A properly selected indoor plant will be an excellent element of the decor of your home or office for many years. One of the plants that are suitable both for landscaping and for well-being is peperomia dupolistny. It is decorative, has compact dimensions and healing properties. More on this later in the article.

What does peperomia look dumb

Peperomia is a low herbaceous plant from the Pepper family. In nature, this flower lives in Central and South America, as well as in parts of Brazil and Ecuador.

The height of the plant, as a rule, does not exceed 40 cm. The structure of the shoots is thick, leaves are round, 8 cm in diameter, dense, green in color, covered with an invisible film. Attached to the stem with petioles. Peduncles are spike-shaped, similar in shape to the peduncle of plantain.

Pereromia blooms almost imperceptibly, since its flowers are very small and nondescript.

Basically, the plant is used as an ampel and is grown on windows or balconies, also looks good in hanging flowerpots.

There are several varieties of blunt leaf peperomia, their main differences are the color (solid dark green or variegated) and the shape of the leaves (oval, lanceolate). Did you know? Due to the shape of the inflorescences, peperomia is popularly called the “rat tail”.

Useful properties and harm

• Peperomia vulgaris is best known for its beneficial properties:
• aesthetic - this is a small decorative plant with bright foliage of a unique color;
• disinfectants - cleans the air in the room from fungi and the microorganism due to the release of volatile;
• therapeutic - improves the functionality of the stomach and intestines, urinary system and mammary glands.

The flower does not have harmful properties and does not pose a danger to humans, since it does not contain any poisons or toxins.

However, the superstitious peperomia is also accompanied by some superstitions and folk signs. Some of them are probably associated with the healing properties of the plant.

1. If there is peperomia in the house, love and prosperity will reign in the family.
2. Growing this flower, you protect yourself from quarrels and will have enough money.
3. It can not be taken as a gift, as this will bring grief to the family. But if you buy a flower with a coin, misfortune can be avoided.
4. If you grow peperomia at home, family members will rarely get sick.
5. In the house where this flower grows, loyalty will remain, all family members will be close to each other.
6. Being in the same room with the plant, the sick person recovers faster.
7. By putting peperomia in the bedroom, you can have a good, healthy sleep.

House growing conditions

Growing peperomia does not require any special effort. Compliance with the basic requirements of the content will help maintain an attractive appearance of this plant. Let us consider in more detail how to properly care for him at home.

Lighting and ventilation

Peperomia needs moderate lighting, so it is best to place it in the northwestern or eastern part of the room. But in winter, a flower, on the contrary, needs stronger lighting, otherwise the leaves will lose color or even fall off.

The plant does not tolerate drafts and temperature changes, so if you plan to ventilate the room in which the flowerpot is located, you need to move peperomia to another room in advance.

Temperature and humidity

Comfortable temperature for growing peperomia is + 20 ... + 24 ° С. Heat +30 ° C and higher is difficult to tolerate by the plant. In winter, the temperature can be reduced to + 17 ... + 18 ° C, and if watering is reduced, the plant will be able to withstand temperatures up to +10 ° C. If you need to raise or lower the temperature in the room where the flower is contained, then you should not do this abruptly.

Important! Too low a temperature leads to depletion of peperomia and its wilting. And too high a temperature can cause a sharp loss of leaves and death of the plant.

The flower requires frequent spraying if it is in a room with low humidity. The optimum moisture level for this plant should be 60–70%.

Home Care

It is not difficult to take care of peperomia at home, since it is a fairly unpretentious plant. The main thing in breeding a flower is to observe the modes of hydration, top dressing and transplanting.

Bush plants also include brugmansia, zamia, hypocirrhoidia, gofmaniya.

Watering

Water the plant should be soft water at + 2 ... + 3 ° C above the environment. In summer, water the flower should be 1 time in 2 weeks, in winter - 1 time in 3 weeks. You also need to ensure that the soil in the pot does not dry out.

Watering should be done directly under the root, and the remaining water in the pan should be drained so that it does not stagnate and bacteria that can damage the root system of the flower do not start in it.

Top dressing

Peperomia should be fertilized once every 2 weeks, starting from spring to the end of summer (March - August). In the cold season, top dressing is carried out once a month.

For top dressing, you can use universal liquid fertilizer for indoor plants. It should be applied after irrigation in moist soil. If you add fertilizer to dry soil, you can burn the root system of peperomia. Given that the roots of this flower are gentle and small, with improper feeding, you can destroy the plant.

The dosage of the fertilizer should be 2 times less than that indicated on the package. With an excess of nutrients, brown spots appear on the edges of the leaves, and the root system weakens. A weakened flower, in turn, becomes a target for pests.

Pruning

Often dull-leaved peperomia is not cut off. It is worth forming those plants that have a pronounced “baldness”, usually because the stems fall and break due to the heavy weight of the dense leaves. Shoots need to be shortened when their size reaches 20 cm, leaving processes 3-5 cm long with 3-4 leaves.

Thanks to this pruning, the plant releases new stems.

Also, with the help of pruning, peperomia rejuvenation can be performed. To do this, cut off old or heavily overgrown side shoots. Cut stalks can be rooted.

Transfer

Peperomia stupidis at the age of 3 needs to be transplanted into new soil by transshipment. In the future, transplantation should be carried out no more than 1 time in 2-3 years, in the spring.

The transplanting pot should be shallow, but wide, since the roots of the flower are small. The size of the tank with each procedure should be 1-2 times larger than the previous one.

The soil for transplanting peperomia consists of sand, peat, as well as turf and leafy land. The ratio of the elements of the land mixture is 0.5: 1: 1: 1.

The first signs of the need for a flower transplant are the cessation of growth and the germination of the roots through the holes in the bottom of the pot.

Important! After transplantation, peperomia should be rearranged in a darkened warm place to give the flower a rest. After a week, the plant can be returned to its usual place.

During the transplant, the roots should not be separated from the soil - the plant should be planted in a new pot with a lump of earth. Before transshipment, the pot must be filled by a third with drainage from pebbles or expanded clay.

Breeding

There are 3 ways to reproduce dystrophy peperomia:

• cuttings;
• seeds;
• dividing the bush.

Many flower growers use cuttings for propagation, since this method does not require special efforts and time. Division of the bush is also a simple process in which you can get a new flower. But reproduction using seeds is more difficult, since getting seeds from this plant is quite difficult due to the fact that they are very small.

Did you know? Light streaks on the leaves of peperomia, as a rule, prevail over the dark. Therefore, it is believed that this plant helps to overcome life's difficulties, which are called the "black stripe".

Cuttings

Propagation by cuttings is carried out during the period of pruning. A suitable stem should have several leaves and a pair of internodes. Rooted cuttings should be in a mixture of peat and sand, the ratio of which is 2: 1. The processes need to be deepened into the soil mixture by 3 cm.

After planting, you need to set the room temperature at + 18 ... + 22 ° C. It is also necessary to maintain high humidity so that the rooting process is faster. Roots may appear after 2–5 weeks, depending on growing conditions. After this, the processes should be planted in pots with a diameter of 7 cm.

Dividing the bush

It is best to propagate peperomia by dividing the bushes in March-April, when an adult plant is transplanted. With this method of reproduction, it is necessary to manually divide the peperomia rhizome or use the blade to plant the resulting bushes in separate pots.

Land for planting should be loose, with low acidity, and consist of humus, sand, peat and leaf land in a ratio of 1: 1: 1: 3.

After this, as usual, once every 2-3 years, you need to transplant the plant into new soil.

Using seeds

Sowing seeds is also carried out in March-April. The mixture for sowing needs to be made of sand and sheet earth in a ratio of 1: 2. After sowing, the container with seeds should be covered with glass, while it is important to ventilate the sprouts 2 times a day.

After the second leaf appears, seedlings need to be dived into boxes or pots. The soil used is the same as for sowing. The distance between the shoots should be 2 cm.

After 2-3 weeks, seedlings can be replanted in containers with a diameter of 7 cm. The soil for transplantation should consist of peat, sand, turf land and leaf in a ratio of 2: 1: 2: 2.

Possible growing difficulties

Although peperomia is blunt and undemanding in care, there are a number of difficulties in growing this flower.

If the rules for caring for the plant are not observed, such parasites and ailments can attack it:

1. Spider mite . Appears with insufficient watering or dry air. To combat the parasite, you need to increase the humidity of the soil and air next to peperomia by watering and spraying. Water should be warm. Additionally, it is worth treating the plant with Actellica solution.
2. Thrips . The main signs of the appearance of these pests is the spread of silver spots on the leaves. To combat the disease, special drugs are used: Actellik, Fitoverm, Inta-Vir.
3. Mealyworms . When infected with worms, fungal mold appears on the stem. To remove it, you need to process the peperomia "Confidor".
4. Decay of the root system . It happens with heavy watering. To prevent this from happening, be careful not to overmoisten the soil. To eliminate the disease, you need to transplant the plant into a new pot with new soil.

Peperomia is a beautiful ornamental plant, which is unpretentious in cultivation, but needs regular care. If you follow all the rules of detention, you can enjoy this unique plant for a long time, which also has healing properties and is able to bring harmony to the house.