Spruce "Belobok" ("Bialobok"): description, planting, care and reproduction

Unusual spruce "Belobok" is a unique plant with white edges of branches against a general green background, which remains miniature for a long time. This feature of the coniferous culture, bred at the beginning of the last century, distinguishes it from other evergreen trees, however, it is so elegant only in spring. It is worth learning more about this Christmas tree, which can become a decoration of any site.

Herringbone "Bialobok" is an ornamental plant that can delight the gardener with its changing appearance throughout the season. In spring, it grows actively, and its young shoots are creamy-golden in color. This lasts for about 1.5 months, after which the silver color begins to prevail, then blue and, finally, green color of the needles.

The characteristic features are as follows.

• For a long time, the plant can be small - a height of 2-2.5 meters and an irregular shape: asymmetric, conical, hemispherical. As the spruce grows older, the crown of the spruce still takes on a certain appearance, most often conical, while the lower branches remain on the trunk, so the trunk is not exposed.
• Shoots of "Belobok" are short, hard and thorny, located horizontally.
• The needles are crescent-shaped, they are dense, most of the year they retain their blue color with a silvery sheen. The length of the needles reaches 3 cm, they are located along the radius.
• The cones grow small, the female cones are reddish-brown in color, and the male cones are brown. Their length is from 5 to 10 cm.

Small blue spruce is considered a winter-hardy variety, the plant loves sunlight. If grown in the shade, it can lose its unusual coloration. Despite the fact that the tree grows slowly (about 10-12 cm per year) and is considered dwarf, adults at the age of 10 years and more can grow up to 5 meters in height, reaching 3 meters in diameter.

Reproduction of prickly blue spruce occurs by cuttings or seeds. With the first method, you need to wait for autumn and the appearance of cones, by the way, they are not formed every year. The closed young cones are brought into the house and dried, after which they are opened. Further processing is carried out:

• the seeds are soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate;
• stacked in a pallet with a warm sandy substrate;
• after that, put the container in the refrigerator for hardening.

This method, if all actions are correctly performed, will ensure the emergence of seedlings, but many sprouts may not have the much desired blue color. Therefore, the grafting method is more popular. To do this, cut off young shoots from fir trees, which are more than 10 years old. It is better to take upright branches with bark - this will ensure the harmony of the future New Year's beauty. Small cuts are made on the heel, from which the root system will subsequently grow.

You can plant shoots right away, they are placed in prepared soil - a mixture of sand, peat, turf and leafy soil on top of a gravel drainage layer. The pot is placed in a dark room. It is advisable to regularly warm up the soil, then the root system will form sooner.

The choice of a landing site is of great importance - if you plant a Christmas tree in the shade or even in partial shade, it will lose its contrasting color. Therefore, it is recommended to plant in an open area. The tree loves moisture and fertile, loose soil with good drainage. The soil may be slightly acidified. The main thing is that there is no stagnation of water, because of which the plant can get sick and die.

Preparation and planting of a seedling.

• Broken brick, gravel or coarse sand is used as drainage material. Its layer in the ground should reach 15 cm.
• Depending on the size of the spruce, a planting pit depth of 30-70 cm is provided.
• If the trees are planted in a group or side by side, a distance of 3 m is observed between the plants.
• The well is filled with a substrate from the same mixture as for cuttings. When the soil is depleted, it is allowed to fertilize the soil with "Nitroammofoskoy" or a complex of mineral additives for conifers.
• Plants are taken from a pot or container together with an earthen lump and carefully placed in a hole, placing the root collar at the level of the ground surface.
• At the end, the seedling is watered abundantly, after which watering is stopped for 15-20 days. The near-trunk zone is thoroughly mulched with sawdust, bark and high-moor peat.

To grow a beautiful and healthy spruce, you need to regularly perform simple agricultural work, adhering to some rules.

• Proper watering is very important - young Christmas trees need about 5 buckets of water every 7 days, however, the soil should not be allowed to dry out in summer, in this case the plants are watered more often. Larger trees will therefore need more water.
• As soon as the trunk circle dries up, it must be loosened, removing lumps and the crust formed on the surface to allow air to reach the roots.
• In spring, the crowns of spruce trees are sprayed with Epin's solution, and they are also fed with fertilizers for coniferous varieties and peat mixed with soil. In autumn, peat is also poured into the soil near the roots.
• For the winter, small Christmas trees are covered with spruce branches and burlap. It is not necessary to tie twigs in this breed - they are strong enough to withstand the weight of the snow mass.

"Bialobok" does not need decorative crown formation, especially since this procedure can cripple a tree - the crown, as a rule, does not recover, and new shoots can grow for a long time. But sanitary pruning is needed to get rid of the damaged and dried branches of the plant. Sometimes this is necessary if the spruce is affected by pests or fungal diseases.

The tree is sick quite rarely, but only with improper care. Due to waterlogging, the spruce withers, its needles crumble. Different types of parasitic fungi are to blame for this. In addition, the plant can be affected by rust and such harmful insects as aphids, caterpillars of the spruce sawfly, hermes. Regular inspection of the tree will help to quickly take action - against the fungus, you can use "Cumulus" or preparations containing copper, from pests - insecticides "Funafon", "Ragor".

Planting Belobok fir trees in a row or in groups, of course, can also improve the territory, but it looks better in an ensemble with other trees and flowers. The ways of using an unusual tree in landscape design are quite diverse:

• it makes sense to plant spruce trees around tall evergreen tree species, however, the distance between all elements of the ensemble must be observed so that the blue beauty does not end up in the shade;
• a beautiful composition can be obtained by combining Christmas trees with bright large flowers of a Japanese garden;
• the plant is suitable for decorating rocky gardens, as well as for decorating patios located on terraces;
• small blue spruces can become indispensable on the lawns of rock gardens in combination with stones and unique mountain plants;
• a gravel garden or an area next to an artificial reservoir surrounded by flowers and exotic herbs is another place to use an outlandish Christmas tree.

For information on how to properly plant a coniferous plant, see the next video.