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Among modern varieties and hybrids of garden cherry, Vladimirskaya is a living historical monument to gardening in our country. Description of the Vladimir cherry variety, photos of trees and ripe fruits will tell about the oldest variety in Russia, the history of the appearance and distribution of which very much resembles a legend or epic.
History of the appearance of the cherry variety Vladimirskaya
According to the preserved chronicles and carefully collected local legends, the first cherry trees on Vladimir's land appeared thanks to the monks who made pilgrimages to Saint Athos and who brought thin seedlings from Greece that had never been seen before in Russia.
According to various sources, cherry orchards in Yaropolk or modern Vyazniki were laid from VII to XII century. Anyway, the plants were surprisingly easy to acclimatize and began to grow rapidly on urban shafts.
Gradually, the cultivation of cherries became a profitable business in which not only residents of the villages closest to Vladimir but also neighboring provinces were engaged. Purple sweet and sour berries were carefully gathered, sent under a press, and the resulting juice in barrels was sent to Moscow for the production of fruit liqueurs and sweets. In the seventeenth century, the region became the all-Russian center of fruit growing, and the cherry became a symbol of the ancient land.
Today, a small monument has been erected in the historic part of the city as a sign of reverence and nationwide love.
When the Vladimirskaya cherry variety was isolated in the gardens near Vladimir, it is not known, but to this day some old descriptions of varieties grown in the province in the 19th century have reached:
- Vasilievskaya cherry is tasty, oblong, but not fruitful.
- Parental cherries are round and sweet. Berries are born on low trees, which are literally showered with almost black fruits.
- Kulagiha and Kisliha produce small scarlet berries with high yields, but rather sour.
Obviously, national selection was already active at that time, and gardeners tried to get offspring from abundantly fruiting, with tasty berries of unpretentious trees. Cherry varieties Vladimirskaya popular and now, and thanks to the wide distribution in many regions grow their varieties and forms, and the plant is known under the names of synonyms: Gorbatovskaya, Vyaznikovskaya in honor of the small homeland of culture, Izbyletskaya, Roditeleva, Dobroselskaya.
Since 1947, the Vladimirskaya cherry depicted in the photo has been zoned and entered in the State Register according to the description of the variety. Compact, non-capricious and consistently fruiting plants are now well known to gardeners from the northwest of the country to the Central Black Soil Region and the Middle Volga.
Description of the cherry variety Vladimirskaya
Cherry, grown from root shoots or green cuttings, forms large spreading bushes with a height of more than 2 and a width of about 3 meters and in the future easily forms new root layers. The grafted cherries of the Vladimirskaya variety retain the look of standard trees.
The trunk and large branches of the plant cover the brownish gray bark. As it grows, it becomes covered with longitudinal cracks, begins to flake and peel off. On young, especially annual shoots, brick or yellowish tones predominate in color. It is on these thin, badly branching, drooping shoots that the bulk of the crop is formed.
A characteristic feature of the variety is a rather weak leaf cover of the crown and the shape of the leaves themselves, as if folded along the central vein. The length of smooth dark green leaf plates is 80–90 mm, the width is two times smaller. The leaves are elongated and oval with a pointed tip; they have bicustate jagged edges and are attached to the shoots with the help of a small, strong, reddish stalk.
Flowers of Vladimirskaya variety, in the photo and as described, 5–7 pieces are collected in small loose inflorescences. The corolla, consisting of a goblet reddish-brown calyx, pistil, located at the same level with the stamens and white petals slightly touching each other, has a diameter of 25 to 30 mm.
Mass cultivation of the crop is not typical for the variety. Fruits of small or medium size, depending on climatic and weather conditions, are ready for harvesting from 10 to 25 July.
On average, 60 days pass from flowering to the appearance of the first red berries. The taste of the fruit of an average ripening period is good, sweet and sour. Berries that stay longer on the branches can spontaneously crumble.
Berries weighing 2.5–3.5 grams have a slightly flattened shape with a barely noticeable stitch and a small, shallow funnel. The stem of up to 45 mm in ripe cherries is easily separated, and its loss does not violate the integrity of the fruit and does not affect its quality. The skin of ripe cherries is colored in a thick, almost black tinge of burgundy. On closer examination, gray spots can be seen on the surface of the berry. Pulp is dense, claret-red, juicy, with noticeable fibers. Almost rounded or ovoid, the brown stone easily lags behind the pulp, and its weight is no more than 8.5% of the mass of the fetus.
The quality and composition of Vladimirskaya cherries largely depends on the growing conditions. The berries obtained in the northern regions, where there is a greater lack of heat and sun, accumulate less sugar compared to the southern counterparts, contain more acids and moisture. Still, the fruits of Vladimir's cherry are an excellent raw material for industrial and home canning, other types of processing, including freezing and drying, as well as for fresh consumption.
Vladimir cherry: planting care
Like many other varieties of cherry, the oldest variety from under Vladimir belongs to self-infesting. Therefore, to obtain a good, stable harvest, one cannot do without planting nearby plants of other varieties.
The best neighbors for Vladimir cherry and pollinators for it will be the trees of the following varieties:
- Amorel Rose;
- Turgenevka;
- Morel black;
- Vasilievskaya;
- Griot Michurin, Ostheim, Moscow;
- Consumer black;
- Zhukovskaya;
- Any;
- Fertile Michurin;
- Rastunya.
With the right approach to planting and caring for Vladimir cherries, the culture responds with quite good yields. In conditions of central Russia with an adult tree, you can get up to 25 kg of fruit. The excellent taste of berries, good adaptability to growing conditions and winter hardiness have provided this winter-hardy variety with centuries-old popularity and fame. Until now, Vladimirskaya cherry is used not only on the sites of amateurs, but also in industrial gardening.
However, to the north of the Moscow Region, gardeners will have to take care of the cherry trees in order to achieve a good yield and plant life. With a good winter hardiness of trees of this variety, buds often suffer, which negatively affects the growth of trees, flowering and the formation of the ovary.
In addition, cherries are not protected from such culture-dangerous diseases as minilioz and coccomycosis. Therefore, in the care of planting Vladimir cherry necessarily include preventive treatment Bordeaux liquid or fungicides, do not forget about the sanitary pruning of fruit-bearing trees, as well as the cleaning of fallen leaves and unwrapped fruit from the branches.
