Most plant species
grows quite fast and large in the
wild, have
high rates of
nutrient
uptake and
growth response to
fertilization. On the other end of the spectrum are
slow-growing plants
adapted
to infertile
environments with a relatively reduced growth rate and
dwarf,
compact habit.
In the natural
habitats
fast-growing plants (with more tender
tissues)
should be more palatable to
herbivores than slow-growing plants which have usually
thickened tissues.
Such plants are considered to be inherently slow growing as the
fast and slow-growing
characteristic depend on
genotype.
As a whole, slow-growing plants tend to be
longer lived.
The slow-growing species and cultivars can easily be grown in
pots as they
stay reasonably sized. This plants require almost no
maintenance
compared with other plants. No hard
pruning is
required to maintain their compact size, since typical growth
rates for these plant are only a few cm per year (and even less
than a cm per year for some of them).
Slow-growing plants may require
repotting
every two to three years (while
faster
growing plants should be repotted annually) and not need a
large amount of
fertilizer.
In fact slow-growing plants are more
susceptible to
infestation
by root
mealybugs because they require lengthy bench time to attain
mature size. As a rule slow growing plant should not be planted
too close to faster growing plants.
Most of these plant are quite
drought-tolerant and many
cacti and
succulents are
slow growing plants that they nearly care for themselves.
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