Growing Cypress In A City Apartment

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

KIPARIS - APOLLO TREE

How to grow a beautiful pyramidal plant indoors

Evergreens have always been highly valued and appreciated in ornamental gardening, especially in the northern regions, where summer is so fleeting that we do not have time to enjoy even just the greenery of the garden, forest, not to mention the floral aromas and living carpets of all colors of the rainbow.

Among the ornamental evergreen trees and shrubs, the best known to us are spruce, fir, pine, thuja, juniper, less familiar and less common in the gardens and parks of Douglas, biota, cypress trees, cedar pines, and very rare - evergreen cypress of the Cypress family. Let's say right away that cypress in the middle and north-western lane is grown in a tub culture, letting it go to the garden in summer "on vacation". At the same time, they dig the container into the flower garden, and in the fall they move it back into the house. In comparison with the room content of thuja or cypress, cypress is less whimsical and feels quite comfortable in the rather dry air of rooms.

By the way, cypress can withstand a short-term drop in temperature to -20 ° C, but, nevertheless, it is still an exclusively southern culture of open ground. In the tradition of the palace greenhouses was the cultivation of cypress with planting in the summer as an exotic plant in their own gardens. However, modern lovers of Mediterranean flora may well create their own little home Eden, which will house subtropical plant species. And the cypress will solo there, exude its luxurious resinous aroma, delight the eye with an elegant pyramidal crown with thin openwork branches, heal the atmosphere of the rooms (it releases essential oil) and even … serve as a New Year tree. It will be very "to his face" for him, and for us - to joy, health and pleasure.

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Numerous legends attribute the cypress to a variety of ancient gods and celebrities of mythical times. Once upon a time lived in the fertile lands of magical Arcadia, the son of Tsar Telephus - a young handsome Cypress, a favorite of Apollo. He darted carelessly astride a beautiful deer, they frolicked merrily and flew over the flowering meadows. Once, while hunting, Cypress, through negligence, mortally wounded his deer friend, and the deer died. Shedding tears, he begged the Cypress of the gods to send him to the place where his friend would be from now on. And Apollo turned a slender young man into an amazingly beautiful tree with a high narrow crown and dark needles.

As the tree of the healer Asclepius, the cypress is considered a symbol of longevity, and as the tree of Cyprias (Aphrodite, Venus) - a symbol of stormy love. Cypress, like the Apollo tree, was a symbol of sophistication and artistry, thanks to its truly exquisite beauty and grace.

Features of cypress

The natural habitat of cypress is the islands of the Aegean Sea, the mountains of Asia Minor and Northern Iran, the Black Sea region. The genus has 14 species in the moderately warm zone of the Northern Hemisphere, but the most common is the evergreen cypress, or ordinary. In native places, a tree with a sharp top grows up to 25 m and under favorable conditions (according to literature data) can live up to 2000 years.

Cypress is planted naturally in the areas of its natural habitat, and outside its range it is bred as an ornamental crop. On the southern coast of Crimea, cypress creates a special, inimitable landscape; specimens 100 years old or more are found there. By this time, the tree reaches its maximum height, but the trouble with this species is the defeat of its wood in old age by rot.

Cypress wood with a yellowish sapwood, yellowish-brown core, with a characteristic strong aroma, heavy, hard, dense, insect resistant. It does not warp in products, its mechanical properties are close to pine, it is used as a building material and for various exquisite handicrafts. Literature lovers will probably know cypress by the name of the only collection of poems by I. F. Annensky - "Cypress chest", in a real cypress chest the poet really kept the manuscripts of his works. × Notice board Kittens for sale Puppies for sale Horses for sale

Types of cypress

Other types of cypress are also interesting, which can come to us on occasion and become real exotics in the indoor garden.

Large-fruited cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) grows quickly (found in Sochi, Sukhumi, Adler), has an umbrella-shaped crown expanding upward, its needles smell like lemon, large cones - up to 4 cm long.

Weeping cypress (Cupressus funerbis) has a conical crown with long hanging shoots, gray-green needles, cones up to 1.5 cm long. Grows on the southern coast of Crimea, the Caucasus, where it bears fruit.

And the most common is evergreen cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), which was already discussed at the beginning of the article. Its two varieties are known: horizontal and pyramidal.

The horizontal cypress (f. Horisontalis) differs in the horizontal branching of the branches from the main trunk, which then rise upward, forming a wide-pyramidal crown.

Pyramidal cypress (f. Pyramidalis, f. Stricta) naturally forms a narrow-pyramidal, very dense crown of branches ascending upward and pressed to the trunk. The bark of young plants is brown, later - brown, thick. The leaves are small, scaly, the needles are elongated-rhombic, arranged crosswise, tightly pressed to the shoots. Cypress cones are round, woody, grayish-brown with a thorn on scales, hanging on short twigs. They look like a miniature soccer ball (2-3 cm in diameter) with clearly visible seams. When a mature cone is brought home, after one or two days it spreads its large scales and pours out the precious contents - red-brown flat seeds with a narrow wing. Up to 20 of them are formed under each scales.

Cypress propagation

Cypress reproduces well by seeds. Special garden forms are naturally propagated by grafting or cuttings. In Crimea, cones are harvested in late March - early April, at this time they are still closed, but they are already falling off.

By the way, the opened cones are very decorative, they are often used in various compositions, fashionable potpourri in combination with other fruits, seeds, dried flower heads, placing natural material in transparent cylindrical or spherical vases, adding a few drops of your favorite essential oils. It turns out beautifully, stylish and healthy.

Growing cypress

It is very interesting for both adults and children to grow cypress from seeds. Prepare the soil for sowing by mixing the garden neutral with compost, coarse sand and gravel or small pebbles, a small amount of peat, fill the mixture with full long-acting fertilizer immediately for the season (AVA with nitrogen). In general, you should get a neutral or slightly alkaline mixture with good aeration and water permeability.

Seeds are sown in spring or summer in a container or pot on a moistened and compacted soil, sprinkle on the thickness of the seed with washed sand or perlite, spray until the top layer is moistened, cover with foil or glass and put the container in a warm place. When the seedlings appear, we raise the shelter, sprinkle the surface of the container with a light mixture of earth and sand to cover the bare roots. We remove the shelter for airing more and more often, then we remove it completely. By spraying with warm, settled water, we maintain a moderate humidity of the substrate and air. We repeat the powders several times before picking the seedlings. Their color turns out to be unexpected - bluish due to the wax coating of the needles - and very elegant.

Planting a cypress seedling in a tub

Seedlings can be thinned and partially cut open, so that later, after a few months, or even a year later, young plants can be planted in separate pots. High narrow pots are suitable for cypress, on the bottom of which it is necessary to pour drainage from broken shards or large expanded clay. It is convenient and useful to add a pinch of granules of the long-acting AVA complex fertilizer to the earthen mixture for adequate nutrition of young cypress trees for the next 1-2 years. After transplanting, the plants are kept in diffused light for several days, and then placed on a sunny window. By nature, cypress is shade-tolerant, but in the north it certainly needs a sunny location.

Cypress grows quite quickly, in nature it begins to bear fruit at the age of five or six (in tub culture, much later, but also bears fruit). Like all conifers, in indoor conditions in winter, cypress needs coolness (+ 15 … + 17 ° C) and good lighting, including additional. It winters well on an insulated loggia with overhead lighting with a fluorescent lamp.

By cutting in indoor conditions, we can form a denser crown, in spring and summer shortening the branches along the entire crown, as well as the overall height of the tree, if it has grown to the top of the window. If it is possible to keep the cypress on the floor, then its height can be under the ceiling. The crown becomes heavy with age, so a support in the form of a strong peg a little less than a tree will come in handy.

The transshipment of the cypress should be done as the root system grows - when the roots become visible in the drainage holes. For ease of movement, large tub plants are kept on special stands with wheels, which can be found in garden centers.

Based on the biological characteristics of cypress, excess moisture is harmful to it at all stages of cultivation, but it tolerates prolonged drought well. In summer, the crown of the tree is sprayed from time to time with settled water, especially on hot days in the mornings and evenings. In winter, when the air in the rooms is too dry, humidification is important for the comfort of the cypress tree. From time to time it is necessary to bathe cypresses in the shower (as long as the dimensions allow), covering the surface of the earth with a film.

Compositions in the apartment

From time to time, the surface of the earth in a pot or tub is cleaned of debris, fallen dry needles. It is useful to cover the ground with fine expanded clay or crushed bark and spray them to increase air humidity. For the same purpose, and also for beauty, small potted flowers are placed on the surface of the earth with adult plants. For example, for the New Year holidays, cypress can not only be dressed up like a traditional Christmas tree, but also blooming cyclamens, begonias, Kalanchoe, multi-colored hypoestes can be put to it - such a composition will revive the interior, delight you in the coldest and darkest months of the year.

Another successful decoration technique is the planting of ground cover indoor plants with small leaves to the cypress tree: tradescantia, gelksina, oxalis, ceropegia and even "street" species - ivy budra, coin loosestrife, lamb, laskolka. Growing, groundcover colored or green carpets hanging from the edges of the container give the composition a finished and more decorative look. A combination of flowering species and a fluffy carpet is possible. Of course, all participants in the composition must be provided with sufficient lighting, hydration and nutrition. Long-term complex fertilizers in this case turn out to be very economical and effective. With an insufficient vegetative mass of ampelous species, from time to time, solutions of fast-acting complete fertilizers are used, watering the plants as if by the root,and spraying their crowns with a weak solution as foliar top dressing.

You just have to ask your friends and acquaintances to bring young cypress saplings or its cones, seeds, cuttings from the south and grow on your own these amazingly beautiful plants with a rich history, rare for us, creating here, in the north, a unique and attractive atmosphere of the hot south. To complete the picture, you can make a large photopanel with a view of the sea and natural tall cypresses as the background for the cypress trees in the house and create a flower-fruit potpourri with natural essential oils.