How to Grow Chenille Plant

 

As a gardener if you’re looking for an unusual plant for your garden, a novelty plant, or a new idea for a hanging basket to bring inside for the winter, you can try growing chenille plants. The Chenille plant info actually indicates that some versions of the plant, botanically of the Acalypha genus, are available. The finely cut foliage and long, fuzzy flowers may spread along the ground or cascade over the sides of a hanging basket. Some types of the growing chenille plants take on the form of a shrub. The plant is commonly known as red hot cattails or fox tail (Acalypha hispida), you are likely to find a variety suitable for your summer garden and beyond. Caring for the chenille plants is simple in USDA plant hardiness zones nine and ten, where plants grow abundantly all year long. In colder areas, growing chenille plants outside perform as annuals and die out with frost.

 

Growing Chenille Plants

The Chenille plant info actually advises a full sun location for this interesting plant, except in warmer zones where protection from the hottest afternoon sun is advisable. You may also want to wear gloves when caring for the chenille plants because the sap can cause irritation. Is chenille plant poisonous? Though only mildly toxic, all parts of growing chenille plants are poisonous. Keep this in mind when locating the chenille plant in your landscape and place it in an area where children and pets are not likely to be enticed by the fuzzy, red tails. Properly caring for the chenille plants begins with planting in a well-draining soil. Learning how to grow chenille plants also involves regular watering, as the plant may be lost if allowed to dry out. Soil that is consistently moist produces optimum growth and development of the eighteen inch long red tails. You can fertilize weekly using a houseplant food mixed at half strength; this is actually an important part of caring for chenille plants. You can stop fertilization during winter months when growth slows.

Furthermore, a regular trimming of both foliage and flowers is part of caring for the chenille plant as well. You can remove spent blooms and leggy foliage for a continued display from your growing chenille plants. When the plant is used as a groundcover in suitable climates, keeping the specimen within its bounds may be the major effort in its care. The thickly spreading foliage can be trimmed back to curtail its spread to unwanted parts of the garden. If bringing a potted specimen indoors to overwinter, carefully clip the entire plant back by one third. Growing chenille plants need those few months of dormancy. You can easily move the plant outside when temperatures warm, gradually increasing the amount of sunlight the plant receives.