Juniper, whose grade is called Ice Blue, is a decorative variety. His needles always remain green and cast a bluish tint. Bred in the United States in 1967. The shrub tolerates drought, loves sunlight and perfectly winters in the middle lane. Despite the fact that horizontal growth is its natural form, gardeners managed to grow it “vertically”.

Botanical Description

Juniper Ais Blue is also known by its other name, Monber. It belongs to the Cypress family. It develops slowly and is a dwarf representative of the species. The ground cover variety grows in diameter to 2 m. The maximum recorded height is only 20 cm. The long shoots have a brown bark. Soft and flexible branches literally sprawl on the ground, creating the appearance of a green-blue carpet.

Did you know? Juniper needles are useful and actively used in folk medicine. Tinctures and decoctions help with bacterial infections due to volatile.

The juniper branch can grow by only 15 cm per year. They are pulled up along an oblique trajectory. The ten-year-old bush of the Icee Blue variety reaches a height of 10 cm. The width is 1 meter. Shrubs that are at least 6 years old are on sale. Cylindrical needles, which have a scaly structure, change their tide depending on the time of year. In summer, it is stably green-blue, and in winter it resembles a shade of steel with purple highlights.

On older plants, cones form, which can reach 7 mm in diameter. On them there is a thick, white color, plaque. According to reference data, the shrub can withstand a significant drop in temperature (to -34 ° C). Therefore, it tolerates the cold season in the middle zone of the country.

Ice Blue is great for growing in the city. Here it is used as a decoration when creating landscape compositions. The only prerequisite is landing in a place that is well lit throughout the day. In the natural environment, the variety described is found in large quantities only in North America. Shrub actively grows on sandy shores and in the mountains. In this regard, it is actively used in landscape design, in places where conditions resemble its habitat, namely in rockeries, rock gardens and other compositions.

Landing

In order for a flexible juniper of this variety to please its decorative appearance for a long time, it must be properly planted. To do this, there are a number of agricultural techniques, a description of which you will find below.

Seedling preparation

Initially, you should choose planting material. To avoid acquiring low-quality seedlings, it is recommended to buy them by visiting a specialized nursery. Here, young plants are already prepared for transplantation. They are grown in containers in the soil with a special composition.

Landing should be carried out exclusively in the warm season. The ideal option is spring, when the soil completely "moves away" from winter. Landing is carried out with an open root system. The young plant should be slightly shaded to prevent the burning of needles. To do this, use a mesh or burlap.

If planting is carried out in autumn, you should make sure that early frosts will not damage the sensitive roots of the seedling. Before the transplant itself, the root system should be treated with a growth stimulator. Instructions for use can be found on the label. After this, the seedling is aged in a bucket of water for up to 10 hours.

Site selection and preparation

Juniper Ays Blue is undemanding to the composition of the soil. But it should be planted in a place where moisture freely passes through the upper layers of the soil. In addition, an artificial drainage layer will have to be created on the site. The most effective bush develops on loam and sandy loam. The acidity of the soil should be weak or normal.

Landing is carried out in a place that is constantly exposed to sunlight. In some cases, a temporary stay in partial shade is allowed. If you plant a plant in a shaded place, then the juniper will lose its saturated color of needles.

It is recommended that you opt out of wet and lowland locations. Heavy soils can cause seedling to wilt. If there are heavy snowdrifts in the area selected for planting in the winter, then it is also not suitable.

Landing process

When the bush grows, it covers a fairly vast surface. In this regard, the distance between seedlings should be at least 1.5 m.

Important! The root neck of the juniper should rise 3 cm above the surface. It is covered by a layer of mulch, which consists of natural hygroscopic materials - pine bark, fallen needles of other tree species, sawdust.

According to experienced gardeners, Ice Blue should be planted based on the following sequence of actions:

1. The size of the pit. It should exceed the volume of the root system at least twice.
2. The maximum depth should be 0.7 m.
3. Drainage is placed at the bottom of the hole. Its thickness is from 20 to 22 cm.
4. The substrate is composed of peat, sand and soil, which prevails in the garden, in a ratio of 2: 1: 1. A seedling is placed on it and dug up with earth. The root neck must be located above its surface.
5. The plant is watered and mulched.
6. During the week, you need to make from 5 to 7 liters of water, but no more than twice a week.

Juniper Care

In order for the seedling to take root on the site, it needs constant care. This is a set of procedures that includes a minimum of necessary measures. They should be taken carefully and strictly following the instructions.

Watering

The irrigation procedure should be carried out no more than once or twice a month. The most optimal amount of water is considered to be from 10 to 30 liters of liquid. If in the summer on the territory of growing creeping juniper drought, the number of irrigation procedures increases to 1 time per week. For this purpose, it is necessary to wait until the evening when the daytime heat begins to subside.

Top dressing

Feeding is carried out twice a year. For the first time, nutrients and trace elements are brought under the bush in early spring, the second - in late autumn.

Important! It is not allowed to grow a lawn near a near-trunk circle of a juniper seedling.

Mineral and organic fertilizers are suitable for this process, namely:

• manure;
• bird droppings diluted in water;
• compost;
• peat;
• potassium and phosphorus compounds;
• natoammofoska.

To strengthen the plant, complex mineral fertilizers are also introduced. Kemira and nitroammofosk preparations are especially popular.

If there is a need to increase the acidity of the soil, sawdust or coniferous bark is placed on the surface of the earth under the juniper bush. You can dilute a small amount of citric acid in water for irrigation. Often used garden sulfur, which is sold in powder in specialized stores.

Loosening and mulching

Around the near-trunk circle of the plant should remain a plot that is irrigated. It is he who will have to loosen it from time to time so that water and air get directly to the roots of the juniper bush. Within a radius of two meters, weeds should be completely absent. They are dangerous because they often appear various pathogens and pests that can cause irreparable harm to varietal seedlings.

Mulching is carried out at least 1 time per year - in the fall. To create a layer, use any waste remaining after processing conifers of trees or shrubs. They are often mixed with a small amount of peat, compost or humus.

Pruning

This procedure is almost never applied to a bush that grows densely. If his crown is not as magnificent as the gardener would like, then pinching the tops of the shoots is allowed in early spring. After a successful wintering, the branches are cut off from the plant, which have cracked due to snow or winds. Shoots with obvious signs of illness or dried out are removed.

If an artificially formed vertical tree is acquired in the nursery, then it will have to be cultivated annually. When there are no skills in such formation of crown contours, then it is better to entrust this occupation to professionals. Many landscape designers create compositions that resemble, for example, a cascading waterfall.

Winter preparations

The winter hardiness of the juniper allows you to withstand the cold winter in the middle lane. However, some measures should be taken. As soon as it starts to get colder on the street and the first frosts appear on the ground, the young seedlings of juniper grade Ice Blue are covered with previously prepared material. It can be spruce branches of any coniferous species or wilted plants. They must be sprinkled with a small layer of peat. If there are no such materials, then the use of agrofibre is allowed.

The reason for this procedure is the burning of needles. She loses her appearance due to frost in winter and bright sunlight in spring. The beauty of the needles during the thaw can be avoided by creating a layer of large mulch. For this, large pieces of pine or spruce bark are often used. As soon as the ground warms up enough, the entire flooring is removed.

Possible diseases and pests

Not many diseases can affect the evergreen juniper. However, this shrub also suffers from various diseases of needles and bark cancer. Preventive measures are reduced to the constant removal of deformed branches due to improper pruning, other mechanical processing methods or natural causes, such as strong winds. If infected shoots are found, they are carefully cut.

If a fungal infection has appeared on the bush, any available fungicide is used to eliminate it, namely:

• "Ordan";
• "Ridomil Gold";
• Chorus
• Quadrice.

Often a plant suffers from pests such as aphids, coniferous moths, or scale insects. In these cases, insecticides acting on insects should be used. Among the most famous drugs stand out “Match”, “Aktara”, “Angio” and “Actellik”.

Breeding methods

Due to its growth characteristics, creeping juniper Ais Blue is easily propagated by layering. The shoot is laid in a small furrow on the ground, with which the mulch has been previously removed. Then the area is sprinkled with a small amount of soil. In one year, several such layers can take root. Their transplantation is possible only in the next season.

Did you know? In Ancient Russia, household items were made from juniper bark. For example, the milk in a vessel made from this plant did not sour even on a very hot day.

If the cuttings are selected, then only one shoot is selected. It must be located on the "old" branch. His age is at least 1 year. In this case, the location of the main branch should be in the middle of the bush.

The further process should be carried out in the following way:

1. The shank should be at least 16 cm long, but not shorter than 12 cm. One of its ends is placed in a reservoir with a growth activator. The procedure is carried out according to the instructions for each individual drug.
2. Then the stalk is buried in the substrate in a pre-prepared container. The soil mixture should consist exclusively of peat and sand.
3. The branch is covered with a film or other improvised material on top to create a greenhouse effect.
4. Humidification is carried out regularly. Spraying of the ground part of the cuttings is allowed.
5. Rooting should occur within 40–70 days. Then they remove the greenhouse.

New shoots are planted in a special container, which is placed for the winter indoors or carefully covered with heating material when wintering on the street.

Use in landscape design

Most often, decorative green juniper of the Ice Blue variety is used by landscape designers to create special compositions. These are styles in which it is important to observe strict geometric shapes and at the same time leave natural naturalness.

One of them is the English design. It harmoniously interweaves a low lawn, which is created from horizontal juniper and large forms - trees or boulders. Planting is carried out in groups to form a dense and dense carpet.

An alternative could be the Japanese style. This is a combination of conifers with stones. In this case, the plants are given a special form of haircut. Since the juniper itself grows in the horizontal direction, it does not need such pruning.

Often the Ice Blue variety is used to create restrictions on the site, for example, borders. It can effectively replace grass used to grow lawn. Juniper is a reliable solution in strengthening crumbling slopes. The dwarf form will be the perfect decoration for your home garden. And the unpretentiousness of the bush and its longevity will minimize the cost of effort to improve the site.

From the above information it is obvious that the variety does not require a special soil composition, it can tolerate severe frosts as well as drought. For the winter it will have to be covered only in the first years of vegetation. If you fulfill these simple requirements, then the bushes will delight the owner of evergreen needles for a long time. Juniper will decorate any household plot with its unusual appearance.