Growing your own fruits, flowers, trees - this is a real pleasure for every summer resident. Watching the process of the emergence of life that makes its way out of the earth is the most favorite activity; it gives a person the strength and energy to live and move on. The benefits of your garden are endless. This is not just good food for the winter, it is a balm for the soul. After all, the garden can be decorated with a corner of beautiful ornamental plants. One of the interesting, but little-known plants is stakhis woolly.
Cultivation of stachis from seeds using seedlings
This plant is ideal for growing as a decorative garden or slide in a relatively warm climate. Externally, it is light, it seems covered with white bloom. 
If you step on it with your bare foot, you can be in heaven - it is so nice, silky and soft. In order to have such an ornament in your garden, you need to grow it properly.
Did you know? Stakhis, or Byzantine Chistets, or sheep ears, is a perennial plant. Its height is barely 60 cm. Usually the leaves are laid on the ground, covering it with a velvet cover.
Propagate this plant can be seeds. They are distinguished by good germination. February or March are suitable for planting seeds.
They are sown in prepared, closed soil, which can be fertilized with organic matter or mineral substances, and watered. 
Now everything must be covered to create a greenhouse using oilcloth or glass. About 30 days grabs grains to grow out of the ground.
Like other plants, stachis does not differ in the scheme of growing from seeds. At the end of his month dive - Seated in large pots or at a distance from each other up to 10 cm, to give more space and the opportunity to take root.
Planting seedlings on a permanent place in the garden
Now the plant is ready for transplanting in open ground. You need to know how to do it correctly, find the optimal place and time.
Important! This plant tolerates frost well, but if winter is very harsh and not at all snowy, then they should be covered ...
Choosing a place
Stahis - The plant is completely unpretentious. It feels great in the sun, does not fade. Normally tolerate drought. If you plant him in partial shade - he will like it too. 
Under the constant illumination of the sun, stakhis grow distinctively large leaves, and their color is slightly whiter than those that grow in the shade.
But do not think that this plant, like a cactus, will be able to live in complete drought. This is fraught with the fact that the bush just throw off their leaves, which can not feed water and trace elements.
Therefore, if summer is too hot and without rain, then the soil should be occasionally moistened. Do not flood the plant, it does not like stagnant moisture more than a strong drought.
What kind of soil does our woolly friend prefer? Any composition will do here:
- black soil;
- alkaline;
- stony;
- sandy.
In addition, to replant it from year to year you do not have to. He feels good in one place. After a few years, the middle of the flower bed may begin to thin.Additional cultivation of young seedlings in empty places, fertilization of the soil or transplanting the whole flowerbed to a soil more saturated with useful minerals will help save the stakhis.
Usually, they still have to be transplanted after about 5 years in the soil loosened and rich with useful substances.
Did you know? This plant is the first after winter, ahead of tulips, daffodils and crocuses, will meet you in the garden with velvet leaves. And in May, the purple flowers of Stachis, which by the structure of the stalk and the location of the inflorescences very much resemble lavender, will already bloom.
Optimal timing
When the spring frosts end, the plant is ready to migrate to the ground for fresh air. Usually this period falls on the month of May.
Landing pattern
Each seedling should be at a distance of 20 cm. It is better if before planting you fertilize the soil with humus, manure or add chalk. 
When transplanting, after the five-year carefree life of the stakhis, a part of the earth is dug out under it and sprinkled on a new, rich in minerals. Young saplings are planted on this place.
Companion plants
Stahis rarely planted alone, although in this case it looks advantageous. Usually, it complements other plants in a garden or on a hill, for fencing or in a flower bed.
Therefore, you need to know with whom he will be friends and will not compete. Among his companions:
- silver wormwood;
- lung sugar;
- ageratum;
- cattle;
- geicher;
- astrantia;
- yaskolka;
- bloodroot;
- marigold;
- hosts;
- bushes of pink roses.
Stakhis is also wonderfully compatible with lavender, bells, black cohosh, daylily and boxwood.
Stachis Care Tips
Pretty unpretentious plant stakhis woolly and in planting, and in the selection of soil, place, and in the care. But still, keeps a few secrets.
Watering, weeding and loosening the soil
As we have already noted well stachis in dry soil, where there is no stagnation of water. He still needs to receive watering only in the case of a very dry and hot summer. 
You will notice his displeasure by dropping foliage. Water in the evening, when the sun no longer shines on the plant. Young saplings can be planted in the soil in the spring, as the old ones can be pulled up, discarding the lower leaves and thus creating voids in the flowerbed.
If the stems or leaves are too long or completely dried, then their need to cut. Do the same with rhizomes throughout the summer, which go outside.
In the summer, in addition to watering, the stakhis require care for the soil. It is necessary to loosen it occasionally, despite the fact that the plant does not give very deep roots. This can be done through every 14 days.
Spud better at its discretion, but no more than 3 times. So you give space for the plant to develop. To loosen the soil in no hurry. Do this when your leaves are about 20 cm long
Important! This plant velvet is very resistant to pests. But if the soil is saturated with moisture, it can suffer from the formation of rot.
Fertilization
It does not need frequent fertilization. It is enough for him to receive a portion of the compost once per season. In such a soil can be planted in the spring of young seedlings.
Try to fertilize the soil under plants with wood ash, peat, potash and mineral fertilizers, as well as superphosphate.
Pruning inflorescences
As you can see, the stachis in its description decorative plant. It is an ideal option for decoration borders, lawns and streams. 
Of course, the leafy part is valued more than thin stems with a cap of small and impenetrable flowers. Can you imagine how much power a plant gives in order to launch such an arrow?
Naturally, all this is compensated by new arrows; new leaves are dying or not developing. We need the opposite for decoration.
To save deciduous velvet need to trim the arrows of the inflorescences. The shorter you do it, the better. The optimal time for trimming is the period immediately after the wave of the first color has passed.
If you didn’t have time, then next year in early May or even late April watch how new shoots form - they must be immediately cut off. With the onset of warm and sunny days during the period of active growth, the plant will devote all its strength to the foliage, which will cover the ground and will delight you with its luxurious look before the first frost.
Wintering of the stakhis
If the winter is frosty and snowy enough, then worry about the Stakhis altogether not worth. He will hide himself with a snow blanket and spend the winter, and in the spring he will delight with his velvet. 
If the winters in your region are frosty and dry, then the plant is better protected and covered for the winter season.
Other planting and breeding methods
Sowing seeds straight into the ground
The plant is propagated by seeds in open ground before the onset of frost or in the spring, when they come down. Even a little frozen soil that will need to warm up will do.
It is important that the outside temperature is from 8 to 20 ° С and not lower. Approximately 10 days will be enough for the plant to grow. Germination, as with seed germination at home, is very high. Now you can seat them by observing the standard distance in 15-20 cm
Bushes division
This is a very frequent way that stachis can be propagated. Part of foliage is separated from the developed shrub along with the root.
Important! The plant with fluffy leaves has another important feature - it grows very quickly, develops and takes root. Having multiplied it by dividing in the spring, in May of the same year the sapling will bloom.
Therefore, it is preferable not to spend a lot of time on the germination of seeds and use this method. It is possible to divide and plant a bush not only in spring, but also in summer and autumn. 
The main thing is that the sun does not burn on the street. Therefore, the month of August, when it is already a bit cool, is ideal.
Cuttings
As already noted, the roots of this plant are shallow, so cutting will give you too quality result. Cuttings will quickly adapt to the new soil.
It is necessary to use an adult plant with its lower part of stalks. They are carefully cut and planted shallowly under the ground at a distance 15-20 cm from others.
Your task - follow the progress of this adaptation period, whether there is little moisture in the soil. After all, new roots can be damaged by rot. At the same time, very dry soil can dry the roots. 
It is possible to conduct grafting even in early spring. And if the soil has not yet warmed up, then it is better to cover it with a film for several days. Suitable for such breeding warm, but not hot time of spring, summer and autumn.
Tubers
Tubers can be planted in the ground in the spring when you are planting potatoes. The depth of the fossa is 6 cm in neutral soils, in sandy areas it is better to increase it by another 2 cm. Observe a distance of 20 cm according to the scheme between rows and tubers. From above the humus is put and poured over with water.
Did you know? Unfortunately, this velvet variety does not produce edible tubers, unlike the Siebold species, whose fruits have beneficial properties, are necessary for diabetes and for the treatment of other ailments.
Stakhis woolly is on the first positions of pets among gardeners, both amateurs and professionals. It perfectly decorates your garden. It is enough to see how this velvet looks like in the form of a garden roof, among which rose bushes or round forms of boxwood rise, you will fall in love with it completely and irrevocably.
