Barberry

General information: botanists distinguish about 500 kinds of barley .So, there are barberry very squat, others form a powerful shrub up to 3 m in height. The crown can be spreading, but more often compact, bushy-woven, sprouts on the shoots. The berries are not very large( usually 7-10 mm, sometimes up to 1.5 cm in length), edible. They are decorative due to the bright color, abundance on the bush and, of course, the shape. The color of the berries can be pink, red, purple, blue-black, often with a strong waxy coating. And the shape is elliptical, rounded, krushevidnaya and completely original, not determinable. Leaves in autumn, a month before the fall, are painted in bright red and purple tones. The flowers are yellow, collected in elegant, dangling brushes, which are especially beautiful against the background of purple leaves. Blossoms barbaris in May-June.

Barbaris ordinary - large, up to 2.5 m tall, shrub with green leaves and red ellipse-shaped berries.

Barbaris Korean

forms a compact upright bush;from many similar species( common and Amur) differs in large, rounded forms with bright red shiny fruits.

Barbaris Thunberg in the middle belt is relatively low, up to 2 m, forms a dense crown of numerous thin shoots. In free planting in a well-lit place has a dense, as if horizontally spaced form of the bush.

Barbaris Ogawa purple in form of the crown resembles an ordinary, but slightly smaller, and on small leaves it is closer to the barberry of Tunberg.

Barbaris transparent comes from Western China. Its height is no more than 1 m, the leaves are not large, spinous-jagged, gray-green, turn purple in autumn, the flowers bright yellow. Berries have an unusual shape, they are larger than many other species, up to 1.5 cm.

Requirements: barberry likes sunny places with any soils and groundwater level not more than 80 cm from ground level. It is quite winter-hardy and drought-resistant, but it does not tolerate shading, it does not bear fruit in full shade.

Can be used as an ornamental plant.

Ingredients: alkaloids, malic, tartaric and citric acids;tannins, carotene, vitamins Bb B2, PP, E, ascorbic acid, pectin substances have been found in berries. Seeds contain fatty oils reminiscent of sea buckthorn.

Planting: can be planted in spring and autumn. On a good garden soil, a pit with a diameter of 50-60 cm and a depth of 40 cm is dug under a plant;on a heavy, clayey soil, the diameter of the pit should be greater. The pit is filled with a mixture of the upper fertile layer with 2 buckets of humus, 200 g of simple superphosphate and 100 g of potassium sulfate. Immediately after planting watered.

Care: the main event - top dressing;Watering is carried out only in the early spring and autumn( water recharge irrigation).Barberry can be harmed by barberry barley( settles on the underside of the leaves, damaging them and twisting the shoots) and the barberry sawfly( eats leaves and young shoots).When they appear, plants are sprayed with a solution of laundry soap and tobacco. For summer spraying recommended infusions of vivacity, potato, yarrow, garlic and chilli pepper. From fungal diseases, barberry suffers much more than from pests. Rust causes disease of shoots, leaves and berries. In spring, on the leaves appear round spots of orange, which are covered with pads on the underside. If found, spray a 1% solution of Bordeaux after the formation of leaves, the next two after 20 and 40 days. Powdery mildew weakens bushes and manifests itself in the form of a mealy coating on leaves and shoots. In case of damage to barberry, remove and burn the affected shoots and leaves. Do not allow thickening of bushes, which can trigger the onset of the disease due to poor ventilation.

Pruning: crown of barberry is well formed naturally, because the thin branches of barberry are directed almost vertically upwards at an acute angle of retreat. Barberry is a multi-barrel shrub, so depending on the purpose of cultivation, the number of trunks in the bush should be regulated, the extra cut to the ring. Sanitary pruning should also be done regularly, removing old, dry, thin thickening branches from the crown. With aging, the branch should be rejuvenated, carving them partially or completely, and forming new ones in return. Barbaris

Barberry requires the formation at a young age and pruning in the fruiting, when cut out the dry, broken, old and thickening branches. From the age of 10-12 years old, it is necessary to carry out rejuvenating scrapings.

can be molded easily, from the barberry bar you can create any geometric shape: a ball, a column, a pyramid, and so on. The best time for any kind of pruning is early spring before bud budding

Harvest: berries harvested in late September - early October, when they reach biological maturity.

Usage: thanks to barbed branches barberry can be used as an impenetrable hedge. From berries you can brew jam, juices and fruit drinks, make jelly;prepare vodka, tinctures, strong vinegar, pastilles and sweets. In addition, they can be dried and added to all sorts of meat dishes, for example, in pilaf. Leaves in the beginning of summer are added to salads and soups, and young shoots to cucumbers when pickling. Preparations from berries are appointed as a diuretic, choleretic and analgesic for various diseases of the liver and gall bladder, as a calming and antiplatelet, tonic. Curative properties have leaves, bark and even roots. Thus, the latter are raw materials for the production of podophilin, which has an antitumor effect.