Spirea Douglas: description, planting, care and reproduction

Spirea Douglas is a deciduous ornamental shrub of overseas origin, successfully used in domestic landscape design. In garden compositions, it occupies one of the central places due to its showiness, versatility and plasticity.

Douglas spirea is also popular in gardens because of its long flowering period, lasting up to one and a half months. The shoots of the shrub are very strong, with upright stems, pubescent, rich in color. They are favorably framed by not very large bright green oblong leaves with a barely noticeable silvery matte bloom.

Douglas spirea flowers bloom and show exquisite shades of lilac-pink in narrow pyramidal dense inflorescences. The flowers themselves are small in size, but numerous, decorated in large panicles-cones (10-18 cm). The length of the inflorescence is determined by the conditions for keeping the ornamental culture and their quality. The better they are, the longer the panicles.

Usually, the material is sown in early spring in special seedling boxes or directly into the ground, but in a heated greenhouse. It is easier to grow a seedling culture in room conditions, since it is easy to maintain a certain temperature in the house without additional obstacles to seedlings.

A film is stretched over the containers with seedlings and left in a room with good lighting at standard room temperature until May. Two to three months after the sprouts appear, they dive into the beds in order to grow to the size of full-fledged seedlings.

To activate the formation of good roots, the central root must be shortened during the dive. However, the simplicity of the culture allows planting a sprout in a permanent place without prior germination.

If you remove the first inflorescences from young shrubs, this will benefit the development of the plant. It is most difficult to propagate Douglas spirea by seeds, and this is not a very rational way, due to the fact that the germination rate of seeds is no more than 80%. In addition, the final result often does not live up to expectations - all signs of the mother shrub are missing.

Reproduction by horizontal layers is the most reliable and less energy-consuming method. It is carried out as follows: in the spring, when the foliage blooms, the peripheral stems of the shrub are bent to the ground, fixing with a wooden spear or wire, and covered with soil. In order for the future shoot to take a vertical shape in the future, you can drive a small peg near it and tie the top for it, pointing in the right direction.

Douglas' heat-loving spirea can grow in the same place for 15 years. When choosing a site for her, you need to take into account such a factor. For some time, it is permissible for the bush to be located in the shade. For example, shading for several hours a day will not harm flowering. But constant shading along with dampness is unacceptable.

The land for planting should be fertile, loose and well-drained. The composition of the soil is neutral or slightly acidic. It should be borne in mind that the roots of the spirea are fibrous, prone to decay. If groundwater is on the surface of the site, the plant will die. Planting a shrub in a shaded lowland with an accumulation of water is a mistake that will result in the death of a spirea.

The plant is surprisingly frost-resistant, but in order to maintain its characteristic decorative effect, it is better to cover it in the first winters. This is due to frequent damage to the apical shoots in fresh seedlings.

The bottom of a hole dug for planting up to 50 cm in size is covered with a drainage layer along the height of the palm. Drainage is a layer of sand, expanded clay or charcoal.

The planting material must have well-developed, healthy roots. Damage and dry parts are pre-cut. For two hours, the seedling is disinfected in a manganese solution, after which it is left for a day in a means to stimulate the growth of rhizomes and treated with a fungicide.

If it is assumed that the Douglas spirea will be part of the garden composition, it must be planted in the hole. Saplings to create a hedge from plants are placed in a spacious trench.

The following algorithm of actions is observed.

1. Drainage is placed at the bottom in a 20 cm layer in the form of pebbles or gravel.
2. Prepared soil is poured on top of the drainage, consisting of a mixture of a fertile layer and compost in equal parts.
3. The spirea is vertically installed in the middle, the roots are distributed, the soil is filled up. The root collar should protrude 3 cm above the ground.
4. The earth is compacted, then watered and mulched with peat.

When planting, the planned plant composition is taken into account. If the spireas serve as a decorative floristic hedge, planting is carried out in two rows, holes for seedlings are dug in a staggered arrangement, determining a distance of about 0.5 m between them, in the aisles it is 0.4 m.

In group compositions, spireas are planted 0.7-0.9 m from one another. It is important to take into account the spreading of the variety - in growth and diameter, the shrub reaches 1.5 m.When deliberately thickening plantings in a living fence in a garden design, the bushes should be at a sufficient distance from each other so that the beauty of the bush is revealed and the individuality of the layout is maintained.

The optimal soil for planting embedding will be the use of peat as the top earthen layer, combined with an equal amount of humus and river sand. An abundant amount of water is poured into the pits, half filled with such a mixture, and the seedlings are placed there., making sure that the rhizome is freely positioned without curling upward.

Then the seedling is covered with the remaining soil mixture, placing the root collar at the same level with the ground, gently crushing the soil near the seedling. Finally, the planting site is watered again, and the soil is mulched.

Routine grooming procedures consist of moderate watering, loosening the soil around shrubs, weeding, and mulching. It is advisable to update the mulch regularly. If unwanted growth appears, it is necessary to remove it by cutting it under the base.

An obligatory event to preserve the noble decorativeness of the Douglas spirea. Pruning is carried out according to a number of rules. Spirea, as a flowering summer crop, should be pruned only in early spring. The shrub is cut from the fourth year of its life, truncating it to a size of 0.25-0.3 m from the ground surface. This is done so that the culture remains compact, the stems do not tilt to the sides, and the number of flowers increases.

Conducting a gentle, apical pruning is unproductive and inefficient. It is carried out only by inexperienced gardeners. Young shoots from a plant cut in this way will turn out to be thin and frail, and the inflorescences will be small.

The crown of the Douglas spirea is formed in the spring, until foliage appears on it. Old branches are pruned along with young shoots that thicken the crown. It is necessary to cut off the frozen shoots, shorten the tops. A young plant is pruned at the top according to the level of well-developed buds.

The plant does not need constant watering, it is enough to do this procedure twice a month, pouring plenty of water. In hot weather, irrigation is intensified. It is equally important not to allow either drying out or waterlogging of the soil on the site. It is imperative to loosen it, as well as to exterminate weeds.

Plant feeding is needed in the spring, with the beginning of the growing season. It is administered in the form of organics diluted with water, after 2 weeks - with products saturated with phosphates. Effectively affects the growth of culture "Kemira Universal" - a ready-made fertilizer applied under the roots.

Exquisite shrubs with pastel pink flowers in charming panicles against a background of silvery foliage are spectacular by themselves and in various group compositions. They beautifully frame park alleys and decorate paths in the garden. Designers of landscape spaces appreciate Douglas' spirea for its plasticity and consider it a fertile material for "green building".

See the flowering of Douglas spirea in the next video.