Breeding methods for barberry

Many gardeners and landscape designers use barberry to decorate the garden. This ornamental fragrant plant can be an excellent decoration for your personal plot. Usually barberry is cultivated as a shrub, but with certain rules for pruning and shaping the plant, a small decorative tree can be made from it. To propagate such a shrub at home, there are several ways, each of which has its own characteristics. Therefore, before breeding barberry, it is important to determine in advance which method is best suited for planting it. The main thing is to arm yourself with information on how to root the shrub correctly in order to ensure its intensive growth.

One of the most popular ways of breeding barberry among gardeners is considered propagation by cuttings... If the issue of preserving all varietal characteristics of the parent plant is a priority, then this method is ideal. This method of breeding barberry is also convenient in that the extraction of planting material does not cause any difficulties.

Barberry is cut in early summer. However, shoots can be harvested in the fall, subject to the availability of storage space. In this case, after pruning the autumn shoots, the material is placed in moistened sand and stored at a temperature of 0 degrees. Rooting can also take place in water. Cuttings will be ready for planting in mid-spring.

The selected area is pre-dug up and fertilized. Rotten leaves or compost can be used as fertilizer. A cushion of coarse-grained sand is formed on top of the fertilizer, the layer thickness should not exceed 5 centimeters. The soil should be tamped and watered well, and then proceed to harvesting the green shoots of the bush.

When cutting shoots, it is recommended to avoid exposure to sunlight. The branches for grafting must be healthy and young. Shoots with damaged bark are not suitable for this purpose. Each cutting should have at least 4 buds. A cut must be made under the lower growth bud. From above, the excess part of the stem is cut off, leaving a distance of 1 centimeter from the bud. At the bottom, the leaves are completely removed from the shoot, and at the top, half the leaves are cut off.

At a slight angle, the shoots are buried in the sand at a distance of 5 centimeters from each other. After the cuttings are planted, they are watered with warm water, the temperature of which should be at least +20 degrees. You can also spray seedlings instead of watering. It is recommended to cover the cuttings with plastic bottles or some kind of glass container to ensure that the plant has a normal level of humidity and temperature. It is better to shade the seedlings, and when the cold comes, cover them. Barberry cuttings are rooted only when the ambient temperature is at least +20 degrees. When it's hot outside, the seedlings need to be ventilated. To maintain normal moisture levels, barberry cuttings should be regularly sprayed or watered.

A month after planting, roots form on the cuttings. It is not necessary to replant the plant immediately after this. First, the barberry needs to adapt and get used to sunlight, wind, rain and cold nights. The seedlings are hardened by removing the cover for a while. The duration of the procedure is gradually increased. The best time to shoot your hideout is in August. So young plants can get stronger and better adapt to winter frosts.

Two years after planting barberry, by cuttings, you can prepare the plant for transplantation to a permanent place of growth. The greenhouse is cleaned at the end of June, after which you need to wait until September and replant the bushes. No matter how laborious the process of breeding barberry by cuttings was, it justifies itself. In some cases, he can insure against large cash costs, since this method is excellent for creating a hedge.

Often this method of plant propagation is called unpredictable. The thing is that during the entire growing process, no one fully knows what will come of it. There are two ways to propagate an ornamental shrub using seeds.

• Planting seedlings. It is necessary to prepare a soil mixture, which will include peat and some sand. The seeds are placed in the moistened mixture. Containers with planting material must be stored in the refrigerator. They usually go through the stratification process from December to March - 90 days. In early spring, planting material is sown in flowerpots. The distance between seedlings should be 3 centimeters. This is necessary for convenient picking of the plant in the future.
• Sowing seeds in open ground. To collect seeds, only large and mature barberry fruits are selected. The planting material is washed in water. Then it is recommended to place it in a potassium permanganate solution and keep it for 20 minutes. The seeds are dried before planting.

Autumn is considered the right time of the year for sowing barberry seeds. The landing site must be thoroughly cleaned of debris and weeds. In the garden, you need to form small three-centimeter hollows. The percentage of germination due to sowing seeds is small, so their number should be abundant. The sowing is covered with loose and moist soil, after which the site is mulched.

In the spring, the seedlings get stronger, so the cover can be removed completely.

If none of the above methods of breeding ornamental barberry did not appeal to your liking, then you can try the method of dividing the bush, as well as propagating the plant by young steams. If a strong and healthy barberry is already growing on the site, then there is no doubt that it is excellent for the role of a mother plant, which will give a good result in the future.

The basic rules for dividing a shrub are as follows:

1. first you need to dig the bush out of the ground, this is done carefully so as not to damage the root system;
2. next you need to divide the bush into parts;
3. large roots are sawn, after which they are seated in ready-made planting holes;
4. after planting barberry, the area is watered abundantly.

After the layers have been placed in the ground, and all planting rules have been followed, the plant must be properly cared for. We must not forget about the location of the barberry, this directly affects the brightness of its color. If you cultivate the plant as a hedge, then it is better to plant the bushes, adhering to a certain interval - 25-30 centimeters. During a drought, you need to regularly moisten the barberry. We must not forget about the timely feeding and pruning of the plant. It is recommended to carry out disease prevention and closely monitor the health of the shrub. If you adhere to the basic rules for breeding and growing barberry, you can get excellent plants, from which the garden will smell and drown in a variety of colors.

It is known that ornamental barberry is usually propagated by seeds or vegetatively. To breed any of the species and varieties of barberry, you need to carefully read all the methods of plant propagation. Having studied the features of each species, it will immediately become clear what the barberry needs. It is a mistake to believe that it is very easy to choose the appropriate option, because each has its own disadvantages. If we talk about the method of grafting, then it is worth noting that rooting is very slow. When sowing barberry seeds in open ground, a small germination rate is expected, the maximum rate can reach 40%. With all this, the varietal characteristics of the plant are lost. Dividing a bush can negatively affect the rhizome of barberry, and root shoots are not suitable for all varietal varieties.

It is best to try each of the methods to find the right one for growing a particular barberry variety. So, for an ornamental shrub with red leaves called the Thunberg barberry, the method of propagation by cuttings is perfect. The thing is that this type of shrub forms a large number of thin stems, which subsequently serve as suitable planting materials.

The bright foliage, which is replete with various colors, stands out especially. It can be painted in various shades of yellow, red and green.

Often novice gardeners make mistakes when growing barberry. The main mistake when propagating by seeds is their small number. For sowing, it is necessary to stock up on three times more planting material than is needed for other plant varieties. This is due to poor seed germination.

The danger of spoiling a young seedling also arises in the process of digging out the root growth. After the procedure for dividing the bush, the root system is damaged, and subsequently young plants can hurt for a long time due to the formation of new roots. This method is only suitable for mature plants. Barberry has the ability to reproduce in all existing ways. However, not all of them are suitable for growing individual shrub varieties. If you want to get a plant that has all the varietal properties, it is recommended to resort to the method of vegetative propagation.

For information on how to propagate barberry, see the video.