Juniper is so versatile…
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It is not surprising that the always green juniper symbolizes eternal life.
After all, this tree lives up to 600 years. According to some reports, there are specimens that are (hard to believe) 3000 years old.
If you plant a juniper on your site, then even your great-grandchildren will not be able to see it like in the bottom photo …
The ancestors valued it so much that they formed a belief that says: whoever cuts down a juniper will not live even a year … These words should not be taken literally — they are only a reflection of the unique properties and importance of this unusual plant for a person.
He is credited with magical abilities, not a single shamanic ritual can do without him. Juniper branches on the front door serve as a talisman of the house.
Juniper is 100% used by man.
Wood is used for the manufacture of kitchen utensils and utensils, in which food does not deteriorate for a long time.
Juniper branches still serve to fumigate dwellings in order to purify the air in it, to disinfect wooden containers for winemaking, pickling and salting products. They are also added to the composition of bath brooms.
Juniper berries are a unique seasoning, medicinal preparation and raw material for the manufacture of oils. It is known that a ripe berry is 40% glucose and fructose (almost like grapes), contains essential oils and vitamin C.
But let’s get back to the theme of the garden. Here the role of juniper is no less great. Hedges are created from it, it is used in coniferous compositions, on rocky hills, and grown as a tapeworm. All this is possible due to the variety of growth forms. After all, juniper can be a tree with a cone-shaped crown (in adulthood it becomes sprawling), a low shrub, a creeping plant.
It is distributed throughout almost the entire northern hemisphere. It is noteworthy that the further south the growth area, the higher the form of growth.
Feel free to plant juniper on your site, because the phytoncides that it produces make the air around healthier and repel annoying insects. By the way, this plant is a champion among conifers, no one else produces such a number of disinfecting and pleasantly smelling enzymes.
IT IS INTERESTING
Juniper berries can not be seen on every individual. The fact is that all types of juniper are bisexual and have female and male plants. Juniper fruits are actually buds that are green in the first year. But by the fall of next year, they acquire a blue tint with a bluish bloom and become … berries. Therefore, juniper fruits are rightly called cone-berries.
Three forms of growth gave rise to three forms of leaves.
The first two of the following categories can be safely cut and molded.
Category one: trees with needles. They look like prickly trihedral needles with a groove on the inside.
Category two: in many shrubs, these needles are already softer and not prickly, but thorns can grow on the lignified part of the plant.
The third category is represented by creeping species, Cossack, Verginsky, rocky juniper. They are the owners of scaly leaves-needles and absolutely do not prick.
Common juniper (Juniperus communis)
- Growth area: temperate climatic zones of Europe, Asia, North America, North Africa, Nepal, Pakistan
- Height: shrub up to 3 m, trees — up to 10 m
- Growing conditions: frost-resistant, shade-tolerant, undemanding to the soil, can grow in «wet» places.
- Peculiarities: lives up to 600 years, berries are used as a spice, beer is brewed from them, wine and sugar are made, berries and needles are a source of oils and a medicine. Can be cut and shaped.
Juniper rocky (Juniperus scopulorum)
- Growth area: North America
- Height: 10 m or more
- Growing conditions: loves lighted windless areas,
- Peculiarities: blue needles and a columnar shape of the crown, loses its decorative effect in the shade, requires shelter from snow, which can break branches
juniper scaly (Juniperus squamata)
- Growth area: China, Taiwan, Eastern Himalayas
- Height: shrub 1.3-1.5 m high
- Growing conditions: drought-resistant and undemanding to the soil
- Peculiarities: pyramidal crown, bluish needles. Can be cut and shaped.
Juniper Cossack (Juniperus sabina)
- Growth area: Asia Minor and Southeast, South and Central Europe, Urals, Siberia, Primorye
- Height: bush 1.5 m, there are specimens of inclined trees up to 3 m high
- Growing conditions: undemanding to soil and watering
- Peculiarities: dark green needles, shoots are poisonous, grows quickly, lives up to 100 years
Juniper horizontal (Juniperus horizontalis)
- Growth area: North America
- Height: up to 50 cm
- Growing conditions: loves the sun and moisture-permeable soils, tolerates partial shade, prefers places with high humidity, therefore periodic sprinkling is recommended for a plant in a garden.
- Peculiarities: needles from dark green to gray, the bush grows very slowly (5-10 cm per year), lives up to 200 years.
Juniper (especially Cossack) can serve as a carrier of such a disease as «rust». The spores of this fungus are especially dangerous for stone fruit crops. You should not refuse to plant juniper because of this. Enough to separate the ornamental garden and fruit high hedge or dense planting of trees. They, as a windscreen, will prevent the spread of this plant disease.
JUNIPER IN GARDEN DESIGN
COMBINATION IN SHAPE AND COLOR
In nature, the juniper population is replenished by seeds. True, they sprout only after lying in the ground for one year. In horticulture, this method of propagation is rarely used, since the plant itself grows rather slowly.
It is more optimal to propagate juniper cuttings. For spring planting, cuttings are harvested in January-February. However, practice has shown that the rooting rate of such cuttings is low.
Summer and autumn cuttings are more effective, when the growths have already formed and the plant is ready to spend part of the growth energy on the development of the root part.
Cuttings are cut from the apical and middle parts of the branches. Length no more than 25 cm.
The blanks are immersed in a substrate of soil, sand, green needles and mineral supplements. The earth is moistened by spraying water from a spray bottle. The cuttings are placed in shading, where the earth will not dry out under the influence of sunlight.
The first roots will appear in 25 days.
Creeping species are preferably propagated by layering.
Particularly rare varieties are propagated by grafting on adult and climate-resistant specimens.
An adult juniper is not very supportive of climate and soil changes, this should be taken into account when buying ready-made planting material. Plants are best purchased and planted with an earthen clod.
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