Planting decorative curly beans and caring for it will not take much time, and bright flowers fragrance for a long time. The plant climbs to any supports, they can decorate the gazebo, the wall of the house, just hide any unsightly buildings. In many varieties, the fruits are even edible.
Description and characteristics of the plant
Most often on our sites you can find decorative beans with purple and bright red flowers. But the variety of its colors is much richer. It is believed that the purple color of the flowers is inherent in several varieties of beans, fiery red is a separate variety. Currently, it is believed that this is not entirely true: the variety of new varieties covers all conceivable variations of colors.
Beans are perfect for vertical gardening
Beans grow very quickly, many varieties reach a height of 5 m, and throughout this stretch the shoots are trying to grab hold of something. This is a heat-loving culture, but it does not require special conditions, grows well in any sunny area. In the shade, he feels somewhat worse, but also pleases the owner with very beautiful flowers. The fruits of many varieties are edible, however, few gardeners eat them, preferring to plant grain or asparagus varieties separately on a small bed for this.
Like any other bean, the decorative one saturates the soil around it with nitrogen, absorbing it from the depths of the soil and from the air and translating it into digestible compounds that accumulate on the root nodules. In this regard, at the end of the season, the plants do not pull out: they are cut off at the surface of the soil, leaving the roots in place.
Potatoes planted nearby significantly increase their productivity due to the ability of beans to improve soil fertility. And the green mass of decorative beans removed in the fall is sent to a compost pit, where it enriches the composition of the collected plant waste with a large number of nutrients.
Solanaceae, growing close to beans, are not affected by late blight. She does not like her aroma and the Colorado potato beetle.
The homeland of decorative beans is Latin America, its original name translates as "sailing vessel", due to the shape of the flower. Ripe fruits are large, rough beans. It is they who are collected in order to repeat planting next year or to build a flowering wall in a new area.
Video: All About Beans Turkish Beans
Varieties of Decorative Beans
Currently, more than others are known and find their application in the decoration of varieties of plots:
- Mammoth - beans with white flowers of various shades and sizes. The largest flowering variety.
Mammoth flowers are white, very large
- Dolichos purple - beans with purple flowers. This variety is often called curly lilacs. Dolichos is a rare example of beans with a pleasant aroma, so its branches with large flowers are often added to bouquets. Inflorescences stand well in vases with water for up to 2 weeks.
Dolichos is so similar to lilacs that some even doubt that it belongs to legumes
- Two-color - under this name they unite a group of varieties that differ from others in a combination of two colors: some of the flowers are pure white, the other is painted in saturated red.
Madame Butterfly - one of the varieties with two-color flowers
- Turkish beans - a popular variety, has orange-red, even fiery, scarlet flowers. One of the varieties most often grown to decorate the site. With timely planting, plants bloom throughout the summer.
Turkish Beans - The Most Famous Variety of Decorative Beans
- Rock climber - a variety with bright red (often even burgundy) flowers. In recent years, it is he who displaces Turkish beans.
Rock climber - one of the most fashionable modern varieties.
Some varieties of asparagus beans, for example, Golden Nectar, are also often positioned as decorative. There is a little confusion on this issue, due to the fact that many curly varieties of vegetable beans can act as a decoration of the garden, as well as be a crop grown for consumption as a food product.
Planting decorative beans
In most cases, beans are grown by sowing seeds directly into the open ground. After all, there is no big sense in wasting energy on seedlings here, beauty can wait for warm days, and such beans are not specially grown for food. However, a seedling option also exists, it is resorted to in regions with a harsh climate and in cases where you want to create a beautiful wall in the country as early as possible. True, the seedlings will have to tinker with, remembering also the fact that beans are extremely painful to any transplant.
Video: Dolichos bean bushes on the site
Landing time
Sowing seeds in open ground is not very early, the soil for sowing should warm up: the seeds begin to germinate at a soil temperature of 8-10aboutC, and seedlings are very sensitive to frost and die at -1aboutC. The optimum temperature for its growth is 20-25aboutC. In the central region, planting dates are mid-May; in the north, early June. In the south, all types of beans are sown in April. If the seeds are sown in cold soil, their germination is sharply reduced, and sometimes they die completely. An approximate landmark is the time when cucumbers are sown, which, like beans, are afraid of frost.
Decorative beans for seedlings begin to grow at the very end of March or early April, in the northern regions - closer to the end of April. If it turns out that the sowing was done too early and the seedlings outgrew, you will have to arrange support for it, to which long stems are tied. For this purpose, you can gently stick, for example, a pencil next to the sprout.
Planting seedlings
Seedlings will have to stay at home for about a month, it will normally grow in soil of any composition, except clay, but it is better to mix sod land and sand in a ratio of 2: 1 and add a handful of wood ash to the bucket of the mixture.
Sowing seeds for seedlings must be done in individual pots: beans do not tolerate transplantation with damage to the roots. You can also use disposable ones with a removable bottom, but peat ones are the best option - then landing in the open ground will be completely painless. You can use large peat tablets.
The best option for growing bean seedlings - peat pots
Bean seeds are large, and before sowing, they are easy to calibrate, discarding the smallest and most affected by pests. Then it is recommended to soak the seeds in water until swelling (for 12-16 hours), without waiting for biting.
Some gardeners pre-pickle them in a potassium permanganate solution and even soak them in growth stimulants. All this, of course, can be done, but it is not necessary to engage in optional operations in the case of growing a decorative culture.
Decorative bean seeds can be of different colors, but they are always large, easy to handle
Beans are sown to a depth of about 2 cm. Usually it emerges well, therefore it is enough to place one bean in a pot or tablet, but if there are a lot of them and there are doubts about germination, you can put out 2-3 pieces, and then carefully remove the extra shoots.
The temperature at which seedlings should be grown is 18-22 ° C, but after emergence, it must be reduced by several degrees for 3-4 days. Growing seedlings does not require any special cares other than periodic watering. Bushes do not have to be formed by pinching or pruning. It will not be required for this month and top dressing.
If the soil was very lean and it turns out that the seedlings are growing slowly, you can water it with infusion of wood ash.
You can transplant seedlings in the garden no earlier than two real leaves develop. It should not be kept at home for too long, but if the transplant is carried out together with a peat pot, there is no risk. Only a week before planting, you need to prepare the bushes, taking them periodically to the balcony and accustoming to fresh air.
A common bean box is not the best option: it will be very difficult to extract the seedlings without damaging the roots
Planting seedlings in the garden
Decorative beans are less demanding on conditions compared to vegetable varieties. But still, the bed should be prepared in advance, introducing the usual dose of fertilizer. It can be humus or compost, but not fresh manure. Any mineral composition with a focus on phosphorus and potassium is also suitable: a lot of bean nitrogen is not required. This item causes excessive growth of the vegetative mass to the detriment of intense flowering.
If there is clay in the area, when digging it is necessary to add sand, if the soil is too acidic - chalk.
The plan for planting decorative beans is any, since its main purpose is to decorate the site. Therefore, the owner himself decides whether it will be a bed or one row along the wall or fence, but the distance between the plants should be at least 20 cm, and preferably 30-40 cm. If there are several rows, then leave between 40 and 50 cm between them depending on how you can build the supports.
The technique of planting seedlings is common: in the selected places they dig holes in the size of the pot and bury the seedlings in them almost without deepening, after which they pour plenty of warm water and mulch the soil.
Sowing seeds in the ground
Sowing seeds directly into the garden is the most common way of planting decorative beans, most often they do. In the case of light and warm soil, beans are sown on a flat surface.
If groundwater is close, build an elevated bed.
The sowing pattern is the same as when planting seedlings: between the holes leave distances from 20 to 40 cm. A denser planting gives a solid blank wall, but the plants develop worse, they bloom not so elegantly. In each well, 2-3 beans are sown to a depth of 1.5-2 cm, then a bed from a watering can with a strainer is abundantly watered and the soil is mulched with any loose material. If the threat of frost remains, the crops are temporarily covered with a spanbond. Excess seedlings are carefully trimmed a few days after their appearance.
Bean seeds are not sown very deeply, it is possible for 2-3 pieces per hole
Care
Care for beans is simple and includes systematic cultivation of row-spacing, weeding, top dressing and watering. Loosening is performed after each watering and rain, it is combined with the removal of weeds. With the growth of bushes, loosening will be more difficult, therefore it is advisable to mulch the bed. When the bushes grow to 12-15 cm, they are slightly spudded with earth.
Beans are a heat-loving plant, therefore, if it was planted too early, the first time it is necessary to monitor the weather and, possibly, cover plantings with non-woven materials. Alternatively, you can build a small temporary greenhouse. Adult plants withstand temperatures close to 0aboutFROM.
How to water beans
All types of beans are watered, including decorative beans, infrequently and moderately, preventing overdrying of the soil. This should be done under the root, in the evenings, the water stood up and warmed by the sun during the day. In the case of dry weather, watering is required twice a week.
It is advisable to direct the water directly to the roots, especially taking care not to soak the flowers and buds. Therefore, a strainer is often removed from the watering can so that the water falls between the rows or, with a single row planting, closer to the base of the bushes.
Immediately before flowering begins, the soil can be slightly dried for several days: this causes the appearance of more buds, but then watering continues, as usual. It is better to mulch the soil around the beans with any loose material (peat, humus, sawdust, chopped straw) so that moisture is better preserved.
Top dressing
Decorative beans are fed with any mineral or natural fertilizers, except for fresh manure. Fertilizers her growers are advised only two times:
- When two real leaves grow (per 1 m2 add 1 g of urea, 15 g of superphosphate and 10 g of any potassium salt).
- At the time of the appearance of the buds (the same composition, excluding urea).
If it turns out that the flowering is not as lush as expected, the soil may have been depleted, and in this case, dressing should be given more by stirring a handful of wood ash and a couple of tablespoons of superphosphate in a bucket of water, after which it should be allowed to stand for a day, diluted another 2 -3 times with water and pour over this planting solution.
Garter
After the intensive growth of the beans begins, the shoots need only be directed in the desired direction, and they themselves will quickly braid the existing support. In this way, you can create any convenient composition by constructing artificial obstacles. It can be a wall, a pyramid, a cone, a cylinder and even a ball.
Bean likes wooden supports, for some reason it wraps metal worse and plastic badly, and sometimes she has to help do it. If it turns out that the beans refuse to entwine plastic objects, you just need to tie its shoots with soft twine in 2-3 places, and then it will most likely go where the gardener wanted.
From beans, you can build shapes of any shape
When the beans fade and form pods, they can be bundled - they look quite impressive too. After drying, they are collected to peel off the seeds, which, after brief drying, are poured into paper bags and stored in a dry place.
Decorative haricot is one of the easiest plants to grow, which allows transforming a summer cottage with a minimum expenditure of labor and financial investments. It allows you to build a shaded corner on the site, decorated with colorful flowers. This culture is justly popular and is found in most suburban areas.
