One of the most beautiful representatives of conifers can safely be called blue spruce. It has high decorative qualities, and therefore is often used in landscape design. For an unusually beautiful view, she fell in love with gardeners. 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 highest grow up to 30 m (in diameter up to 1.5 m), there are medium-sized plants (up to 4 m) and low-growing (dwarf) creeping along the ground. This spruce has a conical or cylindrical crown. It differs from other conifers in an unusual color. The color of the needles is considered a feature of the plant: depending on the temperature regime, the needles can change color from grayish-green to bright blue. A special appeal and sophistication of the needles gives a pronounced silver coating. In the natural environment, blue spruce can grow for 600-800 years, and when planting and propagating blue spruce in orchards, life expectancy is reduced to 100 years.
Where to begin
Before you begin planting blue spruce, you need to choose a place to plant. You can not plant trees in the area where vegetables were grown, susceptible to fungal diseases. This can lead to infection of trees through the soil with pathogenic fungi belonging to the genus Fusarium. When planting, add soil to the soil that was taken from under coniferous trees.
Often gardeners ask themselves: what planting method is better to choose and is it possible to propagate spruce with cuttings? For planting, it is customary to use three methods: cuttings, twigs, and seeds. Let us consider in more detail each of these methods.
Seed propagation
February is considered the best time to get seeds from cones. They are placed in a cloth bag and cleaned in a warm place, after 2 weeks you should get the cones and remove the seeds from them. Planting material is separated from the lionfish. To remove the 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 such 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 seeds are placed in it. Top should be covered with something or covered with a thick layer of sawdust. Seeds are stored this way until sowing.
Land preparation
The best option for this type of tree would be the soil where the lawn grass grew. You can mix soil with coniferous residues to it. To the already prepared soil should be added fertilizer, which includes peat. Blue spruce seeds can be sown directly in the open ground. Or you can - in containers to grow seedlings first.
Sowing
Planting material should be sown in well-moistened soil. When sowing in a container, the seeds are deepened by 1.5 cm, then closed with glass or film.
In open ground, the landing technology is different. They tamp the soil, planting material is laid on it, leaving a distance between the seeds of about 5 cm. Sprinkle with peat or sawdust on top. The first seedlings usually appear after two weeks.
How to propagate blue spruce branches
More often than other methods for growing spruce using cuttings. But if you want to try to grow a tree from a branch, this task can be easily dealt with, only a few tricks should be observed. First of all, you need to find a healthy young spruce, whose age does not exceed 8 years. Please note that the twig must be cut from the top, always one year old. From the middle of the tree, the branch can also take root, however, it is likely that the tree will have a crooked curve. We bring to your attention some of the subtleties of how to propagate a blue spruce twig:
- Most often, such a seedling takes root in the second year. To speed up the process, planting material is prepared in early spring.
- Lignified cuttings that were cut in autumn or winter should be stored all winter in a cool, dark place.
- The length of the twig can vary from 10 to 25 cm.
- After cutting, they should remove all needles from the bottom (3-6 cm) and let them go into the potassium permanganate solution.
- In order for the seedling to take root well and quickly give roots, it is recommended to make a small greenhouse for it.
- When landing at the bottom of the pit, it is necessary to put drainage, this will help to avoid stagnation of moisture. It can consist of broken bricks, stones, large rubble. Soil is poured on top, then sand (better cleaned). It is recommended to collect soil in a spruce forest or buy in a store.
- Cover the top with a film so that the distance between the sand and the covering material is not more than 30 cm.
- The first time you need to shade the landing, throwing a piece of burlap on the film.
- Plant a twig exactly at such a depth as it is cleared of needles.
- At first, watering should be carried out abundantly and daily, if there are hot days, watering is necessary up to 4 times a day. It is equally important to carry out loosening of the soil. After the appearance of the first roots, 4 times should not be watered.
- For the winter, be sure to cover the seedlings with foliage or sawdust.
How to propagate a blue spruce with cuttings
At home, one of the ways to independently propagate the spruce is by cuttings. We must say right away that this method is considered more convenient, because it allows you to fully preserve all the best maternal signs of blue spruce. They begin the process in early May, it was at this time that the active sap flow began. Cuttings should be prepared from young lateral shoots. The maximum age of spruce should be 40 years. If the cuttings are taken from young plants, then in 80% of cases they will start up roots, from old ones in 50%. Planting material is prepared as follows: you need to tear it only with your hands in such a way that a piece of wood, the so-called five, remains on them. Thanks to it, coniferous resin will not be able to clog the cells of a young seedling and will not limit the flow of the required amount of moisture. The size of the workpiece should be at least 10 cm. The best time for harvesting cuttings is early morning. After harvesting, planting material should be placed for several hours in a solution of a growth stimulator, and then immediately planted in the ground.
How to propagate a blue spruce from cuttings that do not have a “heel”, that is, randomly broken off shoots? Such planting material must first be kept for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator. This happens as follows: the broken blanks are soaked for one hour in water, and then placed in a plastic bag with wet sand so that part of the twig is 2 cm deep in the sand. After this procedure, the bag must be tightly tied. After 14 days, seedlings can be planted in the ground.
Landing
How to 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 the cuttings to take root better, special growth stimulators can be used; 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 a solution for 3-6 hours, after which it is rinsed with running water and planted in a prepared substrate. During the first two to three weeks, the cuttings must be obscured and the air humidified. Prior to this, the walls and floors of the greenhouse should be sprayed with water, and the soil should be loosened.
Care
After planting the cuttings, they need to ensure proper care. Only in this case you can get a healthy beautiful plant. Blue spruce can grow well in the shade, but in order to get a more fluffy tree, you should choose a sunny warm place. The following points should be taken into account: the soil must be moist, strong winds should be absent.
Watering
Blue spruce trees are very sensitive to moisture, therefore drought cannot be tolerated, but at the same time stagnation of water should be avoided. Otherwise, it may happen that the roots begin to rot and the tree perishes. After watering, the soil must be loosened: this will ensure access of air and water to the roots of the plant. It should be noted that an adult plant needs no more than 10 liters of water per week, it does not need frequent watering.
Transfer
If for some reason the place for planting the plant was unsuccessfully selected, then the tree can be transplanted again. Such an event, the blue spruce tolerates well enough, but still often do not do this. After choosing a place, you should prepare a landing hole, put drainage in it, pour soil suitable for a coniferous plant, and pour sand on top. The root neck when planting blue spruce should be located above the ground.
Winter breeding
Such a question may arise: how to propagate blue spruce with cuttings in winter and how is it better to do this? In fact, there is nothing complicated in this method of growing. Prepared shoots must be cleaned of needles by 5 cm and placed in a growth stimulator. Prepare paper napkins or towels and put moist moss on them, on it - cuttings of the part peeled from needles. This composition is carefully twisted into a roll and tied with thread. After that, we put the landing 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 should be around 10 ° C. In the event that the temperature is lower, greenhouse conditions must be created to preserve the cuttings. Care should be taken to soil moisture. It must be remembered that stagnation of moisture can be detrimental to seedlings. In addition, bright sunlight in young fir trees can cause burns, so seedlings must be shaded during the first 2 months.
