THUNDER by VENUS: care - A practical guide!

Help the development of the site, sharing the article with friends!

The thunder of Venus, scientific name Cuphea hyssopifolia and also commonly called cufea or false Mexican heather, falsa heather or false Erica, It is a shrubby plant highly appreciated for its simple care, its small but pretty flowers and even its medicinal properties. In fact, even the Thunder of Venus bonsai is grown.

If you want to learn more about this small and grateful plant to beautify your garden, join us in this Green Ecologist article on the caring for the thunder of Venus plant.

Characteristics of the thunder plant of Venus

The cufea is a small shrub, which normally does not exceed 60 cm in height and a width of around 1 m. Its stems, with small leaves of between 1 and 2 cm, have a great branching capacity, giving rise to a plant with a high density of foliage. The small flowers are colored between pink, lavender and white.

It is a very easy plant to grow, Undemanding and very suitable for beginners or amateurs without much time. However, if you want to keep your Venus thunder in the best possible condition, it is better to know in detail what its needs are.

Location and light for the thunder of Venus

Is it better to put Venus thunder in the sun or in the shade? This plant does best outdoors, but at the same time it does not tolerate high intensity direct light well. Therefore, the ideal is to place it where get sun only for a few hours in the morning, covered from the most intense hours of midday and afternoon. However, if you live in an area with a mild climate and not very intense sun, you can place it in full sun without problems.

You can also place it in a well-lit area, with filtered or indirect light. If you see that its leaves, usually deep green in color, begin to yellow or whiten, it is that your cufea is receiving too much light.

Weather for thunder of venus

The cufea needs hot climates, supporting without problems temperatures above 20 ºC as long as their lighting conditions are adequate. What the plant will not tolerate are frosts or very low temperatures: below 5 ºC your thunder from Venus will run a severe risk that its aerial part will die, although it is possible that it will regrow when the temperatures rise again.

Irrigation for the cufea

Requires a good amount of moisture, especially in hot climates. If you have your plants in pots, during the spring and summer months, apply frequent waterings approximately every two days, reducing it to every 3 or 4 in the cold months. Outdoors, apply a deeper watering once a week, or twice in very hot seasons, waiting for the soil to dry out slightly before watering again.

make a abundant watering That it soaks deep, but always avoiding that the earth gets waterlogged, which could cause numerous diseases or rot to the plant.

Here we tell you more about when to water the plants.

Earth or substrate for the thunder of Venus

Outdoors, try to find an area where the land offers the best possible drainage, or make a hole of about 50 x 50 cm and prepare a suitable substrate yourself. In either case, you can enrich the soil with some compost or worm humus, which will improve drainage and provide the plant with a large amount of nutrients. If drainage is still insufficient, incorporate river sand or gravel into the soil and mix well.

In a pot, the universal mixture of peat, earthworm humus and coconut fiber in equal parts will be more than effective with this plant, providing it with a light substrate that is very rich in nutrients. You can add vermiculite and perlite to make it even better.

Compost and pruning for the thunder of Venus

The fertilizer will only need to be applied during warm months, in which it will be enough to renew the contribution of organic matter in the form of a superficial layer of worm humus or compost each 15 days about.

Pruning is not necessaryAlthough if the plant grows too large for what we are interested in, we can prune it without problems as long as we use previously sterilized tools.

My thunder of Venus is drying up, what do I do?

If you see the stem and dried leaves on the Venus thunder plant, it could be for a too long a drought and you have it in a pot, you can try to revive it by submerging the container in water for about 20 minutes and then letting the excess moisture drain.

If this is not the case, it is probably because your cufea is receiving too much sun or needs nutrients, in which case you should pay it or move it to a more suitable place for it, with less direct sun.

If you see that the plant is very dry, we recommend you read this other article on How to revive a plant, in which we explain what to do depending on the situation, to see if this way you can save it.

Medicinal properties of the thunder plant of Venus

Between the medicinal properties of thunder of Venus is its ability to calm the symptoms of fever and cough when its flowers are used in the form of a tonic, since it has antipyretic, antitussive and balsamic properties for the respiratory system.

It is often a plant also used for Headacheskidney pain heavy digestions and even as a healing for minor wounds, since other properties of this plant are analgesic, digestive and healing.

Here you can learn much more about other Mexican medicinal plants and what they are for.

If you want to read more articles similar to Thunder of Venus: care, we recommend that you enter our category of Cultivation and care of plants.