Fireweed seeds «Ivan-Tea»

Fireweed angustifolium or Ivan tea / Chamerion angustifolium

Perennial ornamental, food and medicinal plant. Blooms in July-August. It is one of the best honey plants, the leaves are used to make green tea.

Growing willow tea with seeds

The main rule when planting is to keep the seeds in place. Ivan-tea seeds are weightless, "downy" and small in size. If you do not resort to some tricks, then they can scatter.

Consider a few retention rules:

• Plant seeds are mixed with wet sand.
• Several strips of paper 2 cm wide are prepared. Flour or starch paste is applied to the strips - drops after 9 cm. Several fluffs are removed from the bag and attached to the glue. We are waiting for the glue to dry. Then the paper is rolled up and fixed.

A place for sowing willow-tea should be with enough sunlight and moisture. A good option: a former piece of land where potatoes were planted many times. In the selected area on a calm day, a high, strong fire is made, and the coals are leveled after it. Moss, sawdust or peat is poured onto the coals. They burn and give more ashes. After such warming up of the earth, the roots of other plants will die, which may prevent fireweed from growing.

Prepared seed rolls are laid shallow in the soil (up to 1-2 cm) in grooves 2-3 cm per edge. If you plant seeds without gluing on toilet paper, then wet them in advance, and after some drying, mix with sand. Sow them like carrots directly with sand into the grooves to a depth of 1 cm. Cover the crops with the prepared mixture of sand and ash, taken equally in volume. All the seeds have been planted. After that, the area is watered with melt or rain water. It is advisable to keep the soil moist for the first seven days.

The young plant is sensitive, it grows stronger for a long time. A flowering field is obtained after two years of planting, and the plot is completely filled in the third or fourth year. By this time, fireweed will propagate with the help of rhizomes. After 7-8 years, the plants will begin to die, so you need to choose another place for it.

For the convenience of removing the seeds from the package, they are additionally packed in paper, which prevents the edge of the seeds from becoming electrified. When planting, you must be very careful when opening the seed pods (pods), so as not to let the seeds scatter.