Lingonberry In Your Garden

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

It is difficult to find a Petersburger who is not familiar with the wonderful berry of our forests - lingonberry. In the fall, thousands of amateurs flock to the forests of the Leningrad Region for this berry.

Lingonberry is a small evergreen shrub from the lingonberry family. Its berries have excellent taste and medicinal properties. Due to the high content of benzoic acid, lingonberry fruits have antiseptic properties, they can be stored for a long time without losing their taste and medicinal properties. Berries contain carbohydrates, malic, citric and salicylic acid, pectin, vitamins A, C, E. They also contain many trace elements: magnesium, calcium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, manganese. It is no coincidence that berries are used to increase the acidity of the stomach, with rheumatism, diarrhea, hypertension. Housewives are happy to prepare them for the winter in the form of jam or in the form of soaked lingonberries. It is enough to pour water over the berry, and it will be perfectly preserved until spring.

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Lingonberry leaves are no less useful. They are used as a diuretic, disinfectant of the urinary tract. An infusion of the leaves is taken for chronic rheumatism. Lingonberry water in folk medicine is used for joint pain, it is drunk hot as a diaphoretic and antipyretic agent, gargle for sore throat. A lot can be said about the medicinal and nutritional benefits of this plant. But no less attractive is a flowering plant.

Whoever visited the forest at the end of May, June, he certainly saw how beautiful this plant is during flowering. In fact, it is decorative at any time of the year. Lingonberry bushes with white-pink flowers against a background of bright green shiny, like varnished leaves look very elegant. The flowers are small, collected in a dense drooping raceme and are located at the ends of last year's shoots. The pleasant faint scent of flowers attracts bees and bumblebees.

It is no coincidence that Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and other countries began to introduce it into culture. Lingonberry cultivation began to be carried out more than 100 years ago in the United States. In Europe, this work is really just beginning. In Russia, the first varieties of lingonberry were bred at the Kostroma Forest Experimental Station.

Almost all cultivated varieties of lingonberry bloom and bear fruit twice a season. Therefore, when using lingonberry bushes, the second flowering in July-August is also used for decorative purposes, when many white-pink flowers appear simultaneously with the red berries of the first harvest. And in September-October, the lingonberry bushes are covered with bright red berries.

It would be appropriate to recall that in the middle of the 18th century in Russia, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna ordered the gardening of Peterhof with cowberries. It is no coincidence that the author of the article "Fruit and berry crops in decorative design" reasonably suggests using this small beautiful plant in gardening household plots ("Flora Price" No. 5 (76)). By its grace, this plant can be put on a par with lily of the valley and thyme.

Undoubtedly, it makes sense for our gardeners to master this new culture in their gardens. Moreover, lingonberry is unpretentious and grows well on light soils - peat, sandy and loam. You can use pure peat and mixed with sand in different ratios (1: 1, 2: 1, 3: 1). Speaking of peat, of course, you need to use horse sphagnum with a degree of decomposition of 5-15%, or it is called "red".

Such peat has an acidic reaction, and, as in the case of cranberries, blueberries and blueberries, it is precisely such an environment that is necessary for the life of end-peat mycorrhiza, i.e. fungi that live in symbiosis with the root system. Both the absorption of water and nutrients for the plant is carried out precisely by the cells of the mycorrhiza.

If your site is peaty and the soil acidity is pH 3.0-5.0, you can safely start planting, having previously dug up and removed the roots of the weeds. On sandy soils, high-moor peat must be added - 1 bucket per 1 m². If you purchased low-lying peat, where the pH is 5 or more, then to acidify such peat, it is advisable to spill it with a solution of acetic acid (9%) - 100 g of acid per 10 liters of water per 1 m². This operation must be performed 1.5-2 weeks before planting.

The main condition for obtaining lingonberry fruits is the location of the garden in a sunny place. In the shade, the lingonberry, of course, will delight you only with its appearance and foliage. However, this circumstance can be used in landscape design. Lingonberry bushes are planted at a distance of 20-25 cm in a row, and between rows 30-40 cm. If you purchase planting material in a container, then you can plant it from May to September.

When planting, the plant must be deepened by 1-1.5 cm, watered and compacted the soil around the bush.

The first two weeks after planting, it is necessary to water regularly so that young plants do not die due to lack of moisture. After the lingonberry has taken root, watered as needed. It is enough to make sure that the topsoil does not dry out. In the future, it is enough to water twice a week: one bucket per 1 m² of plantings. Naturally, in hot weather, which happens infrequently in our country, you can not only water the plants at the root, but also spray directly on the leaves.

Among the varieties of garden lingonberry, we can recommend, perhaps, the most decorative and fruitful Dutch variety Coral. In our conditions, during the growing season, it forms a crop twice. The first is at the end of July, the second is from mid-September to early October. The yield is high - 0.2-0.4 kg per bush.

The variety is distinguished by strong growth - up to 30 cm, spectacular emerald green foliage. Forms few rhizome shoots. The ground part forms tall, well-fruiting spherical bushes. × Notice board Kittens for sale Puppies for sale Horses for sale

In one place, lingonberries can live long enough. And although it is not so demanding on soil fertility, because in nature it grows on rather scarce soils, nevertheless, in a garden, plants need mineral feeding. It is necessary in small doses, so for 1 m² you need to add 15 g of double superphosphate, 10 g of potassium sulfate, but nitrogen fertilizers are enough to apply only in spring no more than 5 g / m². On pure peat soil, no fertilizers can be applied at all. Periodic dusting of the soil as it subsides stimulates shoots, root growth and the formation of new bushes.

There are still few cultivated plantings, so diseases and pests have not yet mastered this culture, and culling of infected plants and weed control can be recommended as preventive measures against diseases.

So this amazing plant asks for our garden, attracting with its beauty and unpretentiousness to growing conditions. And it is worth noting that it is practically not afraid of either winter frosts or spring frosts.