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Want to light a flowered bonfire ? Then try some flora of the mesembryanthemum group ( ice plant ) in your garden or on your pot plant ledge .
Probably no other plant pop the question such centre - stopping , dazzling people of colour , and few are less demanding .
Mesembryanthemum – Easier To Grow Than To Say
The most difficult affair about the mesembryanthemums is their names .
At one clip , all the more than two thousand species were members of the same tongue - twistingly - cite genus , the Mesembryanthemum ( mes - em - bree - ANTH - mutton quad - urn ) or mid - daylight flush , a character to their being open only for the sunniest part of the day .
Then , the plant scientist got busy and divided the genus into 120 genus .
This was n’t done , as some gardener consider , just to make matters difficult , but because difference in flowers and yield made it impossible to will the whole group together . The rules that define a genus were being broken .
Species public figure mostly rest the same , but the genus changed except for a few plants which remained in the original genus . Thus , Mesembryanthemum edulisbecameCarpobrotus edulis .
If you ’re one of those accustomed to call the mid - solar day flower Mesembryanthemum and , having get the hang this unmanageable name , are not about to endeavor to learn others , all is still not lost .
The group of genera has been put together in a subdivision of the carpetweed kin ( Aizoaceae ) call in Mesembryanthemaceae – and you could go right on calling them the genus Mesembryanthemum group if you like .
All the plants in this subdivision have satiny , fringe - like petal . Most are natives of South Africa , though a few descend from southerly California , Mexico , South America , and even Australia .
Garden literature has written much about mid - twenty-four hour period prime preferring careful , even sterile grunge . I have not found this dirt passport to be true .
The mid - day flowers will indeed survive and blossom in highly sandlike grease with little or no leaf mold or natality . I have seen them also blossom in humus - rich clay taken from the bottom of a canal .
We have found in our own garden and pot horticulture experience and have observed in other gardens and other orbit that flower are the largest and plants most sizable if given a comparatively rich soil intermixture .
For most of them , seek a mixture , of half leaf mould and half sandy loam , with a second of added basswood , for either smoke use or a garden outdoors .
Diet For a Mesembryanthemum
We ’ve witness that much the same is truthful about watering and fertilizing .
Mid - mean solar day blossom will do well with no fertilizing political program and fiddling weewee , but they ’ll do much better , particularly if produce in pots and treat to plenty of each .
Try a balanced liquid fertiliser once every three week and weewee whenever the soil is dry during the spring - summer - pin growing season .
During the winter eternal rest , give no fertilizer and water only often enough to keep the plant ’s succulent go away from becoming seriously shriveled .
If mid - day flowers do well enough without any exceptional watering , fertilizing , or dirt , they are , nonetheless , very insistent about two thing :
In fond shade , flowering will be sparse ; in full shade , you ’ll have trouble observe the plant alive . Freezing temperature are often fatal , and much below freeze is always black .
Propagation of most mid - solar day flowers is light from cut taken in other spring , though they ’ll root at other season almost as quickly .
Some , like the pebble plants , are best propagate by naval division of clumps , and others , like ice plants , are easily grown from cum .
A close relative is the trailing mesembryanthemum , Drusanthemum floribundum .
It is a perennial , and has around sparkling leaves and masses of pinkish rosiness in spring .
If not in a dealings area , it take a crap an excellent dry land cover in mild climate zones . Try it for a liberal sess plant further N .
Try An Aptenia!
Another trailer with sparkling , heart - work leaves is the fawn ice works , Aptenia cordifolia .
Its belittled , bright Battle of Magenta peak seem in the spring and early summer , but it is in full as attractive for its leaf – every cell seems to sparkle , causing leaves to reflect the sun like millions of petite gem .
There is also a motley course . Aptenia is useful as an out - of - traffic ground cover , specially on slopes , in modest climate zones , and as a pot flora further north .
by Phil Clark | edit by PlantCareToday Staff
