Sea buckthorn, despite its thorns, is loved by many gardeners. It grows with a bush or low tree and already in the third year gives a crop of very healthy berries. The technology of planting, this culture is not much different from the rest. However, there are biological features that you should pay attention to before buying a seedling.
Choose a place, time and seedlings
Sea buckthorn in the wild grows on the shores of lakes, flooded sections of rivers, mountain slopes to a height of 2100 m. The culture is widespread in Siberia. It is planted to consolidate sandy soil, road slopes, ravines. And all because the sea buckthorn has a surface root system that envelops the top layer of the earth, and it extends far beyond the crown of the tree. Overgrowth can be found within a radius of 3-5 meters. In addition, it is a dioecious plant: if you want to get a crop, then you need to plant at least two bushes: male and female. When planning a site for sea buckthorn, be sure to consider these features.
Wild sea buckthorn usually grows near water bodies and on mountain slopes.
Sea buckthorn berries are a natural multivitamin concentrate. They contain many vitamins: C, PP, B1, B2, K, E and carotene, organic acids: tartaric, oxalic, malic, as well as trace elements: manganese, boron, iron.
When to plant better
The best time for planting is spring, before the buds open on the seedling. Even adult sea buckthorn overwinter poorly: during winters with little snow, the surface roots freeze, some branches dry out. In addition, this culture has a very short rest period, at the first thaw it dissolves buds, which fall under severe spring frosts. And the young and immature bush chances to survive as a result of autumn planting even less. He needs to adapt and take root well in the new site. For a short fall, this is impossible. There are recommendations to plant sea buckthorn in the summer, abandoning the autumn planting. However, in summer it is better to buy seedlings with a closed root system, that is, grown in containers.
Selection of planting material
Most often, gardeners simply dig up root shoots in their garden and generously share it with their neighbors. From this planting material, in most cases, a very prickly wild bird grows with small and sour berries. The reason is that cultivated varieties are grafted onto the wild, their root shoot repeats the properties of the stock, and not varietal. When buying seedlings, this also needs to be taken into account, unscrupulous sellers seek to capitalize on the ability of the crop to produce a lot of growth.
Features of the choice of sea buckthorn seedlings:
- Buy only zoned varieties adapted to the climate of your region.
- At least two seedlings are needed: male and female, but usually 3-4 female seedlings are planted on one male.
- Male and female cannot be distinguished before entering fruiting, that is, until flower buds begin to form. Therefore, buy seedlings grown from cuttings. They repeat the maternal properties, and are already easily distinguishable by gender.
- The male seedling variety does not matter, it is needed only for pollination, there will be no berries on it. You can not buy, but take the shoots from neighbors or in the wild.
In female plants of sea buckthorn, the buds are small, arranged in pairs, the male ones are larger, covered with many lentils
It is easy to distinguish between adult plants by gender if you have both representatives and you can compare them. The female kidneys are small and neat, arranged in pairs, the male kidneys are large, rough, covered with lentils. Flowering goes unnoticed, even before the leaves bloom. In women, in the sinuses of lentils, green small pistils appear one at a time, less often 2-3, and in men - brown dusting stamens collected in a short spike.
If the site is small or you want to plant only one bush of sea buckthorn, you can plant the stalk of a male plant in the crown of a female. Another option: during flowering, cut a branch with anthers in another garden or at a wild house and hang it inside the crown of your sea buckthorn.
Video: how to distinguish a male plant of sea buckthorn from a female
And another feature when choosing buckthorn seedlings: on its roots there are round growths - nodules. Inexperienced gardeners take them for a sign of illness, refuse seedlings or cut off these formations. Meanwhile, underground nodules play an important role; with their help, sea buckthorn extracts its own nutrition - assimilates nitrogen from the air. In adult plants, such growths reach the size of a chicken egg. According to the observations of gardeners, if a tree grows on fertile soil, then the growths are small, almost imperceptible, and on the poor, on the contrary, large.
Swelling at the roots of sea buckthorn is not a disease, but a biological feature of culture
Sea buckthorn place
Choosing a place for sea buckthorn is also not easy.
- Plant in the area that you will not dig, because the roots of sea buckthorn spread in breadth up to 5 m from the tree. You can’t dig them out, stretch them out or somehow injure them.
- The place in the shade of fences, buildings and trees is not suitable. Sea buckthorn loves sunny areas.
- You should not plant sea buckthorn along the paths and near frequently visited places, the seedling will grow into a lush and thorny shrub or tree 3-5 m high.
- The male plant can be located at a distance of 50-100 m, that is, even in the neighboring area, but between it and the female there should not be obstacles impassable to the wind in the form of houses, deaf high fences, hillocks, etc.
But it is better not to rely on neighbors and plant male and 2-3 female seedlings at a distance of at least 2-2.5 m and a maximum of 50-100 m. You can arrange them relative to each other as you like: a triangle, a square, in one row. There is a practice of landing at different corners of the site. If in your region some kind of wind prevails, for example, southeast, then plant a male plant precisely from this, that is, leeward side.
Landing process
For sea buckthorn, it’s not enough just to dig a hole, you need to dig the entire area that you assigned for it to the shovel’s bayonet. Skeletal roots will spread in the upper soil layer, and it needs to be fertilized. A plot of 2x2 m is enough for a one-two-year-old seedling. For 1 m², scatter a bucket of humus or compost, 40 g of superphosphate and 20 g of potassium sulfate. If the soil is acidic, add a glass of dolomite flour.
Landing Stages:
- In the prepared area, dig a hole 40 cm deep and 50 cm in diameter.
Landing pit should be 40 cm deep and 50 cm in diameter
- At the bottom, with a layer of 10 cm, pour drainage from broken bricks, gravel or shell rock.
The drainage layer in the pit should be about 10 cm
- On top of the drainage, in the center of the pit, make a mound from the earth, taken out by digging. If the soil is heavy clay, mix it with river sand and peat in a ratio of 1: 1: 1.
Sometimes it is necessary to fill in a hole not excavated earth, but its mixture with peat and river sand
- Drive a peg into the center of the knoll, which will serve as a support for the seedling.
- Place the seedling on the south side of the peg, on top of the knoll, and spread the roots along its slopes. In this case, the root neck should be at the level of the earth's horizon on your site. You can put the rail over the pit, and it will serve as a level.
The root neck of the seedling should be at ground level
- Fill the pit with earth, lightly tamping and constantly keeping the seedling at the desired level.
- Make a watering hole.
One effective way to water is to use a hole
- Tie a sapling to the peg with a free loop, water and mulch.
The seedling needs to be attached to the peg
Video: planting sea buckthorn in spring
If you need a transplant
If there is an urgent need to transplant sea buckthorn to another place, then it is better to do this also in the spring, and while the tree is still small - 2-3 years old. An adult fruiting tree will not take root, since it is impossible to dig out all of its roots spreading over the site. In rootless sea buckthorn, unvaccinated, it is better to take a shoot and transplant it.
- Gently dig up a young plant.
- With your hands, scoop up the earth around to find out how the roots are located and to identify from them the main mother, coming from the tree.
- Cut the main root at a distance of 20-30 cm from the seedling.
- Plant a young plant according to the scheme above.
The shoots and the mother plant have a common root, which must be cut during transplantation
Young trees are transplanted in the same way, raking the top layer of the earth to have an idea of the location of the roots. The less you damage them, the higher the chance that the sea buckthorn will take root. If the roots are damaged, then reduce the volume of the aerial parts: cut branches, shorten trunks. Sea buckthorn will be easier to take root, and then it will quickly restore the crown.
The planting process itself is very simple, but there are many nuances when choosing seedlings and planning the site. Sea buckthorn is a dioecious plant, therefore, one bush will bear fruit only when there is a male plant in the neighborhood, within a radius of 100 m. You also need to consider the location of the roots: they spread horizontally and far from the tree, you will not be able to dig the earth next to the sea buckthorn. So, before buying seedlings, you need to decide whether you have such a place in the garden and whether it is a pity to allocate so much land for sea buckthorn.
