This shrub requires careful care after planting, but the cotoneaster will thank the owner for care, transforming the cottage, garden or garden plot of a country house. In addition, this plant has long been valued by traditional healers for its medicinal properties.
Black cotoneaster: description
It is an evergreen deciduous shrub that grows rather slowly. Cotoneaster arthropod (Latin - Cotoneaster melanocarpus) is most often a small tree from the Pink family. The name of the plant was given by the Swiss botanist Caspar Baugin. It consists of two words: cotonea, which translates from Greek as "quince", and aster - "similar, having a look." This is due to the fact that the leaves of one of the cotoneaster species resemble quince leaves.
The leaves of the plant are simple, not large, whole, alternate, ovate. In the summer they are painted in dark green, and in the fall the color acquires a brilliant reddish tint.
The flowers are pale pink or white in the form of small shields, single or collected in a brush. The duration of flowering is up to twenty-five days.
This plant is a wonderful honey plant, and various crafts are made from its branches: tubes, canes, etc.
The fruit is a false drupe. It resembles a small black (or red) apple in shape. Inside contains from two to five seeds. The fruits remain on the branches until late autumn, until the first frost. Owners of shrubs should know that cotoneaster aronia cardinally differs from similar dogwood. However, its fruits are edible, which cannot be said of most other species.
Spread
The plant has more than forty species that grow in North Africa and Eurasia. The cotoneaster aronia (photo you see below) is frosty and drought tolerant. In addition, this plant is not demanding on soil composition, lighting and moisture. The plant in culture is widespread: from North China to the Western regions, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, is found in bright deciduous forests, on the slopes of the mountains. In Eastern Siberia in vivo grows singly or in groups.
Healing properties
Black cotoneaster is eaten, most often compotes, soft drinks are prepared. Traditional healers use its medicinal properties to treat certain diseases, including:
- chronic and acute gastritis;
- diarrhea;
- gastroenteritis;
- fever;
- neurasthenia;
- jaundice;
- swelling
- stressful conditions.
It is believed that with liver diseases, infusions and decoctions are necessary. Fruits are used in the treatment of epilepsy. Cotoneaster Aronia successfully treats eczema and scabies. In Tibetan medicine, the properties of this plant are used to stop bloody diarrhea. The infusion of the fruits is a powerful antiseptic.
Chemical composition
In folk medicine, flowers and plant branches are used, which must be collected during flowering. In addition, bark, kidneys and fruits are used. Only fully ripened (late summer) fruits should be harvested.
The leaves contain large amounts of vitamin C, flavonoids, glycoside. In the seeds of hydrocyanic acid, in the fruits - ascorbic acid, coumarins. Plant resin is used to treat skin diseases.
Tincture
This composition is recommended for patients with gastroenteritis and gastritis. You need to take a tablespoon of shoots and leaves (well chopped), pour them 0.5 liters of boiling water, and insist for about two hours. After that, tincture is filtered. Take a quarter cup three times a day. The same composition will help with diarrhea.
Contraindications
To date, contraindications to the use of compounds based on cotoneaster aronia have not been identified. Only individual intolerance is possible. Today, culture has not yet been fully studied. Before starting treatment, consultation with your doctor is necessary.
Black cotoneaster: landing
Seedlings are planted in early spring, when the ground is thawing, and the buds on the trees have not yet opened. You can plant bushes in the fall. The time is chosen between the beginning of leaf fall and the first frosts. The cotoneaster chicks feels quite comfortable in the shade or partial shade. This will in no way affect the decorative qualities of the bushes. To the quality of the soil, the plant is also not demanding.
For cotoneaster, a pit with a size of at least 50x50x50 centimeters is necessary. It is covered with a layer of gravel or broken brick (20 cm). The soil mixture is prepared from peat, humus and sand (one part) and sod land (two parts). It will not be superfluous to add three hundred grams of lime to the soil mixture. The distance between cotoneaster bushes or a building should be from fifty centimeters to two meters. It depends on the estimated size of the plant crown.
When digging a seedling, make sure that the root neck is flush with the surface. Then the soil is compacted quite tightly, watered abundantly and mulch the trunk circle. For this, it is best to use a peat layer eight centimeters thick.
Plant care
Even a novice gardener can grow cotoneaster aronia. Plant care is not complicated. The main thing you need to know about this plant is the categorical rejection of excess moisture at the roots. The cotoneaster will easily transfer the rest of the vagaries of nature.
Experienced gardeners claim that watering the shrub is very rare, and if the summer is rainy, then it is better to completely forget about watering. In dry and hot summers, it will be enough to water the plant once every two weeks at the rate of eight buckets of water per adult plant. After rain (or watering), remove all weeds from the site and loosen the soil no deeper than fifteen centimeters.
Top dressing
In the first spring days, when the positive temperature is established, the cotoneaster should be fed with nitrogen fertilizer. Urea (25 g) diluted in ten liters of water can be used. Suitable granules "Kemira-wagon" (prolonged action). Before flowering, feed the plant 15 g of potassium and 60 g of superphosphate per square meter of soil. At the end of the season, the planting circle is mulched using peat (or covering material).
Cotoneaster pruning
The bushes are responsive to pruning. This is exactly the plant that designers use to form bushes of various shapes: prisms, cones, hemispheres, and even more complex shapes. Trimming by one third of the growth of the annual shoot is recommended. Trimming will require special tools and certain skills. After pruning, the shoots quickly grow back, but the shape given to the bushes is preserved.
Cotoneaster pruning can also perform a sanitary function, since sick, old, broken branches appear from time to time on any bush.
