What does a brunner look like and how to grow a flower?

It is not an easy task to choose plants for a shady flower garden that will have a decorative appearance throughout the entire growing season. Brunner is considered one of the suitable options. We will tell you about all the features of this culture, the rules for its transplantation, reproduction and agricultural technology in our article.

Brunner is a medium-sized perennial plant from the Burachnikov family. In the wild, this flower is found in Eastern and Western Siberia, as well as in some regions of the Caucasian and Asian countries. The culture received its name after the famous traveler and biologist S. Brunner; in everyday life, the plant is often called the forget-me-not. Today, the culture is widely in demand in horticulture for creating mixborders and landscape compositions. Brunner is a herbaceous bush 40-50 cm in size. The leaves are solid, large, heart-shaped, growing on elongated petioles.

The shoots are slightly lowered, making them seem soft. The foliage is mostly ordinary, dark green. Although there are many variegated varieties that can have silvery ("Emerald Mist", "Heart of the Sea", "Langtries", "Silver Wings"), white ("Silver Heart") or yellow-beige variations ("Diana Gold", "Giordano Gold", "Hudspan Cream", " Kings Ransom "). The flowers are tiny, no more than 1 cm in diameter, and most often even less.

In nature, there are 3 main varieties of brunner, of which only two are cultivated.

This forget-me-not grows in the forests of Altai and Sayan. This is a rather large and showy plant. The roots are elongated, up to 1 cm thick. Stems are single, glandular-pubescent, in favorable conditions they grow up to 50-60 cm in height. This brunner forms real thickets, and not ordinary bushes like other varieties. The basal leaves are heart-shaped, rather dense with a wrinkled surface, the petioles are elongated. Stem leaves are lanceolate, petioles are shortened.

The flowers are of a deep dark blue color with a snow-white core, the diameter is no more than 4-5 mm. They are collected in complex panicle inflorescences-panicles. Blossoming of Siberian brunner usually begins in May and lasts about 3 weeks.

Also known as Caucasian because of its natural range in the Caucasus Mountains. The Germans call her “Caucasian forget-me-not”. Unlike Siberian, this culture grows in a bush - well-branched, pubescent stems 35-40 cm long extend from the rhizome.

The leaves are oblong, heart-shaped, pointed at the apex. From the outside they have a rich dark green color, from the back they are slightly pubescent, therefore they acquire a pronounced gray tint. The flowers are dark blue, 6-7 mm in size. Gather in panicles at the top of the bush. Flowering begins in the last decade of April and lasts for about a month.

Large-leaved brunner has been in demand in gardening since the 19th century. The most widespread are the following varieties.

• Millennium Zilber - this plant is distinguished by large leaves with spots of white-silver color.

• "Jack Frost" - a very delicate plant, its leaves look whitish with a slight silvery shade. On them, a green edging along the edge of the leaf plate and dark green veins are clearly distinguishable.

• "Hudspan Cream" - brunner with large heart-shaped leaves. Reaches a length of 10-15 cm, green color, light beige edging along the edges.

• Langtries - a kind of brunner with dark green leaf blades, along the edge of which there are silvery specks. The flowers are blue.

• Also often planted brunner "Macrophylla".

• "Variegata" - a characteristic feature of this marble variety is a wide light beige stripe that extends into the green field in the form of tongues. In bright light, these leaves appear almost completely white.

In the natural environment, Brunner grows in wooded areas, so it easily tolerates shading and loves moisture. Accordingly, the site selected for it should create similar conditions. The soil should be well-drained, with improved compost and humus. The pH reaction can be either acidic or neutral. Brunner grows and develops best on clayey moisture-consuming soils, and the Siberian varieties are much more demanding than large-leaved ones. Plants are usually planted in the last days of July or at the very beginning of August. It is advisable to transplant a bush with a large earthen clod, otherwise there is a high risk of culture death.

It is very important that the work is carried out in the evening or during the day in cloudy weather. When choosing a place, one should also proceed from the varietal characteristics of Brunner. So, plants with green and silver leaves easily adapt in places where the sun looks in the morning. They can survive even in dry ground and dense shade, although you are unlikely to see flowering in this case. Yellow and white varieties wither in overly dry substrates.

Agricultural rules are related to the peculiarities of its natural habitat. At the same time, the cultivation of Siberian and large-leaved brunners has some differences.

The culture does not tolerate drought and high temperatures, even cold weather is much easier for them. Therefore, in places with a hot climate, Brunner is best planted in the shade, otherwise the bush will die from the strong sun.

In regions with cooler climates, planting is allowed in semi-darkness, as well as in open areas that are illuminated by the sun only until noon. Brunner can be planted under direct rays only near water bodies. To maintain the optimum moisture level of the substrate, the planting site must be covered with ash and mulched with bark or sawdust.

With the correct selection of a site with wet soil, there is practically no need for additional watering. Irrigation is carried out only on hot dry days. And then only if the leaves curl and look stunted.

As a fertilizer, compost mulch is sufficient. In addition, at the beginning of spring, immediately after the snow melts, granules with complex mineral dressing can be scattered over the flower bed. This will ensure the rapid growth of leaves and their bright colors; no additional fertilizing is required for the plant.

Large-leaved varieties retain their decorative appearance throughout the growing season. With proper planting in moist soil in a shady place, you can not even remember about them until the arrival of the autumn months. But such plantings often have difficulty with weeds, so the owners of the site have to regularly weed. This must be done delicately so as not to damage the roots of cultivated seedlings. But it is undesirable to loosen the ground around the bush, since the root system of the plant runs close to the surface.

As for the Siberian varieties, after flowering, the culture quickly loses its decorative appearance. Brown spots appear on the leaves, they soon dry out. This is not a sign of illness, but a natural stage in the life cycle, so it is advisable to cut them in mid-July. However, already at the beginning of August, new young leaves will grow on the Brunner, which will decorate the flowerbed before the arrival of frost. Shortly before frost, all remaining leaves should be cut off and the flowerbed with brunner peat should be thoroughly mulched.

Most often, Brunner is propagated by dividing a bush or rhizome. Vegetative methods are especially effective when breeding variegated varieties. Species varieties are allowed to be propagated by seeds. However, this plant sets seeds very poorly, and often it is not possible to collect planting material before the onset of frost, therefore it is best to purchase seedlings in a specialized store.

Small seeds are planted in the ground before winter. In case you want to plant in the springtime, remember that they need stratification for about 3-4 months at home. To do this, the seeds must be placed in a cellar / refrigerator or planted in a box with sand and covered with snow. However, there is no particular sense in these troubles, since Brunner reproduces well vegetatively. In addition, it often spreads on a flower bed by self-seeding.

If you notice that there is a bald spot in the center of the old bush - this means that the plant needs division, it is considered the fastest and easiest way to reproduce brunner. It is best to do this work in the spring, as soon as young shoots appear, or at the beginning of autumn. Seedlings are planted at a distance of 30-50 cm from each other.

In August, you can transplant Brunner with fragments of rhizomes and cuttings. If the preservation of varietal characteristics is not a priority for you, you can simply plant the bushes obtained by self-sowing. They can have similar external characteristics to their parents, or they can be very different. Brunner, planted with seeds, begins to bloom in the third or fourth year.

The main enemies of culture are slugs and snails. You need to deal with them with chemical preparations based on metaldehyde or traditional traps. Brunner is often attacked by aphids, although usually it does not bother this plant so much that it becomes necessary to use insecticides. As a rule, there are enough folk methods, soap and tobacco solutions give a quick result. Another dangerous pest is the whitefly; only chemical insecticidal compositions can save from it.

Despite the love of moisture, with prolonged rains the plant gets sick with brown spot and powdery mildew... If any of these infections appear, all affected fragments must be carefully cut off and burned. The remaining parts of the plant are sprayed with fungicidal solutions.

Despite the fact that Brunner can in no way be called a decorative flowering culture, nevertheless, it has found wide application in landscape gardening. In gardens, it is used to decorate alleys and form paths. The culture as part of mixborders looks very impressive.