The Bouvardia Ternifolia: Surely you have ever seen a flower with a trumpet and a great color that attracts and greatly improves the ornamental value of the area where it is placed. Well, it is the Bouvardia Ternifolia. It is well known for its peculiar shape of the trumpet flowers and with the scarlet red very powerful.
Bouvardia Ternifolia
It comes from Central America and is very abundant in the zone of Mexico. We can find weed, red meadowsweet, Indian grass, myrtle, trumpet, and grass of astonishment among their common names.
In this post, we will talk about the characteristics, uses, and care that Bouvardia needs to be splendid and improve all the planted areas. Do you want to know more about her? You just have to keep reading.
Main Characteristics
The Bouvardia is a type of shrub with dimensions between 30 cm, the smallest specimens, and 1.2 m, the largest ones. The leaves are also striking as they have a bright dark green color and are oval in shape. Normally in this type of bushes, only their flowers stand out, and the leaves go a little unnoticed, but in this case, everything stands out in plain sight.
Its flowers have a trumpet shape and are notable for their scarlet red color. They are very striking and ideal for gardens and to decorate roads and even local. The flowers can be found as if they were bunches. They have numerous branches of tubular shape and are quite long in size.
This plant attracts the human being because of its beauty and contains rich nectar in its red corolla, from which the hummingbirds take advantage to satisfy their hunger.
Reproduction of the Bouvardia Ternifolia
The Bouvardia is a type of perennial plant, so we can enjoy its bright dark green leaves throughout the year. Therefore, it is worth having them in the garden so that we do not have the garden so sad and gloomy in the cold winter months.
It is better to choose a good variety of deciduous and perennial plants so that you do not always have the same garden. In this way, depending on the season of the year in which we are, our garden will look one way or another.
In this case, the Bouvardia Ternifolia can be reproduced in several ways. The first is by seeds and the second by cuttings. These plants need soil that is a mixture of sand and clay. It does not have to be very wet, but it can be dry or rocky.
The advantage of the Bouvardia is that it is a fairly resistant plant and will not give many problems. We will have a very attractive and colorful plant without considering much on the substrate.
The best way to grow healthy our Bouvardia is to put it in full sun. If we do not have enough space or want to place it elsewhere, it also survives well in partial shade. If the shade is more frequent than the sun, it may suffer some damage since it needs hours of sunshine per day to perform its photosynthetic processes.
As for the climate, this plant supports better the warmer climates, although it is tolerant to the cold. We can find it naturally on roads and roads or in even more remote areas. As we mentioned before, there are no watering problems when needing dry soil. On many occasions, rainwater will suffice.
Most widespread Uses
Another of the qualities that make this plant so good to have is that it has different uses. For a long time, in the area from which this plant comes, Mexico, it was widely used as a medicine to cure various diseases.
This meadow grass was used to heal wounds that caused certain types of snakes. And the fact is that the nectar of the Bouvardia is healing as well as delicious for the hummingbird.
The leaves and flowers were placed in a mortar, crushed, and then placed in the affected area. This preparation was also used for people with toothache, sprained feet, or other extremities.
You can prepare an infusion with dried leaves and take it well warm to regulate stomach transit and relieve the pain caused by diarrhea and menstrual pain in women.
At present, it has been known that this plant has excellent healing properties against rabies and dysentery. In addition, it has analgesic properties that serve to treat some stronger pains of the cold, flu, or general malaise caused by fatigue.
However, despite the fact that these medicinal benefits are widespread, ornamental and landscaping take the trophy. The Bouvardia decorates gardens, homes, highways, avenues, shopping centers, and restaurants.
Necessary Care
To enjoy this plant in all its splendor, we must fulfill certain necessary care that the plant demands. The first one we mentioned before but is worth remembering it. You need a location where you can have direct sunlight for a long time, although it survives well in a semi-shade.
Being a plant from tropical places, it cannot stand frosts well. So, make sure that your climate does not frequent low temperatures a lot.
Ideally, the average annual temperature of the climate where it develops is about 16-18 degrees. It does not need excess moisture, so it is good to place them in airy places. As for irrigation, it is not necessary to just water it in winter unless it rains nothing. In the warmer time of spring, and summer you have to water them twice a week and fertilize them with mineral fertilizer.
To improve its beauty, it is good to do drastic pruning at the end of winter so that it grows bright when spring and summer arrive. Be careful with aphids, whiteflies, and cochineals, since if the environment is dry and scarce irrigation, these insects will take advantage to attack.
I hope that you can enjoy the beauty of the Bouvardia Ternifolia in your home with these tips.