Baby's breath (Gyposophila paniculata) is in airy form and it has hundreds of tiny flowers in white or pink. This particular plant will provide your garden border with an interesting contrast to larger flowers and dense shrubs. Baby's breath (Gyposophila paniculata) grows about three feet tall and wide in the standard size and about one to 1 ½ feet tall in dwarf varieties. This particular plant is also excellent for cut flowers and for dried flower arrangements. Baby's breath (Gyposophila paniculata) grows best in USDA plant hardiness zones 3 through 9.



The caring and feeding of Baby's breath

       1. You need to place the baby's breath plant in a spot in your garden that gets at least 6 hours of sunlight daily. A study has shown that dwarf plants work well in containers placed in sunny locations.

       2. Make sure you water the baby's breath plant with a deep soaking every 2 or 3 weeks. The Baby's breath (Gyposophila paniculata) will tolerate somewhat dry soil and it does well in drought conditions.

       3. Make sure you test your soil with a pH kit from your local nursery to see if it really provides the slightly alkaline soil that the plant prefers. You can add lime to lower the acidic level or sulfur to really make the soil more acidic.

       4. You can fertilize the plant once a month during the growing season. All-purpose fertilizers normally provide an equal amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are indicated on the label with the ratio of each element, like 10-10-10.



Major things to consider

       1. Make sure you cut off spent flower clusters and stems after they bloom down to a set of 2 leaves in other to encourage more blooms throughout the summer. Cut off flowers is known as deadheading, this can be done at any point during the year but before the flowers go to seed.

      2. You can push a staking grid into the ground in early spring when your Baby's breath plant is just starting to grow. Most time the grid supports the airy stems of baby's breath plant as it grows, and the new foliage will then hide the grid itself.

      3. You can line the bottom and sides of the ground around baby's breath plant with ½ inch wire mesh to protect the roots of your baby's breath plant from gophers. By peradventure if the gophers do a severe damage to your baby's breath plant, you can place it in a raised bed lined with wire mesh.

      4. Make sure you lay down a barrier of copper or diatomaceous earth to protect the baby's breath plant from slugs and snails in early spring as the baby's breath plant is coming up. Or you can handpick the pests daily.


Some of the things you will need

        1. You need hose.

        2. You need a soil testing kit, this one is optional.

       3. You need all-purpose fertilizer.

       4. You need lime or sulfur. This one is optional.

       5. You need clippers.

       6. You need staking grid.

      7. You need ½ inch wire mesh.

      8. Lastly, you need slug-and-snail barrier and bait.

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