Of all the conifers used in landscape design, the most popular are perhaps junipers. Thanks to a huge selection of species and forms, as well as short stature and compact size, such an ornamental evergreen plant from the cypress family can be easily fit into any piece of land - from a huge municipal park or garden to a tiny private cottage. The article describes how to choose the right juniper variety for planting, where it is better to plant it and what time of year to do it, how to care for a young shrub in the open ground, so that the seedling can grow quickly and develop well, always having a healthy beautiful appearance and soft needles like velvet, and also about what problems can arise when growing a plant, why this happens and how to avoid them.

Juniper Planting

Before planting juniper, you need to know exactly what type and variety you have acquired, and what it has preferences for growing and care conditions, since the requirements for soil, temperature, lighting and other important parameters can be completely different. Departure times may also vary.

Important! An adult juniper transplant is often done in winter, when the plant is in a state of complete hibernation, and its root system is firmly covered in frozen ground. The larger the volume of earthen coma in this case can be extracted, the more likely it is that the plant will take root.

When to plant

It is believed that the best time for planting juniper in the open ground is early spring, although in fact this condition is not absolute and the only possible one. So, if the seedling is sold directly in the container and has a closed root system, it can be planted at almost any time of the year, even in winter, during the thaw.

Many gardeners believe that if you plant a perennial in the autumn, it takes root much better and easier to tolerate the coming frosts than in the case of the procedure in the spring, before the start of active sap flow.

The harsh climate of the Urals and Siberia makes autumn planting too risky, but if at the beginning of the season for some reason it was not possible to plant a seedling, you can postpone the procedure until the end of August or the first decade of September, so the bush will have time to take root well, but will not have time to grow, that before winter is highly undesirable.

Finally, the optimal period for planting should be chosen taking into account the climatic characteristics of the region. So, for example, in the Moscow Region and other central regions of Russia, where the weather in the winter is changeable, moderately cold and not always snowy, it is better to plant junipers in the spring, but for warm Ukraine it makes sense to do this in the fall, before the very start of frosts.

Technology

Common to all types and varieties of plants are such requirements for the planting procedure, which it is important to follow:

1. The optimal age of the seedling is from 3 to 4 years. An adult plant takes root very hard (since its stem root goes deep into the ground and is inevitably damaged when dug up), and too young requires careful care, which an inexperienced gardener cannot always provide.
2. Place of purchase - A professional nursery located in the same climatic zone, ideally - within the same settlement with a place for future planting. Compliance with this condition will protect the buyer from scammers selling poor-quality planting material, as well as reduce the stress that the plant inevitably experiences at the time of transplantation.
3. Type of packaging - a container up to 5 l. The earth lump in this case is easy to transfer to a new place by transshipment without disturbing the root system. It is also advisable to make sure that the seller has introduced prolonged-action fertilizers necessary for the juniper into the soil mixture, then during the first years after planting the juniper can not be fed.
4. The size of the landing pit - at least 2-3 times the volume of an earthen coma.
5. Pit harvesting time - no later than 3-4 weeks before the proposed landing.
6. The presence of drainage is mandatory. The drainage layer should be at least 20–25 cm.
7. The location of the root neck - above ground level, adjusted for the fact that after subsidence of the soil the plant will lower slightly. The exception is horizontal varieties that can be buried more strongly.

In the shade or in the sun

The right place on the site is perhaps the main guarantee of the rapid and successful growth of juniper. The vast majority of these shrubs are warm and photophilous, that is, not only good lighting is important for them, but also quite warm soil. For this reason, shade and partial shade, as well as a lowland, are a poor option for placing juniper. Not getting the right amount of light, loses its rich aroma, natural shade and healthy sheen of needles, the development of new shoots slows down, the plant withers and does not look decorative.

Important! It is noted that the healing properties of junipers grown in shading are significantly inferior to their counterparts growing in sunny open areas.

Juniper needs light throughout the day, and not just in the morning and evening, when the sun is not very active. However, for young seedlings, especially planted in the summer, July heat can be dangerous. So that the needles do not get burnt under the influence of ultraviolet light, such bushes must be pritenit until they get stronger.

Juniperium ordinary and Virginia are considered the most shade-tolerant. But even these species look better if you plant them in a well-lit area. This is especially important for regions where there are not so many sunny days in a year (for example, for the Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Yakutsk, Leningrad or Moscow regions famous for cloudy weather).

How far apart

In determining the optimal distance between the juniper seedlings, as well as the distance from each of them to other tall perennials, you need to be guided by two factors:

• a place in landscape design (a thicker landing is allowed during the design of a hedge);
• initial sizes characteristic of a particular species and variety (trees with a narrow pyramidal crown, even with high growth, require less free space than creeping and spreading).

Based on the foregoing, the distance between shrubs can range from a minimum of 1.5 m to the commonly used 2.5 m for trees and from 3 to 4 m for shrubs. It is important to remember that when the conifers are too thick, not only their intense illumination decreases, but also the air circulation in the thick needles, which can accelerate the development of various fungal infections and contribute to the multiplication of other pathogenic microflora.

Juniper Care

With a well-chosen location and observing planting technology, it is not difficult to grow most species of juniper. But there are several fundamental nuances that you should be aware of.

Did you know? Before the invention of the refrigerator, our ancestors had to resort to tricks to preserve the freshness of the products. One of them was the use of tubs of juniper wood - in such dishes, milk did not sour for a day even in hot summers.

How often to water

All coniferous plants prefer moist soil, but at the same time do not tolerate stagnation of water in it. Therefore, it is not necessary to water the juniper very often (if the summer is not too dry - no more than once a month), but plentifully. Each plant should take about 10-15 liters of water.

So that the needles do not burn out in the sun, you can not allow the preservation of drops of water on it during the midday heat. Therefore, it is better to use morning or evening hours for watering.

A strong contrast between the temperature of water and soil can also damage the plant; it is too cold water that often causes the development of root rot. It is easier to solve the problem by equipping the drip irrigation system. Technical irrigation water supplied to the site manages to warm up during the day without these precautions, but if water from the well is used for irrigation, it must first be left in the sun for several hours.

With good drought tolerance, which distinguishes most types of juniper, with insufficient watering, the plant loses its color and slows growth.

Which soil is suitable

AT unlike many conifers, juniper does not place high demands on the composition of the soil, and yet the plant will develop better on suitable soil. However, not all species of this perennial species have the same requirements for the soil mixture, first of all, it concerns its acid-base balance. Therefore, it is important to remember the following rule: ordinary, Cossack and Central Asian junipers prefer soil with an alkaline reaction, for other species, soil with high acidity is more suitable.

Correction of the original land, respectively, in the first case involves the addition of lime or dolomite flour, and in the second - peat.

Almost all junipers love sandy and loose soil, and only Juniperus virginiana develops better on heavy clay-rich land. But this species needs organic matter, therefore, before planting, compost should be added to the soil mixture, while other varieties are not demanding on soil fertility.

The standard soil mix for junipers is 2 parts peat, 1 part turf soil and 1 part sand. To accelerate growth, it is also advisable to introduce a complex fertilizer of the Nitroammofoski type (nitrogen + phosphorus + calcium) into the planting ground at the rate of 200-300 g of the preparation per plant.

Mulching

The mulching of the near-stem circle is one of the important agricultural practices that are required when growing evergreens. For this purpose, you can use wood chips, sand, peat, sawdust, walnut shells and even decorative colored crumbs, but the best material is considered the organic remnants of conifers - pine bark, spruce paws, branches remaining when pruning these types of shrubs or trees, as well as "Substrate", covering the ground in the coniferous forest (a mixture of needles, bark, sand and loose earth).

Important! The upper soil layer, which is formed in the coniferous forest, as well as in the bark of coniferous trees, contains a large amount of mycelium of mushrooms, capable of accelerating the growth of juniper better than any stimulator.

Whatever material is chosen for mulching, it is better to make the shelter thick enough - from 5 to 8 cm. If organics are used for this purpose, as the mulch rotes, the mulch needs to be updated, adding a fresh layer over the old one.

Fertilizer and pruning

In addition to a large amount of light and soil rich in "native" microorganisms, junipers are very fond of sprinkling. Therefore, you need to water the plants not only under the root, but also by spraying, and experts recommend that chelates be added to the water - special preparations for conifers that are rich in iron. From this composition, the needles become more saturated, fresh and fragrant, and the plant itself acquires a healthy appearance and significantly accelerates growth.

A feature of coniferous shrubs is that their root system is able to absorb no more than 20% of the useful mineral substances introduced into the soil (under the root), while using the same compounds by spraying over the aerial part increases the feeding efficiency by at least 4 times, moreover, complete assimilation of the drug occurs already after 4-5 hours after the procedure.

It is especially important to spray with chelates and other mineral fertilizers those shrubs and trees that are planted in hedges or in other compositions that involve high condensation.

Another argument in favor of regular spraying is that almost all species of juniper do not like dust settling on needles, especially if it contains solid particles of chemical waste, salts of heavy metals and other harmful products of technogenic origin.

Chelated fertilizers recommended for spraying juniper:

• "Helatin needles";
• Fertis
• Ferrilene Trium
• "Spring Summer";
• "Fall";
• "Quantum";
• "Oracle";
• "Meristem - Aminomax-N";
• "Kafom Mg" and others.

The frequency of treatment is from May to the end of August, twice a month.

Most junipers respond well to a haircut, responding to such a procedure with active growth. Some gardeners even talk about the three secrets of successfully growing this species of conifers - proper watering, constant spraying, regular and fairly strong pruning.

Did you know? The oldest juniper in the world is said to grow in the Crimea, at the top of Cape Sarych. The height of this tree does not reach 15 m, the trunk volume reaches 5 m, and the estimated age is estimated at two millennia.

How fast grows, what year bears fruit

One of the serious drawbacks of juniper, in terms of its application in landscape design, is a very slow growth. Like all conifers, Juniperus is a long-liver (the life span of one plant is several centuries long), but this feature is compensated by the fact that it grows to an inherent size of a tree or shrub, if grown from a shank, in an average of 8-15 years, and from about 7 years old begins to bear fruit. The specific growth rate depends on the conditions created for the plant, however, the genetic predisposition of the species is no less important.

So, the maximum annual growth of the most popular varieties of juniper is:

Why grass does not grow under juniper

Some gardeners complain that conifers do not mix well with a quality lawn, that is, when you try to plant them in one area, either juniper or grass under and around it grows poorly. This feature is explained by the fact that the requirements for the structure and composition of the soil are different for lawn grass and juniper.

Diametrically different preferences of plants are also for watering: the lawn needs to be watered often and superficially (the root system of meadow grass does not go deep into the soil, so a high water consumption for each watering is not economically justified), junipers are rarely and very plentiful.

At the same time, to create beautiful landscape compositions with the participation of conifers as a tapeworm, as well as to protect the trunk circle from weeds (as an alternative to mulching), junipers can and should be combined with ground cover plants, you just need to choose the right kind of them.

Did you know? In botany there is a term - allelopathy. It comes from the Greek “allelon” (mutually) and “pathos” (suffering), and means the property of some living organisms, including plants, to interfere with the development of each other due to special substances released by one member of the “pair” that poison the other.

So, for example, as good neighbors, most varieties of Juniperus are suitable:

• thyme;
• bryozoan;
• stonecrop;
• saxifrage;
• fluffy boron Aureum;
• tenacious creeping;
• feather grass;
• grate;
• fescue;
• miscanthus;
• annual flax
• nigella;
• viscari.

Why Juniper Does Not Grow

The main reason for the slow growth of juniper (except for natural, genetically determined) is the poorly chosen place and improper care. The first point should be understood as a lack of lighting and, in part, too dense landing. Another possible explanation is bad neighbors.

From the point of view of the rules of allelopathy, Cossack and middle junipers should not be planted in the immediate vicinity of a pear, and ordinary, virgin, rocky and horizontal varieties do not tolerate the proximity of an apple tree.

Errors in choosing a location for juniper can only be corrected by transplantation, which is a serious stress for a plant with a powerful root system. Therefore, it is better to take into account all the possible subtleties in advance so that you do not have to resort to such radical measures.

With errors in care, the situation is simpler. With low pickiness on the soil in rich soil, Juniperus will grow faster than in poor soil. Once a year in spring, the plant can be fed “Nitroammofoskoy” at the rate of 45 g of the drug per bush or tree. It also makes sense to purchase special complex fertilizers for conifers and use them by the non-root method (by spraying).

But organic top dressing, especially manure containing a large amount of nitrogen, for the juniper can be more harmful than useful, because it often leads to a decrease in plant resistance to diseases and pests, while these two problems (infection or parasite infection) are just and are another common cause of slower growth of conifers.

Accelerating the growth of juniper can be helped by modern rooting agents and growth stimulants, for example, Radifarm or Kornevin.

Another proven way to stimulate the development of a decorative evergreen is to cut, and in the process of its implementation it is important not only to shorten certain shoots, including to give the crown the desired shape, but also to remove dry, damaged or rotten branches, since they are the “gateway” for fungal infections and the reserves of insects and ticks parasitizing on the juniper.

Junipers are a good choice for decorating any garden plot. It is not difficult to take care of this plant, you just need to buy a good planting material and find a good place for the seedling. After that, with minimal agricultural activities, a decorative evergreen shrub or small tree in winter and summer will delight the owner with a pleasant aroma and juicy shades of fresh needles.