Blue spruce can easily be called one of the most beautiful representatives of coniferous trees. It has high decorative qualities, and therefore is often used in landscape design. Gardeners also loved it for its unusually beautiful appearance. Today we want to talk about how to propagate blue spruce, as well as the rules of cultivation and care.
Description
The height of the tree can vary depending on the species, the tallest ones grow up to 30 m (up to 1.5 m in diameter), there are medium-sized plants (up to 4 m) and low-growing (dwarf) ones that creep along the ground. This spruce has a conical or cylindrical crown. It differs from other conifers in its unusual color. The peculiarity of the plant is the color of the needles: depending on the temperature, the needles can change color from grayish-green to bright blue. A pronounced silvery coating gives the needles a special attractiveness and sophistication. In its natural environment, blue spruce can grow for 600-800 years, but when blue spruce is planted and propagated in gardens, life expectancy is reduced to 100 years.
Where to begin
Before you start planting blue spruce, you need to choose a planting site. Trees should not be planted in an area where vegetable crops susceptible to fungal diseases grew. This can lead to infection of trees through the soil by pathogenic fungi belonging to the Fusarium genus. When planting, you should add soil taken from under the coniferous trees to the soil.
Gardeners often wonder: which planting method is best to choose and is it possible to propagate spruce from cuttings? For planting, it is customary to use three methods: cuttings, twigs and seeds. Let's take a closer look at each of these methods.
Propagation by seeds
The best time to obtain seeds from cones is February. They are placed in a fabric bag and put in a warm place, after 2 weeks you should take out the cones and remove the seeds from them. The planting material is separated from the lionfish. To remove essential oils, the seeds are washed with running water and dried. They should be stored in a glass container with a lid in the refrigerator. It is in these conditions that they are kept until sowing.
Seeds are subject to mandatory stratification. To do this, they are placed in a fabric bag, a snowdrift is formed from snow and the seeds are placed in it. The top should be covered with something or covered with a thick layer of sawdust. The seeds are stored this way until sowing.
Sowing
Planting material should be sown in well-moistened soil. When sown in a container, the seeds are deepened 1.5 cm, then covered with glass or film.
In open ground, planting technology is different. The soil is compacted, planting material is laid on it, leaving a distance of about 5 cm between the seeds. Peat or sawdust is sprinkled on top. The first seedlings usually appear after two weeks.
Selecting a location
In order for the seedlings to be good, the first step is to choose the right place. It is better to choose one with good lighting. An adult tree is unpretentious and can grow on any type of soil. In addition, they do not require a lot of moisture. For the first six months, the plants are kept in a greenhouse. You can plant the seedling first indoors in a special container.
Then the seeds are prepared. First, they are strengthened by placing them under the snow for a while. They should stay there for about two months. This procedure can be replaced by another - soak the seeds for a day in a 1% solution of potassium permanganate. To do this, take 10 g of potassium permanganate per 1 liter of water. If everything was done correctly, the first shoots will not take long to appear and will appear in about 2 weeks.
How to propagate blue spruce branches
More often than other methods when growing spruce, cuttings are used. But if you want to try to grow a tree from a twig, this task can be easily accomplished; you just need to follow a few tricks. First of all, you need to find a healthy young spruce, the age of which does not exceed 8 years. Please note that the branch must be cut from the top, always an annual one. A branch can also take root from the middle of the tree, but there is a high probability that the tree will have a crooked crown. We bring to your attention some subtleties of how to propagate blue spruce with a twig:
- Most often, such a seedling takes root in the second year. To speed up the process, planting material is prepared in early spring.
- Woody cuttings that were taken in the fall or winter should be stored throughout the winter in a cool, dark place.
- The length of the branch can vary from 10 to 25 cm.
- After cutting, all the needles (3-6 cm) should be removed from below and released into a solution of potassium permanganate.
- In order for the seedling to take root well and quickly take root, it is recommended to make a small greenhouse for it.
- When planting, drainage must be placed at the bottom of the hole, this will help avoid stagnation of moisture. It may consist of broken bricks, stones, and large crushed stones. Soil is poured on top, then sand (preferably cleaned). It is recommended to collect soil from a spruce forest or buy it in a store.
- Cover the top with film so that the distance between the sand and the covering material is no more than 30 cm.
- At first, the planting must be shaded by throwing a piece of burlap over the film.
- Plant the branch exactly to the same depth as it is cleared of needles.
- At first, watering should be done abundantly and daily; if the days are hot, watering should be done up to 4 times a day. It is equally important to loosen the soil. After the first roots appear, you should not water 4 times.
- For the winter, be sure to cover the seedlings with leaves or sawdust.
What's next?
Don’t think that after the tree “moves” to a new place, the work is completed. Now comes the difficult and also very important part - getting used to and adapting. To make them easier, daily care of the forest beauty is necessary. What needs to be done for this?
- Use fertilizers.
- Provide abundant watering.
- Remove weeds from the site in a timely manner.
- Monitor the condition of the soil.
- To make the adaptation of the root system painless, water the soil with a special Kornevin solution.
- After planting, use Aquadon solution for additional watering.
- Monitor the condition of the tree. If the slightest signs of wilting appear, try to add nutrients to the soil and replace the soil with a more familiar one.
Replanting a spruce tree is quite a difficult task. However, if you follow all the recommendations and rules, it will be completely painless.
Probably every owner dreams of planting a spruce on his property, since the natural beauty of this tree can be most clearly emphasized against the backdrop of winter snow. Some people prefer to purchase a ready-made seedling for this purpose, but you can easily transplant a spruce from the nearest forest into your dacha. If you do this correctly, the green beauty will be successfully adopted and will be able to delight you for many years.
Spring time is best for replanting, since this way it will be easier for the tree to adapt and take root in new conditions.
If you decide to plant a spruce tree in your dacha, you should choose a suitable place for it in advance. You should not place it too close to existing buildings; they should be at least ten meters away. Choose shaded areas where it would be easier for the tree to take root.
Then you can go into the forest and look for the most suitable Christmas tree, no more than a meter high. For taller trees, before digging, you should mark the south side by tying a strip of fabric to the branch. During the first ten or fifteen years of its life, the tree has a root that grows deep, then it dies off, and the lateral roots begin to grow wider. A young tree is best suited for replanting.
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In the chosen place in your garden, you need to dig a hole of a suitable size so that the roots of the Christmas tree are located there quite freely. The pit should be at least seventy centimeters deep and about a meter in diameter. It is better to prepare it in advance, about a couple of weeks before the intended transplant.
To plant a spruce in a summer cottage without damaging the tree itself, you should wait for the weather to be suitable for this: about fifteen degrees Celsius and light drizzle, which will maintain an optimal level of air humidity.
Carefully dig up your chosen tree so as not to damage its root system, and then lay it on its side. Place a cotton cloth the size of a scarf under the roots and tie the ends in pairs so that the root system is in a bag and is reliably protected from damage that may occur during transportation.
You should preserve as much as possible the lump of earth with which you dug up the green beauty, since symbiont mushrooms live in it, thanks to which the tree is able to absorb all the necessary minerals and nutrients from the soil. The roots of the Christmas tree should have white tips, which show their activity.
The hole dug the day before should be pre-prepared by pouring sand, sawdust, pine needles and acidic mineral fertilizers onto the bottom. If the soil already has sufficient acidity, then limit yourself to sand and needles. For drainage, add some granite pebbles or broken bricks. Be sure to take with you some soil from the previous place where the Christmas tree grew.
To transplant a spruce tree that is more than a meter high, you will need a previously tied piece of fabric. Maintain orientation to the cardinal points so that the plant subsequently passes the establishment stage more easily.
Before planting, you do not need to remove or untie the fabric to protect small roots from damage. Raise the tree slightly and carefully cover the root system with soil, and then carefully compact it. The root collar, located where the trunk begins to turn into roots, should remain approximately 5-10 centimeters above ground level.
Next, all you have to do is water the tree and make sure that the soil around it does not dry out. It will be enough to water the Christmas tree a couple of times during the week, right up to the root, until the surface of the earth stops absorbing water. It is highly undesirable to use sprinklers, since they can provoke the shedding of needles even in an adult, long-rooted tree.
Why buy a cut Christmas tree for the New Year, or even cut it yourself, if you can plant it near your house and admire it all year round. Transplanting a Christmas tree from the forest to your personal plot is not only saving you money for the Christmas holidays, but also respecting nature, so let's find out how to do it correctly.
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Favorable times for successful planting of spruce are spring and autumn, when the ground is wet and it rains a lot. If there is an urgent need to do this in the summer, then you will have to dig up the tree along with a lump of earth so as not to damage the root system. In this case, we advise you to use the special composition “Kornevin” for watering, which will help the tree to take root in any season.
It is extremely important to decide where your spruce will grow: you should take into account the width and height of an adult spruce when choosing a planting site, because the width of the crown span of mature trees is from two to six meters, and the height can reach 4-12 m. After calculations and planning plot, you can start looking for a suitable Christmas tree.
How to propagate blue spruce from cuttings
At home, one of the ways to propagate spruce yourself is by cuttings. Let’s say right away that this method is considered more convenient, because it allows you to fully preserve all the best maternal characteristics of blue spruce. They begin the process in early May, it is at this time that active sap flow begins. Cuttings should be prepared from young side shoots. The age limit for spruce should be 40 years. If cuttings are taken from young plants, then in 80% of cases they will sprout roots, from old ones - in 50%. Planting material is prepared as follows: you need to pick it only with your hands so that a part of the wood, the so-called heel, remains on them. Thanks to it, pine resin will not be able to clog the cells of a young seedling and will not limit the supply of the required amount of moisture. The size of the workpiece must be at least 10 cm. The best time to take cuttings is early in the morning. After collection, the planting material should be placed in a solution of a growth stimulator for several hours, and then immediately planted in the ground.
How to propagate blue spruce from cuttings that do not have a “heel”, i.e. accidentally broken off shoots? Such planting material must first be kept in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks. This happens as follows: the broken pieces are soaked in water for one hour, and then placed in a plastic bag with wet sand so that part of the twig is buried 2 cm in the sand. After this procedure, the bag must be tied tightly. After 14 days, the seedlings can be planted in the ground.
Landing
How to properly propagate blue spruce? Prepared cuttings should be planted in a greenhouse using sand. The thickness of this layer should not be less than 1.5 cm; it must be moistened before planting. In order for cuttings to take root better, you can use special growth stimulants; gardeners very often use “Heteroauxin”. Prepare the solution as follows: take 1 liter of water and 100 g of the drug. Planting material is placed in the solution for 3-6 hours, after which it is rinsed with running water and planted in the prepared substrate. During the first two to three weeks, the cuttings must be shaded and the air moistened. Before this, you should spray the walls and floors of the greenhouse with water and loosen the soil.
Care
After planting the cuttings, they need to be provided with proper care. Only in this case can you get a healthy, beautiful plant. Blue spruces can grow well in the shade, but to get a bushier tree, you should choose a sunny, warm location. The following points should be taken into account: the soil must be moist, there must be no strong winds.
How to care during growing
Once blue spruce cuttings have been planted, they must be carefully cared for. This is the only way to get a beautiful, healthy and tall tree. Spruce trees can grow even in the shade, so to get a fluffy tree you should choose a sunny and warm place. In this case, the soil there should be moist and there should be no strong wind. Then the tree will be strong and straight. The presence of bright light is undesirable.
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Watering
Blue spruce loves moisture, so drought should not be allowed. But at the same time, make sure that there is no standing water. Otherwise, the roots of the plant will rot and it will die. You might also be interested to see how beautiful Blue Chip Juniper looks.
After watering, the soil must be loosened. This will ensure access of water and air to the root system.
An adult tree does not need to be watered often. 10 liters of water per week will be enough for him. This amount is considered optimal in order to saturate the roots and prevent water stagnation. But how sprinklers are selected for watering the lawn is described in great detail in this article.
Video: how to root and care for cuttings
Video shows how to care for blue spruce cuttings:
Air humidity
In this regard, blue spruce is not too picky. It tolerates humidity normally, as well as minor drought. To wash off dust and dirt, use a hose with water. Then the needles will acquire a rich blue color. Read here how to plant and care for the Budleya shrub.
Transfer
If you chose the wrong place during the first transplant, you can plant the tree again. Blue spruce tolerates such events well. But this does not mean that you need to do this often.
After the location has been chosen, it is necessary to dig a hole, lay drainage, pour soil that is suitable for the selected coniferous tree, and sand on top. When planting spruce, it is necessary to ensure that the root collar is located above the ground. If this condition is met, healthy tree growth is ensured. Read about planting and caring for Phlox in open ground in this material.
Top dressing
It is not worth feeding blue needles often. This tree doesn't need that. The only thing that is possible is to fertilize the soil near the trunk in the spring before the shoots appear.
Before mulching with peat, sawdust or compost, weeds should be removed around the trunk, which can cause diseases and attract harmful insects.
Loosening and trimming
Blue spruce does not like dense soil, so it needs to be loosened near the trunk. To do this you need to use a hoe or hoe. Do everything extremely carefully. You should not dig deep, otherwise you can damage the roots.
You also need to monitor the appearance of the tree. Remove dried branches in a timely manner so that a beautiful crown is formed. If the plant begins to bifurcate, then one crown should be removed.
Reproduction in winter
The following question may also arise: how to propagate blue spruce from cuttings in winter and what is the best way to do this? In fact, there is nothing complicated about this method of growing. Prepared shoots must be cleared of 5 cm of needles and placed in a growth stimulator. Prepare paper napkins or towels and place wet moss on them, and the cuttings with the part stripped of needles on it. This composition is carefully rolled into a roll and tied with thread. After this, we put the planting structure in a bag, tie it and place it on the window.
By the beginning of May, roots should appear on these cuttings, then they can be planted in the ground for growing. Please note: the air temperature should be at least 13 °C, and the soil temperature should be about 10 °C. If the temperature is lower, greenhouse conditions must be created to preserve the cuttings. You should be careful about soil moisture. It must be remembered that stagnation of moisture can be detrimental to seedlings. In addition, bright sunlight can cause burns on young Christmas trees, so seedlings must be shaded during the first 2 months.
Blue spruce seedling planting site
The place where the seedling is planted is of great importance for the further growth of the plant. It is necessary to choose the best option. How to plant a spruce, where is the best place to do it - these are the questions farmers ask themselves with concern at the beginning of spring and at the end of winter. Their anxiety is explained by the fact that at this time the ground under the tree freezes to a great depth. And the root system does not contribute to the flow of moisture to the needles, and the sun mercilessly dries it out.
This means that you need to plant blue spruce seedlings in open areas. In the first three years after planting, young plants must be protected from sunlight to avoid burns.
Konik spruce
These evergreen beauties have always been considered one of the best garden decorations. Decorative forms of blue spruce trees are considered an ideal option for creating garden compositions and landscaping. Increasingly, in gardens you can see Canadian spruce, or more precisely, its low-growing form called conika. This spruce feels great both in open ground and when grown in pots.
Since the most popular and effective method of propagation is cuttings, we bring to your attention information on how to propagate konica spruce by cuttings. With this method of reproduction, young spruce trees retain all their maternal characteristics. However, it is worth noting that this process is quite lengthy. Experts advise propagation and cultivation outdoors, this will create the most natural conditions. Cuttings begin to be carried out in June so that in a few months the cut area on the cuttings has time to overgrow and the tree begins to take root more actively.
For cuttings, only the lower leaves should be taken. The optimal size of cuttings is 10-12 cm. It is necessary to correctly break off the cutting from the mother tree; it must have a “heel” (part of the tree bark). If these conditions are not met, most often the cutting dies.
The seedlings should be placed in a growth stimulator, such as Kornevin, for a couple of hours; later this solution can be diluted with water and used for watering. Prepare a nutrient substrate: combine peat, turf soil, leaf soil and sand. The cuttings should be buried 2.5 cm into the ground. Further care consists of maintaining the necessary humidity. The spruce can be planted in a permanent place after 4-5 years.
Small tricks of experts
How to replant a Christmas tree without harming it? To do this, you can familiarize yourself with the following recommendations from knowledgeable people.
- Root system care. The main thing in the transplantation process is to achieve an almost ideal and undamaged condition of the roots. This is quite difficult to do, because... they grow horizontally. To minimize the risk of damage, experts advise following the digging rules:
- We note the growth side. When carrying out work, it is very important to observe the following factor: you can replant the Christmas tree on the same side (shady, sunny) on which it grew before. To determine this, you need to know which side of the trunk the south side is on. After identification, a small notch must be made on the trunk. At a new location, landing should be carried out strictly in the marked direction. That is, if our green beauty previously grew in the shade, we should transplant the tree to the shady side.
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