Continuing a series of articles on rare and rare plants, today we will get acquainted with the Orchid — Bletilla striata.
Botanical dossier
Bletilla striata, syn. B. hyacinthine — rhizomatous perennial plants with tuberous-thickened pseudobulbs, a height and a width of 30-60 cm.
She comes from China and Japan. This beauty is perfect everything: oblong-lanceolate leaves 30-45 cm long, amazing lilac-pink flowers with a delicate aroma, 2.5 cm in diameter, collected in a rare spike inflorescence.
It blooms for a month, in late spring or early summer. Decorative shapes and varieties will please the flowers of different colors — from crimson to white, there are variegated variations.
Among them:
- f. alba-white flowers;
- ‘Albostriata Alba’ – snow-white flowers, leaves with a white narrow border;
- ‘Soryu’ – lavender flowers;
- ‘Pink’-light pink flowers.
Each variety, each form of Bletilla striata are good both in themselves and in harmony with other plants.
Features of cultivation
In the English reference literature, its temperature winter minimum is specified as 0 °C. Some growers have got used to plant it in pots, digging them on the elevated areas of the garden, covering for the winter with humus and dry leaves.
Bletilla prefers open and semi-shaded places with moist clay and loamy soils, necessarily well-drained. It does not tolerate stagnant waterlogging of the soil.
It is propagated mainly by division: in this case, the child pseudobulbs roots. And, although it often ties full-fledged seeds, which do not require the participation of the fungus-symbiont to germinate, seed propagation is rarely used.
Use in country design
Bletilla striata is good in mixborders, ridges, framed by the lawn, rockeries.
It is luxurious in the frame of the front part of the garden paths. And even against the background of a white wooden fence Bletilla does not lose its aristocracy, sophistication; it simply is not destined to become a “village” beauty.
It looks especially impressive and advantageous in large groups.
Settle in your dacha Bletilla striata, and you will never regret it! Every year, she invariably will delight and enchant you with delicate blooms and subtle scent.
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