Soddy pike or soddy meadow grass(lat. Deschampsia cespitosa) - a species of perennial herbaceous plants of the genus Lugovik families Cereals or bluegrass (Poaceae). This plant forms dense sods and tussocks. Meadow soddy is a fairly common plant throughout the forest belt. It can be found in Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, North America, Australia, Africa. For growth, it prefers crops of fodder perennial grasses, marshy and wet meadows, the banks of various reservoirs and swamps, as well as in forests, fields, pastures, edges and along roadsides on roadsides. Pike is a harmful weed of fodder plantings, especially on wet pastures and fields.

Description of the pike soddy

The roots of the soddy pike go deep into the soil (in the floodplains of the rivers and in the meadows, the roots grow up to 70 cm, and in the swamps their length is approximately 20 cm). The stems of the soddy meadow grass are bare, straight, they can reach up to 100 cm in height. The leaves are 0.5-3 mm wide, flat, narrow-linear, with protruding rough veins. Elongated tongue about 8 mm long. The inflorescence is presented in the form of a multi-spike panicle. The panicle is relatively sprawling, large in size, about 25 cm long. The inflorescence consists of almost horizontally deflected spikelets, which are densely arranged. Spikelets of two or three-flowered, small size (3.5-5 mm in length). Spikelet scales are uneven, lanceolate, they can be purple at the base, and yellow-green along the edges. Floral scales are shorter than spikelets. Floral scales are light purple in color, they are of equal size, with jagged edges, the lower part with an awn.

The fruit of the soddy pike is a caryopsis, which is enclosed in flower scales. The filmy caryopsis is characterized by an oblong shape, 2-2.5 mm long and 0.7 mm wide. The lower floral scale is serrated at the apex, with an awn and glabrous on the back. The awn is almost equal to the scales, slightly twisted, has a whitish color. The upper lemma is approximately the same length as the lower one. The stem, which departs from its base, is expanded at the top, cylindrical, straight, covered with hairs over the entire surface.

The first shoots of the soddy pike appear in early spring at a definitely low temperature. At the beginning of summer, the flowering period begins, the first fruits appear in July. Soddy pike propagates with seeds and short shoots. One plant is capable of producing from 500 to 3000 seeds. Seeds crumble easily and clog the soil. This plant unpretentious, the grains usually germinate very well with sufficient moisture practically from the earth's surface. The minimum germination depth is 0.5 cm, when planted in the soil to a depth of more than 5 cm, the seeds will not germinate at all. In the first year of growth, the soddy pike bushes and forms many leafy shoots. In the second year, stems develop that are able to bloom and bear fruit. These stems grow from high speed with new shoots. As a result of this development, the plant forms dense tufts, which eventually turn into bumps.

The main harm from the soddy pike is manifested in the formation of tussocks, which entails a change in the soil surface in meadows and pastures. The surface becomes bumpy, uneven, unsuitable for mowing. Also, the leaves of old pike plants are saturated with silica, which lowers the quality of hay and can cause irritable reactions in the digestive processes of livestock and domestic animals.

Measures to combat the soddy pike

Land reclamation or drying of wet fields and meadows is the main way in the fight against this weed. Since the soddy pike does not withstand trampling, areas clogged with this species must be pitted. Animals are able to dig up old plants and leave them to dry out. In the fight against pike in heavily overgrown areas, plowing with special plows will help. Also, the soddy meadow grass is destroyed by timely mowing before flowering.

Use of turfy pike

Soddy pike is a very beautiful, decorative, cereal plant. It is often used in home improvement. Since the plant develops quite quickly, it needs to start trimming the stems and foliage in the early stages of growth, modeling a beautiful shape. If pruning is carried out out of time, then you can get a sloppy bump.

Flexible and long straws and meadow grass leaves are used to stuff pillows and mattresses; craftsmen weave hats from such raw materials.

Soddy pike photo

Above - an ear of a soddy pike closed form (lat. Deschampsia cespitosa cespitosa); at the bottom of the spike pike soddy open form (lat. Deschampsia cespitosa holciformis)

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Landscape design of the site is a real art, which involves a whole group of specialists. Landscaping is individual, because you can hardly find two identical plots: each house with its surrounding plot and landscape is unique. Therefore, designers and planners create a landscape design that is suitable only for you and where all your dreams come true. Landscape design is only up to your imagination. For example, you need to beautifully decorate your terrace for a pleasant pastime. Or maybe you dream of a small pond where a cascade of murmuring water will be arranged. If the project provides for a swimming pool, then a changing cabin is needed, and the ground around the entire perimeter must be covered with safe materials.
Having equipped the fountain, you can listen to the sound of falling water. To someone the presence of reservoirs on personal plot is not necessary, then a landscape designer can realize the appearance of the presence of water with the help of a "dry" stream. The fantasy of our landscape designers is limitless, and the photo gallery of our implemented projects will help you in determining what the suburban area should be. Our company employs creative personalities, who are experienced and highly qualified specialists, ready to fill your garden with life, which will bring the joy of communicating with it for many years.
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Not all gardeners know how to competently ennoble their site with a minimum of worries and costs. It is these summer residents who can be advised to pay attention to the soddy pike. An ornamental plant is called unpretentious and interesting, but completely without supervision, a soddy meadow will turn into an untidy tussock and a weed in a flower bed.

Description and characteristics

Deschampsia caespitosa (soddy pike) - perennial cereal family(monocotyledonous), genus meadow grass.

AT agriculture culture is recognized as a weed that is difficult to get rid of. In design at good care considered a worthy decorative element.

It is a soddy tussock 20-200 cm high with narrow long leaves about 5 mm thick texture. The lower part is smooth, and on the upper side there are small parallel furrows.

The inflorescences of the meadow grass are similar to panicles, which are dominated by small spikelets 7-25 cm long. Depending on the plant variety, choose the color of the spikes, the main shade of which is brown-gold.

Grows well in places high humidity such as swamps, ponds, ponds, wet forests, fields, meadows, pastures and roadsides.

Good conditions for decorative flowering pike soddy goldtau celebrate hot days with abundant soil moisture. Despite the dislike of dry weather, it blooms better in the heat, but with sufficient watering.

Shoots can be seen already in the spring, in a rather cold time. Starts to bloom at the beginning summer period, and the first fruits ripen in July. At the end of flowering, deschampsia (turfy pike) changes color from green to yellowish gray or brown.

The plant is used in traditional medicine, it is believed that decoctions and infusions from the meadow grass can heal colds and solve skin problems.

In some regions, straws are used for weaving hats and similar headdresses, while someone tries to use them as stuffing for mattresses and pillows.

Pike turfy like a weed

Since up to 3 thousand seeds can be obtained from one plant, and the soddy meadow grass is quite unpretentious, this grass is considered a weed in some habitats.

Simple and familiar herbaceous plant pike captivates with its naturalness. It can often be found in the forest belt, in fields and meadows, in city parks and squares, along the banks of rivers and lakes, along roadsides. The plant is ubiquitous in Central Asia, Western and Eastern Europe, in the mountains of the Caucasus, North America, Australia, Africa. Soddy pike or meadow grass is a common harmful weed of fodder plantations. At the same time, the plant is very often used in the design of personal plots in the Moorish style, as well as for landscaping gardens, giving the site a cozy, simple and natural look.

Soddy pike is a perennial herbaceous plant of the genus Lugovik, family Cereals. Forms tussocks or dense sods. When describing the soddy pike and other species and varieties of meadow grass, attention is paid to the height of the plant, the size and shade of the inflorescence, the length and thickness, the color of the leaves, and the height of the stems.

Many gardeners and landscape designers use various plant flowers to decorate the garden, including pike. At the same time, the meadow has a number of advantages. Compared to other decorative garden plants this perennial is able to germinate in one place for many years, is quite unpretentious and undemanding to care, forms a hummock - turf. Also, the plant has a very simple decorative look that lasts almost year-round and fits into any landscape design.

The height of the bush, depending on the variety, varies from 20 to 170 cm. Leaves for the most part basal, dark green or gray-green, long, flat or folded lengthwise, with entire margin, narrowly linear, about 0.3-0.5 cm wide. The back side of the sheet has a sharply rough surface, due to which the sheet acquires a more rigid structure. With the onset of cold weather, the leaves do not die.

Inflorescences are spike-shaped sprawling panicles, the length of which varies, depending on the variety, from 7 to 25 cm. They are formed on long bare (up to 100 cm) stems. The inflorescences consist of often planted, almost perpendicular, two or three-colored spikelets 2-5 mm long, brilliant green, yellow, pale lilac. When ripe, they acquire a golden wheaten or reddish-brown color.

All above-ground parts form a turf tussock. It takes 4 years for a pike to grow to its full size. For 1-2 years, the plant grows to half its height, an abundant green mass is formed. In the next two years, several internodes are formed, a rosette of the second tier is formed, including stems.

Only after the formation of the second tier, the plant is able to bloom and bear fruit. In the process of development, bumps form over time from a dense dense turf.

The root system is fibrous, in fields and meadows up to 60-80 cm penetrates into the soil, in wetlands up to 10-20 cm.

After flowering, a grain-fruit is formed: an oblong shape, up to 3 mm in length and 0.7 mm in width. One plant is capable of producing 500-3000 seeds. In early spring the first shoots appear, in early summer the bush begins to bloom. The plant bears fruit in July.

Species and varieties

Breeders have bred about 40 different varieties of pike based on natural species. When propagating, plants use two methods - seed and vegetative (bush division). wild forms propagated by seeds, hybrid varieties - by dividing the bush. Despite the fact that adult plants actively bear fruit, active self-seeding occurs, however, parental signs in hybrid varieties are not reproduced.

Soddy meadow and winding meadow have many varietal forms that are quite similar. The Antarctic meadow has recently conquered more and more territories, but in terms of prevalence it is not as popular as the winding or soddy one.

Antarctic meadow grass

Antarctic meadow grass

It is found in Antarctica, which is why the species got its name. Also in the natural environment can be found in the northwestern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, on the South Shetland, Malvinas and other islands, in southern Chile and Argentina.

because of global warming climate, the distribution area of ​​the plant has expanded significantly. Meadow antarctic prefers light, warm areas on the slopes of the mountains, as well as stony soil. Plant height no more than 20 cm. Very frost-resistant appearance, the cold period of time does not affect the flowering of the bush. The bush has a short growing season. The beginning of the growth stage falls on November: seeds germinate, last year's torments “wake up”. Panicles begin to bloom in December.

soddy meadow

soddy meadow

It is a typical species. Numerous ornamental varieties have been bred on its basis.
Soddy meadow grass is common in Europe, Asia, North America, the Far East.

Grows up to 30-100 cm in height. The leaves are basal, dark green, narrow, no more than 5 mm wide, long, rough on the upper side, hard. Panicles up to 10-20 cm long, consist of dense sprawling spikelets.

Light-loving, frost-resistant look. Flowering occurs at 4-7 years of age. Soddy meadow is able to live and bear fruit in one place for several decades.

winding meadow

winding meadow

The height of thin smooth stems is about 30-60 cm, the rhizome is short, creeping. The leaves are thin, long, hair-like or needle-shaped, die off as they grow, lie down, thereby forming a curtain (tussock) up to 20-40 cm in diameter. The inflorescence is a loose panicle, branched, after flowering it acquires a brown, very rarely whitish color.

It grows in sparse forests, fields and meadows throughout the northern hemisphere (in Europe, Asia, Japan, China, North America). The winding meadow easily propagates by self-sowing, thus it can become a malicious weed in the garden.

Turchanin's pike

Turchanin's pike

The plant is endemic to the vicinity of Lake Baikal, listed in the Red Book. Meadow Turchaninov - perennial, forms dense turf. Stems 20-60 cm high, glabrous, straight. The leaves are narrow, 0.1 cm wide, folded lengthwise, glabrous. Panicle oblong-ovate, flowering period June-August.

plant care

The bush grows very quickly. To give it a neat, beautiful shape, in the spring, at the initial stage of growth, it is necessary to cut the stems and foliage with secateurs under the "hedgehog". Otherwise, the tussock may look "gray" due to last year's old leaves, thereby losing its decorative appearance.

+ 25 ° is considered a comfortable temperature, higher temperatures adversely affect the plant.

Regular watering is required only for young plants and in very dry weather.

Meadow winding, pike soddy, meadow antarctic produce a lot of seeds, as a result of which they provoke regular self-seeding, clogging the nearest territory. To prevent self-seeding, the stems with the inflorescence are removed before flowering. As soon as the stems reach 20-30 cm in height, they are cut as close to the soil as possible.

If the bush has become “bald” and untidy over time, it is dug up or divided into new bushes.

Pike is a plant of a cold-seasonal nature: it begins to grow at low spring temperatures and high humidity soil. In summer, when sultry hot weather sets in with temperatures above + 25 °, the bush falls into dormant mode. In autumn, when the temperature drops and the rainy season begins, the meadow "wakes up" and begins to grow again.

Pike in spring

Lighting

For regular growth, development and abundant flowering the plant needs to choose a well-lit place. In the shade and partial shade, the bush is able to actively grow, but due to lack of lighting, the plant rarely blooms.

The soil

The plant is unpretentious and undemanding to the soil, able to grow on any soil composition. However, when organic and mineral fertilizers are applied, its decorative properties only improve: the bush actively responds with a lush, elegant green mass and abundant flowering.

How to plant a pike in the garden

The bush can be propagated by seeds that retain good germination. Even pike seeds not buried in the ground are able to germinate, but not all seedlings survive due to lack of moisture, lighting, and heat.

To obtain a new beautiful lush bush, plots from adult plants are used. They retain all the decorative qualities of the mother plant, while when propagated by seeds, you can get a bush that is completely different from the parents.

Landing

The best time for planting is spring and autumn. The plot must be at least 15 cm in diameter. Dig a hole wider and a little deeper than the size of the bush requires. The plot is set in a hole, buried in the ground, slightly deepened, well watered. Regular watering is required in the first two weeks after planting.

Transfer

It is carried out in the spring (April - May) or in the fall. It is highly not recommended to transplant a bush at an outdoor temperature of + 20 °. Old bushes that stick out of the ground and have lost their decorative effect are dug up, cut with a shovel or knife into small pieces. The main thing is that they keep their roots.

Breeding

Divide only mature plant with a well-developed rhizome and well-formed turf. You can buy a ready-made bush in a pot (plot with an open root system) in a specialized flower shop. If the bush is bought in the summer, then it will quietly stand in a pot in the shade with regular watering. As soon as the temperature outside becomes comfortable for transplanting, the bush is planted in a permanent place.

You can separate the plot from the bush without digging it out. To do this, with the help of a shovel or a knife, a part of the bush is separated from the edge (1-2 plots). This procedure does not affect the decorativeness of the plant. An empty place is covered with earth, rammed, watered abundantly.

Medicinal properties

The medicinal properties of the soddy pike are actively used in the manufacture of medicines, and are also used in home use(baths, decoctions, infusions).
Assign in the early stages of the manifestation of infectious and viral diseases, skin ailments, herpes, hepatitis, rheumatism, neuroses. Dried roots have a diuretic, diaphoretic property. They are prescribed in the treatment of diseases of the digestive system, kidney diseases.

Soddy pike can quickly help with poisoning. It is enough to chew a few fresh leaves in your mouth to reduce signs of intoxication.

Contraindications

Lugovik soddy and all dosage forms based on it are not recommended for allergies, peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum.

Use in landscape design

Antarctic meadow, winding meadow, other species and varieties will fit perfectly in the garden in a variety of flower ensembles with different ornamental plants having leaves and inflorescences of a different shape. Soddy pike goes well with heather, iris, buzulnik, daylilies, astilbes.

Thanks to the lush, plentiful, numerous pike grass, it looks good along fences, walls, paths, singly and in groups on the lawn, in stone gardens, among trees, along reservoirs.

In addition to simplicity, decorative look, abundant green mass, numerous panicles, soddy pike forms hummocks. This is the reason for the change in the surface structure. land plot, which acquires an uneven, bumpy surface. This feature must be taken into account when beautifying the backyard area.

Deschampsia (soddy meadow) or another name for this cereal is pike, a plant widespread in our latitudes. It is decorative with its inflorescences - clouds of small flowers of different shades, depending on the variety. Deschampsia looks great in a single landing on the background of a lawn, near large stones or in mass plantings as an edge near big trees or large shrubs. She is also good in a mixborder with tall perennials - irises, Rogers, digitalis, geleniums and other plants that can be picked up in the article.

Meadow soddy

Meadow soddy(Deschampsia cespitosa) is a perennial grass up to 1.2 m tall during flowering. Forms a dense, slowly growing tussock. Wintering leaves are thin (up to 3 mm) bluish-green.

Meadow soddy

It blooms in June - July with large (up to 25 cm) spreading panicles with small yellowish-green spikelets, gradually acquiring a light golden color.

It has a lot of varieties and varieties that differ in plant height, leaf length and shades of inflorescences. Here is some of them:

"Bronzeschleer"

"Bronzeschleier" ("Bronzeschleier") - up to 1.5 m high and about 70 cm in diameter. Inflorescences at the beginning of flowering green gradually become bronze, retain their shape well in winter.

"Goldtau"

Goldtau is one of the most large varieties. Height up to 170 cm, bush width up to 50 cm. Golden inflorescences for one and a half months.

"Goldslayer"

"Goldschleier" (Goldschleier) - the height of the cereal is up to 1 m, the width is about 50 cm. It keeps the shape of the bush well, as it grows rather slowly. It blooms with golden yellow inflorescences, which gradually fade and become grayish.

"Ladywood Gold"

"Ladywood Gold" ("Ladywood Gold") - a plant about 80 cm high. The leaves are golden green in spring. The flowers are also golden.

"Northern Lights"

"Northern Lights" ("Northern Lights") - plant height about 30 cm, does not bloom.

"Northern Lights"

The leaves are green with a white longitudinal stripe, sometimes turning pink in cool weather. By autumn they acquire a brownish-pink hue.

Location:

Deschampsia prefers sunny or slightly shaded places, almost does not bloom in partial shade.

Any soil, but always moist.

Care:

In early spring, it is necessary to cut off old leaves and stems. Moreover, this must be done as early as possible, as it begins to grow at low temperatures.

It must be borne in mind that it easily propagates by self-sowing.

Winter-hardy without shelter.