Portulaca, 9 O Clock (White) - Plant

Planting and care

Portulacas love it hot and dry. You can plant them in poor, even sandy, soil. They also adapt to average garden conditions.
Just give them full sun and any well-drained soil. Water them after planting and watch them go. They will grow 4 to 8 inches high and spread 6 to 18 inches. You don t even have to deadhead.

If plants get scraggly, you can cut them back. Don t fertilize too much; it will encourage plants to produce thick foliage but fewer flowers.

Caring for Portulaca

• Water the plant only when the top of the soil is dry, as portulaca is a drought-tolerant plant that thrives in dry, desert-like soil.
• Fertilize to portulaca every other week, using a liquid fertilizer with a balanced ratio such as 20-20-20.
• Alternatively, apply a balanced, slow-release fertilizer in midsummer.
• Pinch off wilted blooms to prevent the plant from self-seeding.
• Check portulaca often for aphids, tiny, green insects that gather on the undersides of the leaves or at the joints of the stems and leaves.

Typical uses of Portulaca

Special features: Moss rose is a beautiful, bright colored, low growing annual that blooms all summer long with little or no care required. It is one of the very few annual succulents.

Culinary use: NA

Ornamental use: Plant moss rose in a container or hanging basket and let it spill over like a sedum. Use moss rose as edging at the front of borders or in the cracks in a rock wall, or the spaces between stepping stones.

Medicinal use: The entire plant is depurative. It is used in the treatment of hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver with ascites, swelling, and pain in the pharynx.

The fresh juice of the leaves and stems is applied externally as a lotion to snake and insect bites, burns, scalds, and eczema.

References

• http://flowers.about.com/od/Annual-Flowers/p/Growing-Portulaca-The-Moss-Rose-Flower.htm
• http://homeguides.sfgate.com/care-portulaca-40832.html
• http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/portulaca/portulaca-plants.htm
• http://garden.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Portulaca