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Crassula is the little known name of a very popular and very widespread pot plant. In this article I will introduce you to the different ones variety of crassula and I will explain how to grow crassula in the best way to get a lush plant with colorful flowers.
It is easy to find one on the market Crassula plant and it doesn't cost much, just look for it in nurseries or, if you are satisfied with small specimens, you can hope to find it in supermarkets too. An alternative is to have a friend give you a cutting as a gift, and then commit to having it developed. On paper it is not an impossible undertaking, quite the contrary.
Variety of crassula: Crassula ovata
There Crassula Ovata she is better known, and she herself loves more, to be called, by the more poetic name of jade tree. If jade recalls the East, a plant instead comes from theSouthern Africa, his family of belonging is that of Crassulaceae.
It is a succulent and the genus embraces a wide range of plants that with the name of Crassula they also have small characteristics with which to distinguish one from the other. If we want to be precise, then, speaking of Crassula we have to think of more than 300 species of different appearance and size.
Variety of crassula: Crassula arborescens
This, Crassula arborescens, is only the scientific name of the protagonist plant, of which we can describe the most common species, or the most original and noteworthy, often for the color, but also for the shape or size of the leaves.
There Variegated oblique, for example, it has green and white spots with a red border, while the leaves of the Obliqua are even silver and lack the red border. There C. Hummel's Sunset features new red and gold leaves, red and yellow Red Horn Tree and the Lemon & Lime, as imaginable, yellow and acid green.
Among the odd-shaped species are the Silver Dollar Jade, rotunda, and the Gollum, characterized by a tubular morphology.
The name is funny and literary Hobbit which offers rolled leaves and even reaches a height of 1 meter, on the contrary the Crassula Minima it is small in stature, also used for bonsai, and with reddish leaves, against the light.
Variety of crassula: Crassula portulacea
That of C. Portulacea is the scientific name of a succulent plant always belonging to the family of Crassulaceae and arriving from the arid areas of southern Africa. Despite the different climate in which it is born, it adapts to that of our continent and grows with its typical spindle which in the first part is smooth and without leaves and then becomes leafy and with a smooth and shiny appearance.
The color of the Portulacea it is typically green with a red margin that frames the leaves and sometimes invades the innermost surface: it is an artistic touch that is affected by the environmental conditions in force. THE flowers of this succulent the first days of autumn appear and they resist throughout winter period, gathered in simple inflorescences, often white with not too evident pink veins. The only lively touch is the pistil: red, more and more red, the more mature the flower.
The Crassula plant
Finally, let's take a closer look at this so common plant that we have so far described "in brush strokes", impressionist. It's a shrub with a light brown stem visibly ramified from which leaves emerge which usually have an oval shape, even if from species to species it can be different.
As for the colors, that of the leaves is light green, on average, except for the exceptions that we have already known and understood the particularity of the red border which comes and goes from species to species but remains quite frequent. It also depends on the climate: let's consider it a rather stable characteristic for the Crassula.
A succulent plant with an upright habit, the Crassula it sports a rounded crown also due to the fact that the leaves have a turgid appearance closely linked to, and explained by, the large amount of water they contain. The flowers are not large but united in large umbels they form one colored critical mass which stands out and enriches, makes Crassula very pleasant.
Usually the petals are white, tending at most to pale pink, the bunches formed have a star shape and appear in the winter season, since the Crassula, coming from the other hemisphere, it has an inverted life cycle. Another point in her favor: when her colleagues are not at the top, she explodes with life.
How to grow Crassula
It does not go beyond the meter, it can be bought in pots, it is also easily found in the supermarket and it is easy to cultivate, in fact, not only by reputation. Wanting is also in the open ground but in Europe it is what rare to find out of its jar to be placed in areas of full sun, where the temperatures are not too stiff. Without bothering to measure them every hour, but we must be careful that they do not drop below - 7 degrees.
For these succulents you need a specific fertilizer and consistency in irrigation, making sure that the amount of water is not too much: we wait for the soil to be completely dry to avoid the risk of drowning the Crassula and make it rot. Speaking of soil, the ideal one, because it is well drained, is made up of heather, sand and peat. The maintenance request, once these precautions are respected, is really almost nothing, taking for granted those minimal interventions of mere maintenance such as the elimination of dry branches and leaves and sheltering in case of winter frost.
Crassula leaking leaves: what to do
Few duties towards the Crassula, true, but this does not mean forgetting to take a look to see if diseases or parasites threaten their health. Indeed, it may happen that the Crassula lose its leaves and wither: this means that we have distractedly exposed it to drafts, or to the cold that we know does not love at all.
If the leaves, instead of falling, discolor, the problem is another: we are watering ours too little Crassula. We provide but without exaggerating otherwise the stem can rot, at this point if this concerns only a part of the plant we can save it by eliminating the rot and letting the rest dry. There Crassula is not frequently prey to parasites, it may happen that it suffers an attack by the scale insects, but they can be eliminated with a cotton swab soaked in alcohol and water.
Where to buy the Crassula
In addition to the supermarket and nurseries, Crassula can easily be purchased online where it is called almost as if it were a nickname, jade tree. At less than 10 euros it will arrive home a potted succulent, 10 cm in diameter, which we can grow with almost guaranteed success. And confident that in the first winter that comes, they can spring up flowers in clusters, white and pale pink, next to the fleshy leaves that remain all year round.
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