Juniper - a shrub or tree, how to propagate and plant it

Juniper is a variety of coniferous shrubby and tree-like plants belonging to the Cypress family. Veres, as it is often called, has healing properties and is used in medicine. The shrub itself is able to purify the air around it and kill all pathogens. The aroma of juniper has a calming effect on the nervous system, so that people sleep soundly and soundly.

Juniper - shrub or tree

Many people still can not understand juniper - a tree or shrub. In nature, there are at least 60 species of this plant. Each of them has a form different from the others. Veres can grow up to 2 m in the form of a bush with flexible spreading branches, and maybe up to 20 m like a tree. In this case, it has several woody trunks. It depends on the type of plant, and on the growing conditions. It is this feature that raises the question: juniper is a shrub or tree.

Juniper is a type of coniferous tree

Origin and appearance

The life expectancy of juniper is surprisingly long. Shrubs grow for more than 200 years, or even 800. And this is quite a normal age for the plant. Heather is mentioned in mythical stories of Ancient Greece, in ancient Roman poetry and mythology of Slavic peoples.

The plant is quite widespread. It can be found even on continents located in the northern hemisphere.

Plant descriptions

Meeting different types of heather, people ask themselves: juniper - coniferous or deciduous tree? You can answer it by examining in detail the appearance of the bush. The plant has an evergreen crown and a dark gray bark with a brown tint. Young shoots have a reddish color.

The leaves of heather are scaly or similar to triangular needles, depending on the type. It is from them that a pleasant aroma comes when the plant is in the sunshine or immediately after rain. Juniper needles secrete a wax-like substance. And it is precisely on this that its color depends. The shrub can have a bluish, yellowish crown, sometimes with a whitish hue.

During severe drought or in the autumn period, juniper has a bronze tint, which occurs due to the release by leaves of substances called anthocyanins. They protect the plant from exposure to sunlight.

Depending on the type of heather, the leaves also differ. Sharp, narrow, having an elongated shape is popularly called needles or needles. However, these are still leaves of the bush. For this reason, there are difficulties with the definition of juniper - is it a coniferous or deciduous tree. Nevertheless, the answer to this question is very simple. Since heather belongs to the Cypress family, it is definitely a coniferous plant.

Juniper with ripe cones

Veres is both monoecious and dioecious. Male cones resemble earrings with a pair of three stamens. Female cones are formed after flowering and ripen for two years. First, the fruits are green, and then turn blue with a bluish tinge. The structure of cone berry has friable flesh, which is used both in folk and traditional medicine.

Popular views

Very often confused thuja and juniper. Both of these plants belong to the Cypress family and are similar in appearance. However, they are different from each other. Unlike juniper, thuja grows quickly and reaches up to 70 m in height and 6 m in diameter. Its wood has a gray color and longitudinally fibrous bark. The scales of the needles are snug against each other. After flowering, cones with two seeds grow on the branches.

Differences and varieties of thuja and juniper

Now breeders have bred a large number of plants with different colors of needles, but thuja of blue color does not exist. While juniper may have the desired color. In addition, heather can be with a multi-colored crown, for example, the Blue and Gold variety has needles of blue and yellow colors.

To decorate personal plots, gardeners acquire proven varieties of heather.

Juniper creeping

This is a small bush that grows only 10 cm in height. It easily takes root both on ordinary soil and on stony ground. But, despite the unpretentiousness of growing, creeping heather prefers to grow in areas illuminated by the sun. Before transplanting juniper creeping, it should be borne in mind that over time it grows with carpet like grass. Therefore, you need to plant plants at a considerable distance from each other.

Juniper Horizontal Lemon Glow

This variety of heather grows in height from 10 cm to half a meter. The crown spreads with a diameter of two and a half meters. The shrub tolerates wind, frost and drought. Use this grade of juniper for decoration:

• alpine slides;
• rockeries;
• slopes;
• flower beds;
• rabatok.

Juniper Lemon glow looks beautiful among green foliage

Juniper Cypress

This shrub is also called Cossack, and it belongs to scaly species. It grows in height to one and a half meters. It easily tolerates severe frosts, therefore it is adapted for cultivation in Central Russia. Due to the fact that this shrub is unpretentious to the external environment and growing conditions, it is excellent for decorating personal plots and public places requiring landscaping. You can surround them with urban flower beds.

Transplant after purchase

Most often, to plant juniper in their garden, people go to special shops or nurseries, where they buy ready-made seedlings. The age of planting material should be at least 2-3 years. It is recommended to transplant in April or May.

What you need for landing

Before planting juniper creeping, it is necessary to choose a place where the heather will feel great, grow and develop. Planting material is planted with curtains. When making the alley, young seedlings are planted in a trench. It is recommended that you choose a location as far away from fruit trees as possible. Thanks to this, it is possible to prevent the disease of the bush with general diseases.

Choosing the optimal soil

Veres well takes root on any soil, but clay and loamy types of soil are difficult to tolerate. It is recommended to dig out a hole twice as much as the root lump of planting material. This is done so that the juniper roots are covered with soft soil. Be sure to add peat, sand, and spruce needles to the ground, which will cover the root system. When planting in clay soil, drainage is recommended.

Step-by-step process

Instructions on how to transplant:

1. Planting material is planted in a hole that is larger than the root system of a seedling with an earthen lump.
2. The roots are covered with earth, watered and mulched. For mulch, you can use peat, ripe leaves, newspapers or old fabric. Mulch should be laid out with a layer of 10 cm.
3. The crown of a young seedling needs to be sprayed with water from time to time.
4. In the process of transplantation, it is recommended to make a fertile soil composition. To do this, take two parts of turf land and one part of peat and sand.
5. The soil must be fertilized with nitroammophos. It will be enough 300 g under one bush.
6. Juniper drainage is made of gravel, broken brick or coarse sand.
7. The distance between the seedlings is 1.5-4 m.

Prepared everything you need for a juniper transplant

Breeding

Amateur gardeners are interested in knowing how juniper reproduces at home. Breeding heather from seeds is a difficult procedure, since they appear on the plant only 10 years after planting. In addition, cone berries ripen for two years. Therefore, it is much easier to propagate the juniper using cuttings.

Propagation by cuttings

To grow juniper, propagation by cuttings at home is the best way. The shoots of the plant exactly repeat the behavior of the branches of the adult tree from which they were cut. If the material was taken from the central part of the crown, the young heather will grow upward, shoots from the side branches of the lower part will subsequently form a bush.

Before propagating juniper at home, you need to prepare the material. Cuttings are best cut in the spring, they are treated with a substance to stimulate root formation. After that, dip into sweetened water for a day and plant in prepared soil. The rooting of the plant will occur quickly enough.

Care

Veres does not require much personal care. For the plant to grow and develop, it is enough to water and feed it in time.

Watering mode

Despite the fact that the juniper easily tolerates drought, it needs watering. Most of all he needs spraying the crown. This procedure must be done every two weeks.

Top dressing

It is recommended to feed the plant once a year in the spring. To do this, make only 50 g of nitroammophoski per 1 m².

Features of summer care

Juniper in the summer does not need additional care. In autumn and spring, dry and broken branches are removed from the plant.

Winter Care Features

In winter, only young seedlings are worth sheltering, which have not yet been sufficiently strengthened and rooted. Adult shrubs are pulled together a little with twine so that branches do not suffer from snow.

So that under the weight of the snow the juniper branches do not break, it is tied with twine

Juniper will be an excellent decoration of the garden and the garden. But before planting, you need to decide what mission the plant will carry out, and plant it according to the plan: individually or in groups.