Contents of the article:
So, you are one of those who decided to plant on the ground or in the garden red barberry. Planting and caring for this plant is not particularly difficult, but in order for the plant to feel comfortable, you need to know a few basic rules.
Choosing a place for planting barberry purpure-leaved
Of course, the first thing you need to do is make sure that there is a place in your site where this plant will feel comfortable. Thickened gardens or heavily shaded land for this purpose simply do not fit, so their owners should not even try. The fact is that the barberry prefers open, constantly illuminated by the sun space. In addition, if you know that cold winters are not rare in your area, take care to protect the barberry from the drafts.
The natural habitat of the plant under consideration is dry mountain slopes, which is why the soil will be better poor in organic matter, but in no case acidic and not too wet. Ideal for planting barberry - light soil or loam, without stagnant water and with good drainage. With excessive proximity of groundwater cultivation is unlikely to be successful.
Planting barberry ordinary purple
If the place for planting is chosen and ready, you can proceed: as soon as the soil thaws from winter frosts( before the buds start to bloom), immediately plant the prepared plants.
Experts say that the barberry can be transplanted during the autumn leaf fall, but in this case the plant will be much more difficult.
The whole process of planting consists of several simple, sequential steps:
- Preparation of the dimples: the size of the hole directly depends on the age of the hive. If he is up to three years old, it is enough to make a hole a diameter of a quarter of a meter and about the same depth, but for older bushes the parameters increase already to half a meter.
- The pit prepared for planting purple barberry is filled with a fertile substrate. It can be obtained by mixing in equal volumes compost or humus with garden soil and sand.
If the purpose of planting a barberry is a hedge plant, do not dig holes, but a trench 40 cm deep, which also fill with a substrate.
- If your site consists of loamy or clayey soils, make a liming before planting the bushes( 300 g of lime per each bush).
- The only fertilizer that should be applied during planting is superphosphate. Distribute it on the soil at the rate of 100 g for each bush of barberry.
Watering and fertilizing barberry purple
Barberry in the garden, a photo of which shows how beautiful this plant looks externally, to grow very simple. Its great advantage lies in the fact that it is undemanding to watering: water is only needed when planting and once a week later. But to loosen the soil under the bushes should be constantly - it will not only improve its structure, but also provide the roots with good access to air.
If you for various reasons do not have the opportunity to constantly loosen the soil under the barberry bushes, be sure to mulch it with sawdust, peat or chopped walnut shells!
Those fertilizers that you made during planting, bushes enough to settle down and develop successfully during the first year of life. But starting from the second barberry already requires feeding. For each season it has its own:
- In the spring, nitrogen fertilizer is very important( 2 g of urea per liter of water), watering slurry slurries with water in a ratio of 1: 5, or bird droppings with water 1:10.
- Summer top dressing consists in the application of granulated complex fertilizers containing microelements.
- At the very beginning of autumn, 10 grams of any potash fertilizer and 15 grams of superphosphate must be dispensed under each bush of barberry. In this case, you will get strong and healthy bushes of purple barberry - photos taken by gardeners, let you notice the differences between fertilized bushes and those that grow by themselves.
How to prepare red barberry bushes for winter?
Unlike some heat-loving varieties of this plant, such a barberry is not necessary to wrap with sacking for the winter, but the protection of young bushes or seedlings is still better to take care of. As a rule, they are covered with needles, foliage or spruce branches.
If the cover is placed not directly on the soil, but on a fine-meshed net, it can be removed very easily in the spring.
Cover the bushes after the soil freezes to a depth of 5 cm and the ambient temperature does not rise above five degrees of frost for more than 7 days.
In the spring, the bushes should be freed from covering not only carefully, so as not to damage the kidneys, but also in a timely manner, otherwise their growth may slow down. The exact time depends on where the barberry grows, since spring does not come to all regions at the same time.
Pruning of barberries and pest control
Those who grow barberries claim that pruning is the most difficult part of caring for them. The fact is that the shoots of plants are rather prickly, and especially in the dried form, when they, in fact, need to be removed. Therefore, it is better to stock up on thick long gloves. Removal is carried out in the spring, it is subject to not only dry, but also weak, sick, frost-damaged shoots - they can be easily recognized by the absence of green foliage.
If you have a barberry growing for a hedge, then you can cut it after the end of flowering and to the very cold, excluding the period when the barberry ripens - the berries will crumble.
Unfortunately, barberry bushes come to taste with all sorts of pests, and they can also suffer some diseases. Here are just a few signs of problems and ways to eliminate them:
- Wrinkling and drying healthy leaves is a sign of the presence of a barberry aphid. You can get rid of it either with the help of special preparations or with traditional methods: infusion of garlic, bitter pepper, etc.
- White bloom on the leaves indicates the defeat of powdery mildew. This is one of the most popular diseases in this plant.it is easier to prevent than to get rid of: every three weeks, starting from the moment the leaves bloom, spray the bushes with a 0.5% solution of colloidal sulfur. If you doubt that your barberry is healthy, photos of plants infected with powdery mildew can always be found in special sources and made a comparison.
- Bright orange spots are a sign of rust or fusarium. Launched disease leads to the death of shoots and entire bushes. To avoid this, at the first manifestations, spray bushes with a 1.5% solution of colloidal sulfur or 3% solution of Bordeaux mixture.
- Barberry bacteriosis is one of the most common causes of barberry cancer. It begins with the appearance of dark spots of oblong shape. Shrubs without timely measures die. To avoid this, spray the bushes twice( before and after flowering) with 4% solution of copper oxychloride.
