Choosing Seedlings For The Garden

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

How not to buy a pig in a poke

The advantage is for zoned plants

Saplings

In the spring, exhibitions and fairs are opened one after another, where gardeners are greeted with an abundance of seedlings, seedlings, roots and bulbs of perennials of various types of plants. What to choose, how not to make a mistake and plant in the garden something that will grow successfully and delight the hosts and guests? And when is it wise to buy seedlings and roots?

You should not buy planting material in February - March if you cannot ensure the storage temperature of the seedlings within 0 … + 5 ° С and sufficient air humidity. It is better to wait for the April fair to immediately plant the seedlings in the garden. The tiny parts of the rhizomes of perennials with strings of shoots are unlikely to survive until spring in a hot and dry apartment, even with very careful care.

When choosing planting material, we will give preference to those species that successfully winter in our climate. Often in the early spring we are brought in saplings of the southern production, which are completely unsuitable in their biology to the soil and climatic conditions of the North-West. In fruit and vegetable growing there is a generally accepted term - zoned varieties of agricultural crops. As for perennials and seedlings, not every seller, unfortunately, will honestly tell you where the plants that he offers to buy are grown, and whether they can overwinter in the open field.

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Here, your horizons and special literature will help you, which recommends the types of perennial flowers and shrubs, trees that can successfully grow in the northern gardens. Often, what is recommended for Central Russia, in our conditions, may not survive the winter even with shelter (it is usually necessary).

Now all gardeners know that each type of plant is intended to be grown in a specific winter hardiness zone. The North-West belongs to the 3-4 zone according to the international classification, the middle lane belongs to the fifth zone. Of all the roses, for example, only the forms and varieties of park roses have flawlessly hibernated here without shelter; in recent years, very elegant varieties of them have appeared, decorating the gardens and parks of St. Petersburg and its suburbs. And everyone's favorite hybrid tea roses, floribunda, flower beds, climbing roses and others, as a rule, belong to zones 5-6, they winter exclusively with shelter. The term "winter hardy" in the annotations of varieties in catalogs and magazines corresponds to the winter hardiness of these roses in the conditions of Southern Europe, you should not delude yourself here.

Based on this, they choose new ornamental plants that have not been tested in state variety areas. To correctly navigate the choice, pay attention to the gardens in the neighborhood - which exotic plants successfully winter and bloom in your microclimate. More and more southern novelties will require shelter in the first years of life: mulching the soil, wrapping spruce branches, and arranging a hut from the branches of cut perennials or shrubs. The winter hardiness of plants can gradually increase, and adult specimens, for example, cypress trees, will turn out to be quite resistant for our winters, subject to favorable conditions for placement and care.

Spirea

Some more southerly species (liatris, buddleya, kerria and others) can be taken at risk if the planting material is grown from seeds or cuttings in the nearest nurseries of the Northwest, or you yourself sow seeds, root cuttings and get your own seedlings and seedlings.

It was by sowing the seeds of southern plants in more northern places that many plants were promoted higher and higher on the map to the north. Experienced gardeners can grow many ornamental shrubs from seeds and cuttings, not to mention perennials. In our climate, spireas, chubushniks (they are often incorrectly called "jasmines"), weigels, snowberries, rhododendrons, pines, spruces, thuja, junipers, park roses, shrub cinquefoil, viburnum, caragana, cotoneaster, robinia pseudoacacia (" white acacia "in common parlance), Golden rain bean and many other species.

For species sensitive to frost, the most protected and warmest place in the garden is allocated - at the southern wall of buildings, in the corner of a solid fence, near the gazebo.

The younger the plant, which will be planted in the garden, the easier it is for it to adapt to new soil and climatic conditions. An one-year or two-year-old seedling will take root more successfully in a different place than a three to four year old. Many gardeners try to choose an older and larger plant in order to immediately get the maximum decorative effect. Here you already have to choose: the reliability of survival or decorativeness for the season. However, a skilled gardener can cope with any task, from small to large.

Plants from the forest

Perhaps in the nearest forest you have noticed a tree or bush that you would like to transplant into the garden. Do not rush to do this right in the spring. For the successful survival of a forest plant in your garden, you need to gradually form its root ball 6-12 months in advance. To do this, in the spring, with a shovel, they cut the soil vertically around the plant at a distance of 25-30 cm from the trunk (the size of the coma depends on the size of the plant itself: the larger it is, the larger the clod should be).

At the site of the cuts in the roots, new thin suction roots will begin to form. During the season, this "procedure" is done 2-3 more times, each time retreating a little further in the direction of increasing the size of the coma. By mid-September, a tree (viburnum, irgi, thuja) or a bush (juniper, heather, lingonberry) will form a good ball with mycorrhiza - soil mushrooms, in a pleasant and beneficial combination for the plant. If you dig up a tree you like in the spring without preparation, you will deprive it of the suction roots located on the periphery of the crown projection, outside the earthen coma, which can be dug manually. And such a tree or bush with stumps of thick lignified roots, most likely, will die during transplantation.

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Site selection and preparation

When planting plants, it is important to provide those soil conditions that are optimal for this particular species: soil type, its acidity, fertility, mechanical composition, looseness, air permeability, water-holding capacity. It is known in advance that moisture-loving and shade-tolerant species will suffer and grow poorly in the hot sun in sandy soil, the period and abundance of their flowering will be insufficient. And, conversely, sun lovers (stonecrops, rejuvenated, annuals, most flowering perennials) will not be able to demonstrate all their merits in a waterlogged shady place in the garden.

It is very important to provide a young plant with good nutrition, preferably for a long time, in order to facilitate care and free up time for other things, and do not forget to just admire the fruits of your labors - the beauty of the garden. Traditionally, we create a nutrient mixture from compost and ash to neutralize excess acidity, as well as a source of potassium with trace elements, we fill the planting space with this mixture, fill the roots of plants.

For lovers of acidic soils (rhododendrons, hydrangeas), sour peat is added to the mixture. This is how we prepare the best conditions for each plant in the planting pit, like in a large-sized flowerpot. It is optimal and economical to add granules of the long-acting AVA complex fertilizer to the hole or planting hole, which works in the soil for up to three years.

It is environmentally friendly, does not pollute the environment, never burns the roots, and overdose is excluded. Next year, in spring, only nitrogen fertilization in organic or mineral form is required (AVA granules do not contain nitrogen, but promotes the activation of nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria, which assimilate nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form available for plants in the soil).

For "sissies" it is necessary to think in advance about the landing site in the garden area protected from two or three sides from cold winds. In such a sunny corner, you can successfully grow Lawson and pea cypress trees, large-leaved hydrangea (distillation, which is sold in pots in flower shops in spring), cannes, roses, action, weigela, actinidia, lemongrass and other species.

Boxwood

Container plants

In April-May or September-October, you can safely buy seedlings of trees, shrubs, perennial roots directly from the ground, not in containers, or just planted in containers for easy transportation. But when buying such seedlings and perennial roots, you should make sure that their roots are not dry, wrapped in damp material or film. Seedlings from the soil of our northern nurseries are much cheaper, while they are quite reliable.

Perennial roots at exhibitions in March-April are often sold in plastic bags with peat. Very often the peat turns out to be dry, and the roots are dried, the shoots are weak and few in number, and even if the plant is immediately planted in a pot with soil, it can be lost, since it no longer has vitality. You should not spend money on such planting material. Perennials are best bought in May, when the aerial part of the plant is well developed, which means that the root system is in order. If the shoots are weak, the leaves are dry, or spots of different colors are visible on them (as a rule, these are signs of a fungal infection) - you are offered low-quality planting material.

Everyone knows that container plants easily take root in the ground throughout the season - from spring to autumn. But if you buy plants straight from the greenhouse, be sure to gradually train them to the open air (harden them like seedlings) before planting them in the garden. To harden the seedlings and protect them from the direct rays of the sun, you can use shading made of mesh, lutrasil, gauze. Immediate, without hardening, planting flowers and seedlings in the ground will lead to their burns and loss of foliage, and then to a long recovery, not always successful.

We create a beautiful garden

Preparing for the new season, many gardeners look through special magazines, study catalogs of new species and varieties of ornamental plants in order to replenish their collections and flower beds. It would be wise to draw up a plan in advance, before buying seedlings, on which the height of the plants, the timing of flowering and the color of the flowers will be marked. It is important to choose effective partners for the future inhabitants of the garden of continuous flowering - after all, any gardener strives to create just such a continuously blooming garden - Eden, the earthly image of Paradise. Here are some examples of successful plant partnerships.

Kalina Boulle de Neige

In April-May, forsythia (European, Japanese, ovate, intermediate) - a shrub up to 2 m high - blooms with bright yellow flowers before the leaves bloom profusely in our places. It goes well with evergreen species of conifers, effectively standing out against their dark background; it is planted next to spirea, mock-orange, rosehip. Such a group of shrubs will be decorative throughout the season.

At the same time, the wolf-bush blooms with pink or white flowers - a shrub up to 1.7 m high, but there are also its dwarf forms. Early flowering shrubs get along well with bulbs of a suitable color: daffodils, muscari, tulips, dwarf conifers. In May, we have charming little lianas blooming - princes, strewn with white, pink, purple flowers. They need a support in the form of a pergola or "umbrellas" of different heights for different varieties, or even a neighborhood with an overgrown bush of cotoneaster, bladder, and fieldfare.

A more powerful liana blooming in May is honeysuckle, honeysuckle and others. It is truly a decoration of spring, cascades of its exotic form of outlandish flowers of double color (creamy yellow and pink) literally cover numerous shoots. Honeysuckle requires solid support: a metal lattice against the wall of the house or a solid fence, arches, a gazebo with lattice walls. If honeysuckle is already in your garden, pay attention to the density of its shoots. Perhaps it exceeds reasonable limits, and before the buds bloom, it is high time to thin it out, so that during and after flowering the bush is well ventilated and does not suffer from leaf warping in dense thickets.

Propagation by cuttings

Cut brittle lashes of honeysuckle are carefully cut into cuttings with 3-4 pairs of buds and planted under a peg in open ground for rooting, deepening to the upper pair of buds. Planting "under a peg" is a generally accepted term meaning that a peg is made into a deep hole in the ground, where the handle is inserted and squeezed tightly with the foot so that the ground fits snugly against the handle. Wet soil and its tight adherence are the main condition for rooting winter cuttings without any shelter, which greatly facilitates and simplifies the reproduction of shrubs. The very edge of the site, the aisle of currant bushes, chokeberry, in a word, any more or less free space between other plants can serve as a planting site. By autumn you will have your own planting material for the embodiment of the most daring “vertical ideas” in the garden.

With winter cuttings, many breeds of ornamental shrubs are successfully propagated: chubushniki, elderberry, spirea, grapes, cinquefoil, willow; even thuja cuttings, when planted in spring in a shaded place with moist soil, can take root without shelter. Thanks to this feature of some shrubs, cut branches of seedlings purchased in spring will serve as a source of their own planting material.

Elena Kuzmina

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