Spruce

Coniferous plants really adorn any garden. But at the same time, in a dozen or two years, they can easily drive out the owners from their own site, because, slowly growing in the first years, will later start to swing by 1 m per year, growing in all directions. So keep that in mind.

The first question asked by gardeners who wanted to plant a spruce on the plot: where would be the best place for it? You can plant fir trees along the fence, as a green fence. It will hide you from the eyes of people who pass or pass through the streets of your gardening. Spruce should not be planted on the south side, since they will give a big shadow, although, in principle, this can also be done if you regularly shorten their tops, not allowing them to reach too high a height. But it is better to plant them outside the site, on the north side, behind the ditch at the very edge of the road that passes by your site. In addition, such a living fence will perfectly close your garden from the north wind.

add to Wishlist

If you plant spruce as a green fence, then they should be planted at a distance of 1.5 m from each other.

There is one peculiarity in spruce: if it is allowed to grow freely upwards, it will begin to dump needles from the lower tiers, if it does not have enough room for development. If you want a spruce you had from the bottom up to the top of the magnificent, then you must necessarily top the spruce from a certain point to break off. Let's say you let it grow to a height of 2.5 m. In the spring, a young and green shoot will start, the top begins to grow further, and you just twist this escape;while on it the needles are still very soft, this is very easy to do. For spruce this operation is quite harmless. You break it, no matter how tall it may be. As soon as you destroy the apical point of growth, the nearest sleeping buds at the base of the broken down sprout will immediately go into growth. One of these shoots will try to repair the top and begin to grow vertically, and you will again break it. All attempts to grow a new top you will suspend each spring. If all the time ate to break off a young and green shoot at the top, then it will thicken, the branches will become very fluffy and green, the needles will not fall from the lower branches and they will not dry up. But it is not necessary to trim the ends of branches, since, as a rule, this leads to the drying of the entire branch.

You should not plant spruce along the border with neighbors. Trees will give shade to neighbors and interfere with neighboring plants.

In general, do not advise planting a spruce on the plot, because the root system is superficial, and therefore very extensive, and it will spread in breadth and interfere with your garden plants that will be located even 10-15 meters from the spruce.

Spruce has a very interesting feature: it does not like the neighborhood of other plants and will try to survive them from the adjacent territory. You can, of course, plant a spruce and on the site, but then you must definitely limit its root system. You can outline a site and each year to chop off its roots with a shovel, trying to get beyond the allotted boundaries. Since the spruce has a superficial root system, you do not have to dig deeply, but it's still a tedious job, and you can skip a couple of times, and she will quickly extend her tentacle roots to all your plants. It's easier to do this: if you have an old concrete ring, for some reason not used in making a well, you can bury it 90-100 cm. If there is no ring, you can dig a pit, make a formwork and pour a concrete square boxwithout a bottom. You can also bury the slate, but the roots of the fir will gradually destroy it. If you try to bury the iron, it will rot in 8-10 years, and the roots will extend further.

The pit for planting should be square, about 1 x 1 m. The soil you dug up can be brought back, you do not need a particularly fertile soil, you need the spruce to grow slowly, in poor soil. And it will grow, do not worry. Spruce is very hardy and also shade-tolerant. Therefore, if you have 4 apple trees, then in the center you can plant a spruce only limited. It will be its smell, quite sharp, successfully protect your apple trees from flying pests of apple trees, because the fir odor will disorient them: they seem to fly to the smell of their wet nurse - the apple tree, and then another odorous smell is mixed in. Fearing to leave their offspring on such an apple tree, pests tend to fly by.

But if you want to plant a blue spruce on the site, then it will require a sunny place. Blue spruce grows much slower than usual, but its root system will have to be limited or planted in a place where it will not interfere with the rest of the inhabitants of your garden. By the way, the blue spruce should not be pulled out the top, because it does not wither the lower branches.

Fir-trees can not be planted in autumn, as they usually die.

You can multiply the spruce with seeds. For this purpose it is necessary to collect in the fall not yet revealed cones. At home they should be put on a sheet of paper, they will dry up pretty quickly, they will open, and seeds will be poured out of them. At the spruce seeds are small, but with an impeller. You plant these seeds under the winter. You need to find a special place for planting and make sure that there are no weeds, and for this you need to prepare the soil specially.

Mix a bucket of peat and a half-bucket of sand, add a jar of ash. Mix all this, pour the mixture completely into the prepared pit, moisten the seeds, pour a layer of ordinary soil on top, about 1 cm of bumps - that's all. These seeds will pass a natural winter stratification, in the spring they will ascend. True, it happens that they do not rise in the first year, do not worry - they will ascend in a year.

First one small, thin needle emerges, it is very clearly visible, as it differs from something. It can not be touched, wait a year or two: the tree should grow. When the tree has a small stalk, with three or five needles, you can transplant it in the spring. That is, it will be in two years. But more than two years to keep it is not necessary, it is necessary to transplant. You can put a plant on the spade bayonet and transplant it. The main thing is for you to carefully plant the stems, you need to plant according to the level of the root neck.

But simple trees should not be planted in such a seed way. It's easier to dig a very small tree in the forest. Take a clod of earth on the spade bayonet, take out the tree with the soil, put it on the cloth and transport it.

And remember this moment: when the tree is small, you do not need to orient it by the sun. If you dig a large spruce, somewhere 1.5 m or more, then during the transplant you need to keep the orientation of the sun, because this herringbone has already adapted to a certain location. From the south, it has a more resistant needle to fall from sunburn, the trunk already has annual rings - from the north already, and from the south it is wider. Do the following: just tie the cloth on the south side, and when you plant it in place, the cloth from the south side and leave it to be oriented to the south.

With the help of seed propagation, blue or silver spruce is most often grown, because of their high cost. Blue spruce is very whimsical. In St. Petersburg in the Seaside Park there is an avenue of blue firs, you can look around there for herringbone, take her bump and try to grow from seeds. But keep in mind that the blue spruce has a feature: from its seeds, you can get a part of blue fir trees, and some - ordinary ones. They will be seen immediately, already the first needle of the emerging sprout will be blue, silvery or ordinary green. Therefore, you can immediately reject them and discard unnecessary ones.

Conventional Christmas trees grow very fast. The first two or three years they are small, and then start to swing very quickly. You will let them grow to the height you want. Fir-trees can be formed very funny, they can be made almost round, for this you need every time when the spring is a green, young shoot, break it at the top, and at the ends of branches. Then the tree will be fluffed and turned into a ball.

There is another interesting way to plant. You dig in the spring of a cone all the way to a depth of 5-7 cm. In the fall, a lot of shoots will come out of it, and they form a very funny hedgehog at once. Sometimes they are sold as a bush spruce - this is nonsense, bush spruce does not happen. Fir-trees grown from cones are short-lived, since they begin to press each other, and in three or four years they begin to perish. But they look very beautiful on a rocky hill or in a group of coniferous plants.

It should be noted that many spruce( except blue and common) can burn heavily in the sun. So all sorts of exotic, imported from somewhere I do not advise you to start. These are very expensive plants, with them a lot of fuss, and, frankly, they do not possess special decorative properties. They are usually less decorative than ordinary Christmas trees from the forest. Just exotic - and no more.

So do not aspire to this expensive planting material. If, of course, you have enough money, then please, buy this expensive exotic and with the help of a gardener or your own forces to nurse her. It is your right. When in February-March after a long winter suddenly a very bright sun appears and still the snow lies, the needle burns. Needles turn yellow and sometimes die completely. The most susceptible to spring sunburn is conic. By the way, burns are obtained not only by spruce, but also by other conifers such as junipers. To protect conifers from burns, you can cover them with bedsheets or old coats( light-penetrable lutrasil or spunbond for this do not fit) and you will almost "admire" it for almost two months.

Against sunburn of plants there is one interesting homeopathic preparation, it is called "Ekoberin".In the early spring, two grains of the drug shake to complete dissolution in 100 g of water, add water to 1 liter, stir well and spray the plant on the south side.

Spruce, like all conifers, is best transplanted in the early spring, somewhere from late April to mid-May. However, conifers can be transplanted at any time if you carry out transshipment. This is done in the following way: the spruce was dug, laid on its side, the old sheet was spread under the root system, thrown with the earth's clod on this sheet, tied the ends crosswise with a knot and transported to the site. In the well prepared pit, plant the plant, without untiring the knot, cover it all with soil.

The most important thing is watering. Firs are very moisture-loving cultures. True, you can secure your life if you bring a hydrogel under the root system of the tree. To put it it is necessary much, not less than 1 liter. You dissolve it in water, you will get something like jelly or jelly. Then it will protect you: the roots will have moisture, and the tree will very well accustom to, no matter what, from the forest or bought somewhere.