once in mid-to-late May, applying 25 to 30 kg per mu. August to September is the flower bud differentiation period, and a compound fertilizer balanced in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium can be applied once in early, middle and late August, applying 30 to 35 kg per mu of a compound fertilizer with N-P2O5-K2O=15-15-15. In addition, in September, foliar topdressing with 0.2% potassium dihydrogen phosphate plus 0.5% urea 2 to 3 times has an obvious promoting effect on flower bud expansion and coloring.
In addition, intertillage and weeding are also important daily management tasks. Regularly loosening the topsoil can reduce water evaporation, raise soil temperature, promote the decomposition of nutrients in the soil, and create good conditions for the absorption of root nutrients and growth. During the seedling stage, intertillage should be carried out as early and promptly as possible. As the plant grows, intertillage should gradually be stopped, and weeding should become the main task.
5. Prevention and control of main pests and diseases
The main diseases harming silver bud willow are damping-off and black spot. Damping-off occurs mostly at the seedling stage, and after onset it causes cuttings to rot and tender shoots to wither. For prevention and control, attention should be paid to disinfecting the cuttings, soaking them in an 800 to 1000 times solution of carbendazim or thiophanate before cutting. In addition, avoid continuous cropping and repeated cropping, and it is best to choose a field whose previous crop was rice for cultivation. Black spot harms leaves, stems and buds. At the beginning of the disease, small brown spots appear on the leaves. In severe cases, the spots expand, the leaves dry up, and later it can harm flowers or branches, forming black spots. It can be controlled with agents such as tebuconazole, copper hydroxide, lime sulfur mixture and thiophanate-methyl. The main pests harming silver bud willow are red spider mites, scale insects, stinging moths, bagworms, noctuid moths, inchworms, aphids, brown marmorated stink bugs, leaf rollers, leaf beetles and so on, and timely prevention and control also need attention.