Room ehmeya. Care at home.

Ehmeya (Aechmea) is an epiphyte, that is, it can develop out of connection with the soil, on the trunks and branches of other plants. Family Bromeliaceae, homeland - Central and South America. The name comes from the name of the tip of the peak due to jagged, spiked leaves and pointed bracts - in Greek "ehmeya". The photo shows an exceptionally beautiful, decorative plant: massive leaves, mottled, stiff or leathery, the rosettes collected in the funnel, are of a deep, monochromatic color and variegated, and blooms and completely unspeakably beautiful. Rosette produces a long and thick flower stem, on which flowers bloom tropical beauty. Ehmeya is different in form and color, but always with bright pointed sessile leaves. Fruit after flowering appears berry. Ehmeya blooms only once and after that the rosette dies. Like all epiphytes, it takes root.

Types of ehmeya

Aechmea weilbachii - Ehmeya Weilbacha - rosette of long (up to fifty centimeters) linear-xiphoid leaves, soft and leathery, reddish-red with green, with a thickening copper color to the base. The edges of the leaves are not prickly. The inflorescence consists of complex brushes, located on a straight, thick peduncle with a giant length of half a meter. Bright red large succinct leaves. On sedentary flowers - lilac-blue petals with a white border. Throughout the length of the flower spoon is strewn with dense pink-crimson bracts.

Aechmea distichantha - two-rowed ehmeya - with loose rosette, strap-shaped narrow and long leaves, dark brown at the edges, with dense small spines, on the top - an oblong point. Flowers are lilac with bright red bracts. The derivative of its form - Variegata - with creamy white stripes along the edges of the leaves.

Aechmea recurvata - ehmeya bent - rosette of it from linear leaves splined into the tube, long and narrow, along the edges - strong small spikes, from above - smooth. The head of the inflorescence is twenty centimeters tall above the leaves. Petals and bracts are red.

Aechmea comata - shaggy shaggy echoes - rosette-shaped thick leaves up to a meter long, with small prongs at the edges. Inflorescence white-head ear, bright yellow flowers with red bracts. Blossoms only in the winter. Its variety is Makoyana - with leaves in a creamy white strip.

Aechmea miniata - ehmeya matte red - funnel socket with dense linguiform half-meter narrow leaves of light green, from below lilac color, with a narrow base and with a short pointed tip, finely and scaly. Red flower spike with a small pyramidal inflorescence. Long keep amazing red and blue flowers and bright pink fruits. Probably the most hardy ehmeya, care at home brings the least difficulty.

Aechmea fasciata - a striped snake - a strap-like leathery green leaves emerge from a tall tube-shaped rosette, narrow and long, densely covered with dark fine teeth along the edges, with silvery-white longitudinal bands on top, and at the ends with a large black spine. The flower bud is straight and scaly. The inflorescence is long, complex, with a pyramidal head and shiny pink inflorescences. Flowers with bluish petals, with felt cups, and at the end of flowering, the petals change color to blue-red.

Aechmea fulgens - a glittering snake - a loose rosette of pale green leaves with a patch of gray, belt-shaped and rounded, along the edges - sparse teeth. Coral-red, with a blue top, numerous flowers with pink bracts. Its variety is Aechmea fulgens var. Discolor - colored ehmeya - the leaves are olive-green from above, and lilac-red from below, the inflorescence is racemose and strongly branched with red petals.

Ehmeya - care at home

This plant is not one of the most capricious, but it needs a special and loving approach, for which the ehmeya will reward the magnificent flowering.

Lighting and temperature

The plant is photophilous, but from direct sunlight should be shaded. In the summer it is optimal to keep the temperature from twenty degrees and above, and in the winter, the ehmya loves a cooler way - up to eighteen degrees, just at this time and the peduncles are formed. The period of rest in ehmeya is practically absent. Ehmey's glittering variety prefers a warmer winter. And all ehmeys like the changes in night and day temperatures - at night +16, in the afternoon +27.

Humidity and watering

Quite a hardy flower - ehmeya. Care at home is reduced to watering and spraying, the latter must be done in the winter every day, when frying around the heating appliances. And dry air, in principle, ehmeee tolerate normally. In spring and summer, watering should be done abundantly - warm water (always warm and soft), but in a pan it should not stagnate. Water should firstly directly into the outlet, and in spring and summer the water in the leaves should stand right up. If the air temperature is less than twenty degrees, this procedure is not needed. By autumn, watering is reduced to a minimum, in the winter, the outlet must be dry, otherwise the ehmya will rot. Care at home provides, of course, and the introduction of fertilizers. This is done in spring and summer - in a complex, twice a month.

Transplant and reproduction

Ehmeyu need to replant every year, while removing all the faded rosettes. The substrate is composed of two parts of leaf land, two - peat and one part of sand. For sale special primer for bromeliads. The ehmya breeds with seeds and offspring - young shoots. When they grow to two-thirds the height of the mother plant, they are carefully separated together with the roots and planted in small pots. Seeds are sown in February in loose peat or sphagnum, cover with a thin layer of earth, top covered with glass (jar) or transparent package. So will germinate ehmeya. Care at home after sowing requires only the maintenance of moisture and heat - at least twenty-two degrees - there must be protection from direct sunlight. Shoots usually appear in about three months, and they are dived into separate pots. A year later, these are already adult plants, which will require both an adult place and an adult soil.