How To Transplant A Juniper From A Forest To A Garden

"Northern cypress" is not worse than the southern one …

The common name of our common juniper with northern cypress is not accidental, since it is not only very similar in appearance to the southern cypress, but also belongs to the cypress family. The natural beauty and severity of the forms of this evergreen shrub allows today more and more often to create in summer cottages and garden plots with the help of its diverse compositions - beautiful and expressive.

Unfortunately, many summer residents and gardeners, when growing junipers, face considerable difficulties caused by both the unreliability of the recommendations available in the press, and obvious mistakes in agricultural technology. Based on my experience and the experience of the owners of other plots where this crop is successfully grown, I want to tell you about the most typical mistakes of beginners in their attempts to start a juniper in their garden.

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Analyzing all the recommendations available in the press, they can be roughly divided into three groups. One group of authors generally does not recommend growing junipers in the plots; the other allows their cultivation, but only if the cuttings are purchased from merchants; the third group recommends buying ready-made seedlings in pots.

The first of the recommendations, which explains the impossibility of growing by the limited area of plots and the toxicity of the plant, is clearly not confirmed by practice, since the juniper requires very little space and is not afraid of the shade, and the high toxicity refers not to the ordinary, but to the Cossack juniper.

As for the second recommendation, I know from experience that the process of rooting cuttings is long and not always reliable. In the third case, the recommendations are not always feasible due to the high cost of seedlings in pots, not all gardeners can afford them. Moreover, they are not always available.

I believe that the best way is to skillfully transplant the juniper into the garden from the forest, where it is possible to choose the most suitable tree, and at the right time.

Another very important recommendation from those available in the press is not confirmed in practice - about the autumn planting of a juniper, when gardening work is basically completed. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the experience of, for example, my neighbor on the site, the seedling does not have time to take root well in the pre-winter time and acquires a brownish-rusty color. The same phenomenon had to be observed in other areas.

The best time to transplant juniper from the forest to the garden, in which negative phenomena are excluded, in my opinion, is early spring, when the snow has not yet completely melted, and the ground has only thawed slightly.

The practice of transplanting juniper from forest to garden also indicates that in order to achieve a positive result, it is important to ensure that several more specific requirements of agricultural technology are met.

1. At the place where you will take a seedling for transplanting, you should immediately mark the sunny side of the tree with a colored ribbon or twine on one of the branches. This is necessary in order to plant the dug out seedling in the garden with the same orientation.
2. You need to dig up a tree with the largest lump of earth and fibrous roots located at the depth of the bayonet of the shovel and within the boundaries of the branches along the perimeter. If the coma is too heavy, a slightly smaller perimeter is possible, but the coma should be relieved by reducing the depth, and not horizontally.
3. In order not to shake the lump of the mother's earth and not dry the fibrous roots, the dug tree must be put on plastic wrap or thick paper and, wrapping the lump, tie the edges with twine to the trunk.
4. To plant a juniper, you should choose a place in the garden where it would be in the shade or partial shade and not adjacent to apple trees, since it is an intermediate host of a common apple tree disease - rust.
5. It is necessary to plant a juniper either in pits, when it is placed in separate curtains on the lawn, or in trenches, when placed in an alley. It is not recommended to place a juniper near a house and other buildings so that the snow that slides from the roofs in winter does not damage its crown.
6. The depth of the planting pit or trench should not be more than the thickness of the coma to be planted, since in this case the root collar of the tree will be buried, which should not be allowed.
7. Pits or trenches before planting junipers should be filled with a mixture of garden soil, river sand and peat or compost, and the roots should be well spread over the surface, covered with 5-10 cm soil and mulched with coniferous litter, humus, or wet coniferous sawdust.
8. From the rest of the soil from digging holes or trenches, an earthen roller should be created along the edge, then about two buckets of water should be poured into the bowl of the trunk circle, and a bucket with a solution of one heteroauxin tablet in water should be poured around the bowl perimeter.

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The survival rate of a juniper tree largely depends on the subsequent care of it. At the same time, it is very important for the first six months, while the fibrous root system of roots is being restored, to water the tree with at least two buckets of water weekly, and also to weed out weeds in the near-trunk circle, which noticeably oppress the weakened tree and attract various pests to it. In the case when the tree is poorly covered with shade, on hot summer days it is advisable to lightly spray its crown when watering, and if necessary, even cover it with burlap or some loose cloth.

If you need to limit the growth of a tree, it should be cut, but only at the beginning of May, before new delicate needles begin to grow. We must not forget also about the annual expansion of the juniper's trunk bowl. To do this, it is recommended to dig a ditch around the crown on the bayonet of a shovel, lay leaf, coniferous litter and weeds in it, sprinkle everything with lime and create a new roller of the barrel bowl annually over this place.

If you can fulfill all the requirements for transplanting juniper from forest to garden, which were discussed above, then your site will be transformed next year. It will attract the attention of the evergreen juniper needles. This plant usually begins to bloom in the second half of May, forming male and female cones, and after pollination of the latter, cones are formed, which contain up to 5% of essential oils used in the treatment of wounds, burns, frostbites.

Juniper branches and needles are used as a disinfectant in the processing of various containers and for the preparation of smoked meats. It is especially valuable that the juniper releases phytoncides (6 times more than other conifers), under the influence of which putrefactive fungi and bacteria, influenza viruses and even tubercle bacilli die in the garden. My experience and the experience of my neighbors in growing junipers convincingly testifies that the northern cypress transplanted from the forest to the garden, like its southern counterpart, gives the site not only beauty, but also brings it sanitary and hygienic and therapeutic and preventive benefits.

Also read:

Juniper: Uses and Cultivation