- Type: conifers
- Flowering Period: May, June
- Height: 30-35m
- Green colour
- Perennial
- Winters
- Shady
- Drought resistant
Green spaces in the countryside - it is clean air, and natural decor, and a great functional tool for building landscape design. Perfectly in any climatic zone of Russia, coniferous inhabitants of forests take root, among which are slender Christmas trees with lush, dense needles. It is no secret that the aroma of resin is useful for both people and plants, so everyone who cares about their health must plant spruce. Let's consider in more detail how to grow a spruce and use it to decorate a garden plot.
Fir-tree in landscaping
To begin with, we offer you to watch a video - you may find answers to your questions in it:
To begin with, all kinds of spruce varieties are excellent material for forming the style of a suburban area, which is why when choosing planting material, you should pay attention to coniferous varieties.
Thanks to the thick beautiful crown, the shape of which can be adjusted depending on the goals, high and low spruce trees are successfully used to compose such compositions as:
- rockeries;
- hedges;
- Topiary
- single and group landings.
The combination of low conifers with neatly formed crowns, stone and decor from natural materials is suitable for decorating the territory in both regular and natural style, therefore rockeries with spruce as a key element are very popular.
How to arrange group and solitary plantings of decorative conifers in the garden: //diz-cafe.com/ozelenenie/dekorativnye-xvojniki.html
Rockeries are still good because they require small investments with the maximum aesthetic effect: almost all plants can be grown with your own hands, and stones can be found directly on the territory of the dacha, brought from the river bank or from the quarry
A live spruce fence is a magnificent protective element that can be planted around the perimeter or between two different functional zones. Tall, densely planted trees will completely replace the fence, and miniature ornamental plants will decorate the territory and create a natural atmosphere.
Other plants are also good for hedges. More details here: //diz-cafe.com/ozelenenie/rasteniya-dlya-zhivoj-izgorodi.html
In this case, small, but close to each other, planted trees bear a decorative rather than a functional load - they separate the rockery zone from the rest of the territory
Having a small Christmas tree in the country, you can practice the art of topiary - create a geometric figure, spiral or other simple three-dimensional object from a magnificent spruce crown. Here one of the properties of conifers is just useful - slow growth (3-5 cm per year).
It’s better to start comprehending the basics of topiary with the least complex figures - a cube, pyramid or ball, and then move on to more complex configurations, for example, spirals
Against the backdrop of brick and wooden buildings and fences, groups of rarely planted fir trees of various heights look beautiful, and a single tall Christmas tree can become the center of a recreation area or an excellent partner background for a gazebo (bench, garden decor).
Many specially planted fir to celebrate New Year and Christmas in nature. A holiday spent in the fresh air is more interesting and more fun than a banal family feast, and the process of decorating a tree with garlands and toys is a real magical ritual that children will remember for a lifetime
Methods of acquiring or propagating spruce
If you chose spruce as one of the plants to decorate your site and even decided on a variety, you need to think about where you will get it. The easiest way is to buy a ready-made seedling in the nursery, but many do not look for easy ways and try to grow trees on their own, from seeds or twigs. There are those who consider the most hardy and strong specimens taken in the natural environment, that is, dug in the forest.
Consider the nuances of each of the methods and consider in more detail the features of spruce reproduction.
Buying a seedling in a nursery
If you already have a ready-made design project, and only a few conifers are missing for its implementation, you can quickly buy seedlings in the nursery. This is also true if you need some rare, exotic variety that is difficult or long to grow on your own.
Coniferous seedlings, like other plants, are sold in pots of various sizes, depending on the size of the plant. Planting a Christmas tree in the ground, you should completely save the lump of "native soil", so the tree will take root better and faster.
When choosing a spruce in a nursery, consult a specialist on the main factors of growing, which relate to the size of an adult tree, its winter hardiness and endurance, lighting conditions, irrigation regime, etc.
When buying a seedling, pay attention to its viability, which is easy to determine by the following signs:
- needles fresh, shiny, not showered partly;
- gentle shoots of growth at the tips of branches;
- natural, not deformed form of branches and trunk;
- the needles are not affected by a rusty or whitish coating;
- with light pressure, the branches bend, but do not break.
Too small a pot indicates that the spruce was dug up specifically for sale and violated its root system.
Growing trees from seeds
If you have enough time for gardening, you can start growing different varieties of spruce from seeds. The best are species native to your area. The ripening time of the cones depends on the climate, but for breeding it is recommended to harvest in late autumn.
Cones are stored in a cool, dry place, protected from wind and direct sunlight. About 2.5-3 months before sowing, seeds are taken out (they are also called nuts) and stratified to increase germination
To prepare seedlings, the seeds are kept for 24 hours in clean water, after soaking for half an hour in a weak (0.5%) manganese solution. Then immersed in containers filled with wet sand, and stored until sowing in the cold - snow or a refrigerator.
Sowing is carried out in mid-April, and it is better to use a greenhouse with sawdust for this. The sandy loam soil is covered with a thin layer (1.5-2 cm) of sawdust, seeds are laid on it, sprinkled with the same layer of coniferous sawdust on top - create conditions that are close to natural, but more comfortable for growing
If you decide to plant the seeds in open ground, you will have to arrange additional protection. It can be a frame of twigs that protects against harsh winds, and a layer of cotton fabric.
In August, a kind of protection is removed, and instead a shelter is made of a thick layer of dry leaves. Boxes are sometimes used instead of open ground, but the growing conditions remain the same.
After 2, less often after 3 years, the seedlings are planted in the soil with an interval of 40-50 cm. Before planting, too long or damaged roots must be removed, and the remaining roots should be placed in a humus solution for a short time
A special care regimen will be required: moderately moist soil (in the heat - additional watering) and a 3-time summer feeding. As a fertilizer, a mullein or a 0.1 percent solution of hydropone diluted with water is suitable.
The seedling road lasts another 3-4 years. All this time they need to be loosened, fertilized, watered about 1 time per week. Mandatory top dressing is performed in the spring, before the start of kidney swelling. A mineral nutrient mixture is suitable:
- manure - 450-500 g;
- potassium nitrate - 10-15 g;
- superphosphate - 25-30 g.
Everything is thoroughly mixed, distributed into the soil around the seedlings, carefully dug into a shallow depth (8-10 cm) and watered so that the fertilizer is absorbed into the soil.
In 6-7 years, you will receive Christmas trees, ready for planting in a permanent place. They, as usual, are planted in early spring, preserving a root lump of land
How to grow a Christmas tree from a branch (cuttings)
For propagation of ornamental species, cuttings are used. Twigs cut in early spring (in April) can take root in the same year, later only in the following year. Many people prefer August grafting, when the shoots finish growing and begin to wood, however, there is a winter method that is successfully used for all conifers, including fir trees.
We bring to your attention a master class on winter cuttings of spruce, which consists in home rooting of seedlings with the possibility of further spring planting in the ground. Using garden shears or secateurs, cut the required number of side branches. From the end of the cut, the “heel” - a piece of last year’s wood should be preserved. A large "heel" will have to be cut so that there is no rotting of the wood.
We carefully cut the needles from the lower part close to the “heel” with a knife, since they are not needed and will interfere with the development of future roots
Many coniferous species do well without additional stimulants, however, spruce is capricious in this regard and requires, especially in winter, a special attitude.
Treated twigs are placed in a vessel, half filled with Epin's solution (4-6 drops per 200 ml of water), and held for 12-14 hours
The material for storing the cuttings is moss sphagnum, which absorbs moisture perfectly.
While the cuttings are gaining strength in Epin’s solution, we prepare a protective “shirt” for them - soak dry sphagnum in clean water
We take the film and lay it out with a ribbon on the table. We distribute sphagnum saturated with moisture along the tape - it will play the role of a substrate for growing spruce cuttings.
We place the cuttings on the prepared base in the following order: first, dip each twig in a stimulating powder (for example, “Kornevin”), then place the lower part on a ribbon with moss
We fold the film in half so that the roots are pressed against the sphagnum and wrapped in a film, and the tops of the cuttings are free.
We roll the film with the distributed cuttings neatly into a roll so that it turns out to be dense enough, but not close for the development of roots
The result was a peculiar bouquet - in this form, coniferous cuttings will be stored until spring planting in the ground. So that the film does not unwind, it must be tied with twine or pulled with an elastic band.
The place for storing cuttings should be bright and cool - a pantry or a porch. If at the dacha there are wooden windows with double frames, the cuttings can be placed between the glasses or suspended from the side, sheltered from direct sunlight
Winter cuttings are good because small roots are already appearing by the period of spring plantings.
In April, rooted branches can be planted in the garden - not in a permanent place, but in a pot or box for growing. Ideal - well-lit, ventilated greenhouse
In two years, the seedlings will finally take root and grow stronger, then it will be possible to plant them in open ground, at a constant place of growth.
Forest Tree Transplant
The campaign for spruce in the forest will end safely if you remember a few simple rules:
- dig a tree in autumn or spring, when the soil is quite soft and moist;
- if you transplant a spruce in the summer, try to save a radical lump of earth;
- for transplanting, a copy of no higher than 1 m is suitable, a maximum of 1.5 m; the larger the tree, the longer its roots and the higher the likelihood that you will damage them;
- more lush and strong fir trees grow along the edges of the forest, on the outskirts, away from dense thickets.
It is important to dig out the spruce. Around the trunk, dig a circle with a diameter equal to the circle formed by the lowest branches. The depth of the groove is about half a meter. Carefully remove the tree from the soil, trying to keep the ground on the roots. Put it on a piece of thick cloth, wrap and fix the resulting package on a wheelbarrow. Grab a couple of buckets of "native" soil so that the Christmas tree takes root more quickly in the new conditions.
Do not forget about one important nuance - before digging, be sure to mark the sides of the world, north and south on the branches in order to plant a tree, focusing on them
How to plant a spruce?
Trees dug in the forest and purchased seedlings have general planting rules. There are two periods when the spruce better takes root - the beginning of spring and late autumn (before the onset of cold weather). Some varieties, for example, blue spruce, are preferable to be planted in the spring, so before deciding to plant a spruce, specify the planting features of the variety you purchased.
Choose the area that is most suitable for growing conifers - lit by the sun or slightly shaded. Take care of the drainage in advance, because the spruce trees growing in the wetlands are poorly developed and lose their needles. An ideal place for planting is a sunny patch with low-lying groundwater and fertile, humus-rich soil.
Low decorative fir trees feel great inside flower arrangements and rocky gardens, on well-lit alpine slides and in rockeries
The order of planting ate the following:
- We dig a hole with a depth of 50-60 cm, a diameter of 60 cm on the surface and 30-35 cm in the lower part.
- We arrange drainage from a 20-centimeter layer of a mixture of sand and gravel (or gravel).
- From the excavated soil, sand, peat and humus (in equal parts) we prepare the soil mixture. Add to it 100-150 g nitroammofoski.
- Partially fill the pit with a soil mixture, moisturize.
- We place the root ball of the seedling in the hole.
- We fill in the empty seats with the remaining soil, level it.
We carry out peat mulching around the root neck, which is located at the level of the soil surface. The addition of peat will warm the roots and retain moisture.
Wood or peat mulching is attractive from an aesthetic point of view, in addition, the addition of elements such as oak bark to the topsoil prevents the appearance of weeds
In addition to planting, spruce care is also important, therefore, we will consider the rules of pruning, watering and protecting against diseases.
Features of coniferous breeding
Watering the spruce is necessary depending on the growing season, age and size, but in any case, the soil around the tree should always be slightly moist. This can be checked by squeezing a lump of earth in your hand. If it crumbles, the watering time has come. It should be watered gently, distributing water around the entire root coma. The average water consumption for a 2-meter tree is 10 liters once a week.
Small seedlings require a special regimen - several times a day in small portions, since the roots are located at the very surface and quickly dry out. In addition to watering, do not forget about spraying, after which the spruce sparkles in the sun with clean shiny needles.
If you do not constantly live in the country, choose drought-resistant species, such as blue spruce, for planting. In the hot season, it is enough to water it once every one and a half to two weeks
Although spruce belongs to slowly growing trees, from time to time it needs pruning. Preventive pruning is carried out once a year, in early spring, until new shoots begin to grow. It is also called sanitary, as it removes mainly diseased or dry twigs. Light thinning benefits the whole tree - the sun's rays penetrate deep into the dense crown.
Decorative pruning, by contrast, is carried out in the middle of summer, after the growth of new shoots is over. Sometimes the top is cut down if the tree needs to grow in width rather than in height.The work is carried out with a sharp tool, and the saw cut places are treated with a special solution - potassium permanganate and garden var.
To remove thick dry branches use hand and bar saws, smaller twigs - garden pruner, and for decorative haircuts - special garden shears
Often fir-trees and other conifers are threatened by disease. The most common are fungal infections, leading to shedding of the crown and even death. It is necessary to deal with them by various methods.
First you need to remove the damaged needles and diseased branches, then saturate the soil with Kornevin and treat the tree with Immunocytophyte, Charm, Zircon or any other drug that increases immunity. Some diseases, such as the root sponge or mottled rot, are not treatable, so the tree needs to be cut, the stump uprooted, and the surrounding soil thoroughly treated with fungicides.
How to grow a blue spruce, more details can be found here: //diz-cafe.com/rastenija/kak-vyrastit-golubuyu-el.html
Symptoms of Schütte disease are the appearance on the branches of red spots, yellowed and crumbling needles. Schute are treated with Skor, Strobi, Falcon, Quadrice, starting from May to the end of summer
And in the end - a few tips from a professional about choosing and growing various decorative varieties.
