Blue Spruce At Your Home. Growing A Blue Beauty Spruce

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

The queen of conifers is at your home! Growing a fluffy beauty Christmas tree

Hello dear readers

And now the long-awaited event has come true. A blue spruce has appeared on your site! I share your joy, because at one time I squeaked with pleasure when this miracle settled in our yard on the lawn. And let's dig a little deeper and find out what kind of animal this “blue spruce” is and what it is eaten with.

Content

• 1 Blue spruce: tree description

• 2 Features of growing and caring for blue spruce

  • 2.1 Soil for the blue beauty
  • 2.2 Landing
  • 2.3 Watering
  • 2.4 Preparing for winter
• 3 "Yolka's misfortune": the problem of lack of growth

Blue spruce: tree description

Blue spruce, or rather prickly spruce variety "blue" - an evergreen tree. In the wild, it grows in the northern part of America, usually closer to streams and mountain rivers. At the same time, the soil is rocky and does not differ in fertility. Already by these facts one can judge about its unpretentiousness. By the way, the blue spruce is a symbol of the American states of Colorado and Utah.

It is frost-resistant, wind-resistant, shade-tolerant. Thanks to the silvery bloom on the needles, it is he who gives a beautiful color, is resistant to polluted air, the same bloom helps to retain valuable moisture in the spruce. In nature, blue spruce reaches a height of 35 meters, sometimes lives for more than 600 years. The trunk reaches 1.5 meters in width.

Blue Spruce is a slow growing tree. But despite this, landscape designers adore this tree and always try to include it in their compositions. She is a real queen. And by right it will take its place on any site.

I think it is for your become, the slender pyramidal shape and rich prickly fur coat that you fell in love with. It is impossible not to love her, because, after all, she sunk into everyone's soul in childhood as a symbol of the holiday. Remember: "the little Christmas tree is cold in winter …", "A Christmas tree was born in the forest …", a merry round dance, snowflakes, gifts, the smell of tangerines and pine needles. This special tart smell of fir needles filling the whole room, the smell of serenity, the smell of childhood …

By the way, the blue spruce is a symbol of well-being, success and prosperity. This is probably also why you decided to get a Christmas tree. Well, in the meantime, the forest beauty has already taken its rightful place on your site. And despite the fact that this ephedra is an unpretentious tree, at a young age it will still require some attention and care.

In my article, I will not touch upon the issue of the reproduction of the blue beauty. Whether it is a seed method or a cuttings method. Because this process, although interesting, but very troublesome. And the result does not always justify the effort invested. Well, unless, of course, you decide to do it professionally, for example, for sale.

Therefore, suppose you bought it. Like my husband and I at one time, we bought it in a nursery, already rooted with a huge lump of earth, about 30 centimeters in height. They drove home, not breathing, and planted with bated breath, sincerely wishing that she would take root and give an increase in the next year. Ugh, ugh, ugh, that's what happened. For two years in a row she delighted us with her young shoots 10 centimeters in length. We rejoiced like children stroking delicate light green needles.

And in the third year, like a bolt from the blue, a terrible thing happened: the growth point on the central shoot did not give a new increase. How is it that our blue spruce will turn into a small dwarf? We were in shock for several days, and then we went online. But apparently because of great excitement or for a trivial reason, incorrectly asked requests were not answered. In fact, everything turned out to be simple, and it was not worth worrying about this at all. I will tell you how to be in such a situation below. In the meantime, let's deal with the issue of caring for the Christmas tree.

Features of growing and caring for blue spruce

Soil for the blue beauty

Firstly, you cannot plant a blue spruce where potatoes or corn used to grow. The risk of infection with a fungus is high. And also on calcareous soils. The tree prefers light loamy soil with a slightly acidic environment. Use ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate, or ammonium chloride to acidify the soil. It will be good if, when planting, you add soil from under a coniferous tree. For example, from the forest. And some sand. If your soil is heavy, add humus or peat. All of these recommendations are acceptable if you want fast growth. But if you plant a blue spruce in your area and want it to delight you with its beauty for as long as possible, any soil, even the most scarce, will do. Believe me, it will grow, only more slowly, as we need. After all, you have not forgotten, in nature it grows almost on rocks.

Landing

If you plan to plant more than one tree, then keep a distance between the trees at least 2 meters. The optimum planting depth is 50-60 cm. If you are planting an ephedra with a lump of its native soil, then after digging a hole for a coma, loosen its walls 10 cm deep. It is advisable to arrange a drainage pillow. Throw some rubble, small stone, or, alternatively, broken brick to the bottom of the pit. Although blue spruce and shade-tolerant tree, it still prefers sunny places. Who doesn't love the sun? It is thanks to him that the spruce retains its silvery color. If it is necessary to transplant spruce, do it in early spring, while the tree has not yet started to grow, and the ground has already thawed enough to be able to dig a lump. Usually it is March, April. Dormant plants tolerate transplanting more painlessly. If it didn't work out in the spring, then at leasttry not to do this in hot weather. In the fall, it is generally not recommended to replant conifers. Many of them die. As a result, while the tree takes root and takes root, it is advisable not to actively trample, and even more so not to dig the ground within a radius of 50 cm. Since the roots are close to the surface of the earth.

Watering

Let me remind dear readers of the agreement that our blue spruce is already at least three or four years old. Growth 25-30 centimeters. And we will water it. Because with one-year-old or even younger seedlings, a completely different story. Watering such trees is necessary very often up to 6-7 times a day, especially in the hot summer period, periodically spray the needles and very carefully monitor the soil so that it does not dry out. The roots of young seedlings are very tender and are located close to the surface of the earth.

Older trees, like ours, do not need such frequent watering. It is enough to water 1-2 times a day. Nevertheless, blue spruce is a moisture-loving crop. If the summer is hot, it is advisable to control the soil and prevent severe drying out. My husband and I planted our beauty on the lawn and with its daily watering, of course, we water the Christmas tree. In addition, the grass very well saves the earth from drying out quickly. And be sure to pamper your pet with rain. She will love it. Water the needles from a watering can, spray from a hose, just remember, the water should not be very cold.

Preparing for winter

Adult, large blue trees do not need any additional protection. But small, half a meter tall, perhaps, it is worth protecting. The bottom line is to protect it from breakage of branches in heavy snow, especially when it gets wet, and bright sunlight. The banal tying of branches saves from heavy snow. Lifting the branches from the bottom up to the trunk, tie it with a rope. Or tighten with a net. A simple onion net will work.

In winter, the sun's rays are reflected off the snow and burns can occur. And in the spring, with the increasing sun and the snow that has not yet melted, the situation becomes dangerous. On the south side, spruce can get severe burns. The needles will turn yellow and crumble. Cover your tree to avoid this kind of trouble. Both plain cotton fabric and non-woven fabric are acceptable.

"Yolkino misfortune": the problem of lack of growth

Yes, that's exactly what we thought, "Yelka's misfortune", when we faced the problem of the lack of growth on the upper shoot. That is, the upper kidney, the so-called "growth point", did not give the same growth. This could have happened due to mechanical damage or the kidney simply froze out in winter. In principle, the spruce could have been left in this state and seen how it would behave the next year. It happens that the kidney is restored and gives a stronger growth. But if this does not happen, the spruce itself will replace the missing central shoot with one of the lateral ones. In this case, such an escape may be not one, but two or three. And then you won't have to count on a slender beauty. The shape of such a tree will be very bizarre. Therefore, if the same thing happened to you as we did and you in the first years of growth ate you want to keep its natural harmony,the situation can be corrected as follows:

while the new shoots are still young, light green color, with soft needles, carry out the following procedure:

Step. 1 From the formed umbrella of young shoots, below the growing point, choose the most visually strong shoot.

Step. 2 Gently from top to bottom, along the trunk of the spruce, lower a wooden stick and stick it into the ground, shallowly. This will be our support. We used a piece of simple reinforcement. The end of the stick should rise 15-20 cm above the top of the spruce.

Step. 3 Gently pull the selected shoot to the stick and fix it with a string, possibly in several places.

Step. 4 Remove the remaining umbrella shoots by unscrewing them completely at the very base. We did this to avoid creating competition for our newly made crown. But you can leave it. Just make sure that the rest of the remaining shoots develop to the sides as lateral.

Step. 5 It will be possible to remove the ropes and remove the stick when our new central shoot is stiff. This will be noticeable in color. It will acquire a characteristic trunk brown color.

If everything is done correctly, at the end of our operation, the spruce will look like this.

In such a not cunning way, we managed to revive the spruce. Create a new central shoot. Yes, in the first couple of three years, a distant layer will be visible. But over time, the spruce will grow and hide the flaws.

As a consequence, when the spruce reaches a height of 1.5 meters, we will begin the planned annual pruning and pinching. This helps to restrain the growth of the spruce and allows you to admire it for a long time. The pinching procedure does no harm to the tree. But the spruce will become fluffier.

Be sure to plant a blue beauty in your area or next to it. This is both beauty and healing coniferous smell !!!

Yours faithfully, Ponomareva Evgeniya.