Serpentine (Liriope muscari)

lovely plant with green and white leaves and purple flowers

If you are looking to grow a plant of remarkable ornamental beauty in your garden, you should consider Liriope muscari, commonly known as Serpentina. The ease that represents your care also makes it very popular in the world of gardening.

El Liriope muscari It shows a color that will give a special tone to the area of ​​plants in your home, but in addition to being appreciated for this it is also appreciated for its foliage, and for being always green no matter what time of year we are.

Features Liriope muscari

purple-flowered bushes called Liriope muscari

Serpentine is called a type of plant that is found precisely within the genus Liriope, a genus where many bulbous plants are housed and which are included in the liliaceae family.

We refer to a herbaceous type plant, which it is often used a lot as an ornamental plant in gardens, specifically for border areas or to mark certain roads.

It is a plant that thrives best in shady places, so it is usually used in places where it is in the shade of other higher plantations. To this gloomy environment in which they will grow best, a humidity framework must be added that is very flattering for them.

Its ornamental use, in addition to its beauty, usually has to do with does not represent a great effort in maintenance during cultivation. This means that we will only have to be careful so that later it develops without any inconvenience and without us having to be constantly assisting it.

Because of this easy progression, it can be used in containers, to be able to use it in places where we do not have dirt soil, such as terraces or balconies, being able to develop very well, as long as they are in a shady area and it is kept humid.

It is a plant that needs constant humidity, so this will be the care you should have. Although it resists some short periods in which there is drought, if it lasts a little longer than indicated, it can damage the foliage, which will take a slightly more yellow color and will weaken considerably.

This is a plant of a low nature, to which it can be confused particularly with weeds. They show leaves with lanceolate and elongated characteristics and their structure is arched, possessing a dark green color that will be confused with the rest of the grass with which it is especially similar.

garden full of plants and flowers whose name is Liriope muscari

These leaves will fall on the plantations giving a green mattress appearance that serves as an ornamental base to highlight the beauty of your flowers. Its flowering will be demonstrated with small flowers with a special color, which can be placed between purple and dark blue, as well as can show some white flowers that will give it a very particular ornamental hue.

These are arranged in the long floral rods, showing a spike shape that is contrasted in a very ornamental way in the upper part of the foliage. Its flowering stage will begin during the first days of spring, where the first violet traces will begin to be seen and will extend steadily until the last days of summer.

Once all this flowering period has passed and we are already in mid-autumn, this plant will start to bear very dark berries which will be there for much of the fall, beginning to dissipate with the severe cold of winter.

Climate and soil

As we have mentioned before, the shadow is the place where the plant Liriope muscari develops better, so it is not difficult to realize the weather conditions that will be conducive to a perfect crop. These have a great tolerance to cold and this conclusion comes out of cultivation in areas where temperatures are low and where it remains always green.

It could even withstand frost without any inconvenience and according to specialists it can stay healthy in incredible cold temperatures of -20 ° C, although of course, in this extreme condition it will not develop normally, but will need some special care.

In what has to do with the characteristics of the soil for its development, this is as resistant as low temperatures, so there will not be many requirements for the substrate to grow healthy.

Of course, as long as the soil can be kept in a state of humidity and in this all other plant species can develop found in your garden, the Liriope muscari it will have no problem to grow.

Irrigation and fertilizer

field full of shrubs of the Liriope muscari plant

Understand that this is a shade plant, it also gives us the guideline that their soils will never have a total evaporation of water, so this makes us think that the wet maintenance of their soils is very important and so will the irrigation that we must carry out. But by not losing its natural moisture, it will not be necessary to water constantly, but it will be possible to lengthen the periods in which the irrigation is carried out.

This means that irrigation will not be a problem either for its development, because as we told you before, certain periods of drought will be supported by it without problems.

Although it is always better not to subject it to this drought if we can avoid it by making a periodic watering that could be given approximately once a week. Surely, in the warmer months, you should reinforce watering and when it reaches the end of its flowering, it will not need so much. That is something that you will have to see yourself.

Taking into account how resistant this plant is and how easy it is to grow in diverse climates, it is also not strange to think that it is a plant that does not need a specific fertilizer. But we can take as an option for a greater ornamental beauty during its flowering the fact of including some generic type fertilizer in the beginning of spring, or making a compost where maturity will be important.

This compost will be very beneficial especially in the moments of beginning of growth, since will mean an acclimatization effect, so that the plant recognizes and develops in that terrain without problems.

This will be during the spring, but if their time has passed, you can also sow their seeds in compost that has a large amount of organic matter and it will also develop well, done during autumn times and with low temperatures.


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