How to care for arrowroot at home

Maranta is a favorite plant of many flower growers. Maranta is quite unpretentious in care, grows well in any conditions. This indoor flower lifts the leaves up in the evening and blooms again in the morning. For such an unusual property Marant received the name "prayer plant." Leaves of arrowroot decorated with brown specks in the amount of 10 pieces. That is why, connecting this plant with religion, the flower has another name “ten commandments”.

The flower was named after the famous botanist and scientist Bartolemeo Maranta, who helped people and treated them with herbs. The leaves of the plant are a real work of art - shades gently intertwine with each other, creating unusual patterns and weaves.Leaf color can vary from white to dark green, with red and burgundy veins. Maranta blooms with small flowers, which can be white, cream or lilac. Many flower growers believe that the flowers of arrowroot cannot be compared in beauty with its leaves, so they immediately remove the inflorescences so that the plant does not spend forces on them.

Maranta is a medium height plant; it rarely grows to more than 40 cm. This unpretentious flower grows well in breadth and, with proper care, appears to the person in all its glory.

Types of maranth plants

The arrowroot flower has more than 25 species, depending on the color and shape of the leaves. Here are some of the most common types:

1. White-moth maranth is most common. The leaves are dark green, central vein of silver color. White stripes on the sides.
2. Red-colored arrowroot. The color of the leaves varies all shades of green. On the edge of the leaves there is a red line that becomes burgundy or pink. Leaflets in the form of feathers.
3. Maranta Kerhovina has oval leaves on short cuttings. The leaves are green with a white stripe in the center.On the reverse side of the leaves may be pink or bluish.
4. Maranta reed. The color is similar to other varieties of arrowroot, but the edges of the leaves have a wavy shape. The reed maranth grows in dense shrubs.
5. Maranta masanzha has a dark color of leaves - from black to olive.

How to care for arrowroot

In order for a person, a plant or an animal to feel good, to grow and multiply with pleasure, it is necessary to create comfortable living conditions for them. Here are some tips for creating a comfortable environment for growth arrowroot.

1. Maranta is quite a water-loving plant. Land in the pot of this flower should always be wet. The frequency of watering depends on the time of year and the level of humidity in the room. Usually maranta is watered a couple of times a week, in the hot summer months - every other day.
2. It is best to place a tropical arrowroot in a claydite pallet with water.
3. Marantor must be sprayed with water from a spray bottle. From this her leaves become alive and hydrated.
4. Water for irrigation and spraying arrowroot should be at room temperature.It is not allowed to water the plant with hot or cold water. It is best to water the plants with settled water so that there are no impurities in it.
5. Marant can not be watered with water containing chlorine or lime - it dies from it.
6. The plant arrowroot - shade. You should not put a pot with a flower in direct sunlight, especially in the summer and spring months.
7. The optimum temperature for growth of arrowroot is from 16 to 25 degrees. The flower does not tolerate frost and sudden changes in temperature. The humidity of the room in which the arrowroot grows is also important. In the winter months, when radiators and batteries dry the air, additional flower moistening is necessary.
8. Maranta does not like drafts, so placing the plant on the windowsill is not entirely correct. Also, there should be no outside plants near the flower pot, at least at a distance of 20 cm. Maranta grows well if nothing is blocking it.

How to transplant arrowroot

Every two years, this plant requires a transplant, because the roots become crowded in the previous pot. A new pot should not be much different from the previous one - in the large earthen space the arrowroot grows worse.

Before transplanting the plant must be prepared. Cut off all the dull and wilted leaves and some shoots. A flower should spend its strength on new shoots, and not on the restoration of wilted leaves. If you want the arrowroot to grow in length, cut off the lateral young shoots. If you want to get a more spreading and lush plant, it is better to cut the flower at the tops.

Preparing a new pot, pour claydite to the bottom so that the plant roots do not rot in the remaining water from irrigation. The lower layer must be filled with soil with low acidity. To do this, mix one part of the sand, two parts of peat and three parts of the usual soil. Pour some crushed coal into the ground, and then plant a lump of earth with a plant. Cover the gaps between the roots of the plant and the walls of the pot with ordinary earth.

How to feed arrowroot

To maranth was beautiful, lush and spreading, it must be fertilized. Especially strongly the plant needs top dressing in the spring and in the summer, during active growth and blossoming. Fertilizer arrowroot can be special mineral complexes that can be bought in the shop of decorative indoor plants.

Fertilize the plant should be every two weeks. Dissolve a piece of the mineral complex the size of a match head in a liter of pure water and pour it over the plant. After two weeks you can pour the same composition that remained in the bottle - not necessarily dilute a new batch. However, be careful - do not overdo it. An excess of mineral fertilizers can lead to the death of the plant.

Propagation of arrowroot

Maranth can be propagated in several ways. First, the division of the roots. When you transplant the plant, divide the roots into two or three parts. Note that each root system must be viable. After that, the roots of the plant are placed in water or immediately planted in a pot (if the roots are sufficiently developed). After this maranth needs plenty of watering during the first weeks. Next, the plant develops as usual.

If the plant is far from the transplant and the flower needs to be propagated, it can be done by cutting. Cut off a viable stalk of 10-12 cm from a plant. Young shoots that we remove when pruning get well acclimatized. The stalk should be placed in water to give the twig roots.When measles is tied at arrowroot, it can be transplanted into a pot with soil. Cover it with plastic wrap to create a greenhouse imitation. In such conditions, the plant is accepted better. Cuttings cut from May to September take root best.

Diseases and pests

The plant has no particular pests and diseases. The arrowroot usually has two enemies - mealybugs and spider mites. The mealybug is localized on the plant stem. To get rid of it, you need to wipe the trunk of a flower with soapy water. After processing, thoroughly rinse the flower with clean water so that there are no soap residues on it.

The presence of spider mites can be determined by the thin web that forms on the wrong side of the leaves of the plant. At the same time the plant loses the lower leaves, becomes sluggish. Spider mite infects plants when the humidity in the room is too low. To get rid of this, you need to cut off all the infected leaves and treat the maranth with a bacteriological composition, which can be bought at a specialty store. It is designed specifically for decorative indoor plants - merciless to pests and delicate with plants.

Questions for the care of arrowroot

Here are the main problems faced by flower growers in growing the arrowroot plant.

Why is maranth dries? Maranta can dry for several reasons. One of the main ones is the lack of moisture. If you do not water the plant often enough, if you do not spray the leaves, the lower leaves may turn yellow, and the upper leaves dry at the ends. Maranta can dry out due to an excessive amount of lime in the soil. Check it out is easy. Put some earth on a plate and pour vinegar over the soil. If the earth began to foam, it means a lot of lime in it. Maranta can become covered with brown spots, if in the room where the flower grows, low humidity.

Why does the arrowroot leaf curl? Virtually any changes in the flower are the cause of improper care. Maranta twists the leaves before each night, and in the morning again dismissed. If the leaves remain twisted throughout the day, it means that the plant is just cold. Place it in a room with a higher temperature so that it “comes to itself”.

Why maranth changes the color of the leaves? If the leaves of the plant have become faded, dull or yellow, it means that something in the care is going wrong.Try to move the plant to a warmer room, eliminate drafts, increase the frequency of watering. Perhaps the maranth changes the color of its leaves, because it lacks nutrients - remember how long have you fed the plant.

Decorative indoor flowers - like children. They require attention, care, care and love. Create comfortable living conditions for your plants, so that they will please you with active growth and lush flowering.

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