Varieties of honeysuckle
Currently, selection of honeysuckle makes only the first steps. All available varieties are obtained from the honeysuckle of Kamchatka. Some of them: Early, Bell, Vitamin, Reliable, Leningrad Giant, Pavlovskaya, Kuvshy-new to Dessert.
In addition, early ripening varieties - Golubinka, Blue spindle, Dolphin, Drops, Start, To-michka.
Medium-ripened varieties - Cinderella, Azure, Bluebird.
Late ripened - Roxana, Amphora, Nymph, Lakomka, Moscow 23, Sinichka.
Characteristics of some varieties:
Cinderella - bush is weak, the fruit is medium in size, elongated, black in bluish tinge.
The blue bird is a tall, sprawling bush, the fruit is medium, round in shape, black with a blue waxy coating. Blue spindle - shrub is medium-sized, compact, fruits are medium, elongated-elongated, almost black with a bluish wax coating.
Tomichka - the bush is medium-sized, compact-spreading, the fruits are medium, black-purple with a light smoky touch.
Care: Care for plants consists in loosening the soil around the bushes and destroying the weeds. During the dry periods of summer, watering( 20-60 liters of water per plant) is carried out in annular grooves 10 cm deep at a distance of 50-70 cm from the base of the bush. When the water is absorbed, the grooves fall asleep, and the soil is mulched. For a season on sandy loamy soils, at least 3 waterings are carried out - at the beginning of growth of shoots and ovaries, in the phase of attenuation of shoot growth, ripening of berries and the beginning of the formation of flowering buds for the next year's harvest and after harvest. During the growing season, honeysuckle is twice fed, in the spring, in the phase of bud opening( 15 g / m2 urea or 20 g / m2 of ammonium nitrate) and in the second half of June( 20-30 g / m2 of complex mineral fertilizers such as nitrofosques, but not more than 3 gof the active substance of nitrogen per 1 m2).Once in 2-3 years, under the last soil treatment, 4-6 kg / m2 of manure or compost, 30-50 g of superphosphate and 20-30 g / m2 of potassium salt are applied in autumn. Honeysuckle suffers from a rose and currant leafworm( damage the leaves and pulls them together with a web), honeysuckle aphids( larvae- kn suck juice from young shoots and leaves) and the honeysuckle coat( caterpillars damage berries during ripening).
For the control of honeysuckle pests, it is best to use vegetable infusions of tomato and potato leaves and tobacco with the addition of laundry soap.
Pruning: trimming techniques for honeysuckle are similar to those used for all typical shrubs. First of all, it is necessary to normalize the number of branches in the bush, initially preventing the thickening of the crown, which, if we take into account the plant's high ability to shoot, will occur very quickly. The main prerequisites for thickening the crown of the honeysuckle bush are numerous root shoots and strong shoots that can be interwoven within the crown with other branches in a continuous tangle. Regular sanitary pruning of the bush with the removal of dry, broken, thin and slender will help prevent this extremely undesirable phenomenon.
honeysuckle
1. Rejuvenating pruning.
2. Removal of sparrow shoots.
3. Removal of cauliflower.
4. Pruning of thickening shoots inside the crown
of thickening shoots. The dried up branches of branches should be shortened to healthy wood. The bulk of the fruit ripens on strong annual branches, so the aging branches and shrubs need constant rejuvenation.
With radical rejuvenation, it is possible to cut the entire aboveground part of the bush to the soil level and begin the formation of a new bush with newly growing shoots. The large wounds that arise during pruning should be covered with garden varnish.
The first 3-5 years the bushes are not cut. Remove only individual broken, intertwined or asymmetrically growing branches. With the growth of bushes and thickening of the crown, the main pruning of honeysuckle is reduced to thinning the branches with the cleaning of small overgrown branches, thickening the crown. In bushes older than 15 years old branches are cut, replacing them with young strong root shoots, or rejuvenating, shortening branches to a strong lateral branch located to the base of the bush.
Harvesting: The beginning of the ripening of berries is manifested in the change of the green color to blue. After that, the consumer maturity is obtained after 5-10 days. By harvesting proceed, when about 3/4 berries reach the final degree of maturity. They are usually collected in one pass in baskets with a capacity of 2-3 kg. Collected fruits can be stored in a cool place for no more than 3 days.
Usage: fruits are consumed fresh and processed. Of these, juice is excellent for coloring and taste, which has a pleasant, slightly astringent taste and is appreciated as a food color for jelly and refreshing drinks. Good compotes of it, but most useful are fresh berries, wiped with sugar. In folk medicine, the juice of honeysuckle is used to treat ulcers and lichens;fresh fruits and jam are taken with hypertension, associated with her headaches and dizziness. Infusions of fruits have a tonic, astringent, diuretic and anti-inflammatory effect.
In dried form, honeysuckle fruits retain all their valuable qualities.