Vallotta: characteristics and care at home

Many people like to use exotic variants of flora from warm countries as indoor plants. Such flowers always look unusual and bright and become a highlight of the interior. One of these plants is the Amaryllis family, brought from the Cape region in South Africa.

The life span of a vallot can be up to 20 years. At the same time, the plant regularly blooms throughout its entire life span until old age. Vallota has beautiful lancet leaves that are somewhat similar to sedge leaves. They have a solid bright green color and a purple color at the very base.

There are the names "indoor lily" or "lily of forest fires". But all that really connects the wallot with lilies is the appearance of its flowers. These two plants have nothing more in common.

Sometimes users of Internet resources have difficulty in correctly identifying three plant genera: vallotta, clivia and cirtantus. This confusion is due to the fact that all these plants were formerly called vallot, but were later separated due to obvious differences in the structure of roots and flowers.

According to botanists, the purple wallot and the beautiful wallot are transferred to the genus of cirtantus. Some Internet resources stubbornly insist that Cyrtantus and Vallota are two separate genera of plants, but in fact, Cyntanthus is the Vallota.

Clivia is a separate genus. It differs from the vallot in several ways:

• root - not an onion;
• completely different inflorescence - corolla with a dozen or two small flowers;
• leaves grow from the base all together, create a false stem and fan out in all directions.

Vallota is represented by dozens of species, but in our latitudes, only two have taken root especially successfully in pots.

• Vallota is beautiful. The long leaves of the plant are painted in deep green colors. Flowers are orange, burgundy and white. The latter are very rare.

• Vallota purple. The size is smaller than the beautiful vallotta: the leaves are thinner, the flowers are miniature. The foliage of the purple vallotta is painted in bright green tones. The name of the species comes from the purple color of the flowers.

In addition to species, there are also plant varieties. Two varieties of the whole variety are also popular among flower growers.

• Vallotta Pink Diamond. Very similar to miniature lilies. Pink Diamond flowers have a delicate light pink color and a yellow core. This type of vallotta is smaller than the classic beautiful one.

• Vallota Creamy Beauty. Vallotta variety with bright green leaves and cream flowers. An interesting feature is its atypical flowering period. "Creme Beauty", unlike other varieties and types of vallotta, blooms in autumn. Therefore, in the network you can find its colloquial name "autumn lily".

Vallota is a relatively unpretentious plant, so it's easy to take care of it.Growing will not cause any problems if you follow the rules of seasonality and provide the required care.

Vallota has distinct periods - a period of sleep and a period of flowering. Therefore, the requirements for the temperature of the flower in different seasons will be different. And the flower does not tolerate sudden changes in temperature, so seasonal changes in temperature should be done gradually, and not at once.

In summer, the Vallotta prefers warmth. The optimum temperature for the plant is 23-25 ​​C. In winter, the flower falls asleep.

To prevent the plant from dying, the following are contraindicated:

• drafts;
• proximity to heating devices in winter;
• constant temperature below 10 C.

Florists note that you don't have to worry every time the sun comes out about the urgent need to rearrange the pot or something like that. This plant loves sunlight and even tolerates direct sunlight, which not all indoor flowers can boast of. But this does not mean that the vallot needs to be kept where it is necessary. This feature simply helps the flower survive in emergencies.

In summer, the flower must be protected from direct sunlight. At this time of the year, the sun's rays are especially intense and act too aggressively on the plants. So that the vallotta does not have burns, it is better to rearrange the pot where the plant can receive enough diffused light.

Vallota does not tolerate excess moisture. She is much more willing and easier to tolerate drought in her pot than a swamp. Therefore, watering the flower requires moderate. When the substrate is at least two-thirds dry, it's time to water again. In summer, the plant needs watering about twice a week, in winter - twice a month.

Interesting fact: if you stop watering the wallot for a while in the summer or reduce the intensity of watering, it will not die. The plant will go into hibernation, believing that reducing watering is preparation for a dormant period. Thus, the plant will lose its biological clock. There is no need to leave everything as it is if this happens. It is necessary to carefully return the sense of the season to the wallote in its usual places.

Vallotta does not have any special requirements for air humidity. In the summer, the plant needs to be sprayed... This can be done once or twice a day, but always in the morning or evening. In other seasons, the flower does not need this.

Spraying should be moderate. It is not necessary to douse the plant with water so that a huge amount of water collects on the leaves and flowers, and the top layer of the soil gets wet like from watering. It is important to remember that an excess of moisture does not like the vallotta as well as excessive dryness. The golden mean is important in everything.

Like any other houseplant, vallotta needs feeding to maintain the balance of all the necessary substances and microelements. You need to start feeding her after waking up and before the end of flowering - during this period, the plant actively absorbs everything that is possible from the soil in order to grow and bloom.

Vallota wakes up from her hibernation in April. It is easy to determine the moment of awakening - new leaves will begin to appear and grow in the plant. This is the moment when the temperature needs to be gradually raised to 20-24 C.

In the same period, you need to start feeding the plant. At the very beginning, this is done a little more often. In April, you can feed once every two weeks, and by the end of spring, start feeding once every three weeks. As soon as the vallota releases the peduncle stem, you can replace the complex fertilizers with those that contain phosphorus and stimulate the flowering of plants. This will help keep the flower healthy during this energy-intensive period.

During the formation of flowers, the plant should be watered a little more intensively than usual. After a period of hibernation, this should be done gradually more often. Since spring, the vallot begins to need the soil to be constantly slightly moistened. Excess water that goes out to the pan under the pot still needs to be drained.

Florists love the vallotta because it reproduces very easily in either of two ways.

• Daughter bulbs. The plant independently grows baby bulbs during its life. All that is required of a person in this case is to separate these bulbs from the parent plant and transplant them into a separate container. This is done during plant transplantation. Caring for a new plant immediately can be provided in the same way as for an adult.
• Seeds. Here everything is also very simple - in the fall you just need to sow them in moist soil, cover with glass and provide a temperature of 16-18 C. In a month, seedlings will appear if you constantly ventilate the pot and moisten the soil in a timely manner. Young shoots should be gradually accustomed to room temperature, ventilating more often. And after six months of life, small vallots can be seated in their personal pots and looked after in a standard mode.

Vallota is a rare plant that not only does not need constant transplants, but takes them extremely negatively. It is stressful for her, so a transplant should be done only if there are reasons. On average, the plant is transplanted every 3-5 years.

Florists recommend picking for the vallot a small, shallow pot that will fit the size of her bulb. Vallota grows short roots from the base of the bulb, and they need a little space. The optimal distance between the bulb and the sides or bottom of the pot is 2 cm. And most importantly, the pot must have enough drainage holes so that excess moisture can freely escape from the soil.

You can buy soil for amaryllis, which is sold in stores. Vallote is definitely not suitable for universal soil for indoor plants. Even if on the package there is a vallotta or zitantus among the huge list of flowers.

You can mix the substrate yourself. It will need one of the following sets of ingredients:

• 3 parts of deciduous humus, 2 parts of peat chips and 1 part of bark or charcoal crushed to a powdery state and sand;
• 3 parts turf, 2 parts peat chips and 1 part perlite or vermiculite (for good soil drainage) and manure powder.

Time to transplant vallotta is early spring, if the indication for transplantation was the fact that there are more bulbs in the pot than the soil.If the reason for the transplant is unplanned (a pot is broken or a plant has just been purchased in a store), then it is produced without reference to the season.

When transplanting, the bottom of the pot is sprinkled with drainage, then the soil is moistened and only then the bulb is planted. It should only enter halfway into the ground. The plant needs to be watered moderately and removed to a warm place for a week so that it can take root calmly.

Vallota is one of the least capricious exotic plants that has good resistance to pests and diseases. This does not mean that the plant does not get sick at all or is a priori protected from any encroachment by insects. But if you know what to do, the wallot can be helped to quickly cope with any troubles and continue a healthy life.

Vallota can be affected by fusarium, infection with head rot and gray rot.

• The cause of fusarium - poor soil treatment before planting a flower in it. To prevent contamination, the soil must be doused with boiling water and dried.
• The reason for head rot is excess moisture (for example, too frequent watering).
• Cause of gray mold infection usually a drop in temperature below the required level in winter or an excess of moisture.

Insects that can nibble on the wallot are spider mites (gray spider webs on the plant) and scale insects (brown spots on leaves and small insects). In both cases you need to treat the plant with laundry soap or, if the infection is very strong, with an insecticide. Before that, you need to remove insects or cobwebs with a damp cloth.

In addition to diseases and pests, the plant itself can signal that something is wrong with it. If a vallotta stubbornly does not bloom, there may be several reasons for this. It is necessary to find out which one is relevant and correct the situation.

1. Vallota grew out of her pot. In the coming spring, the plant will need to be transplanted into a larger pot.
2. The Vallotta pot is too big. In this case, the plant begins to intensively master all the space available to it, create new bulbs. Because of this, there is not enough energy to form a flowering stem, and even more so flowers. It is necessary to transplant the plant into a smaller pot in the spring.
3. Rest period not observed - the plant was not provided with the necessary coolness and did not reduce watering, fed. As a result, the Vallotta has not regained its strength and is not ready to bloom. It is necessary to restore the cyclical life of the plant and provide it with rest when it needs it.

Yellowing and falling leaves before the winter season are the norm. This is an indicator that the plant is entering a dormant period.

See below about caring for a wallot at home.