Thuja: planting and care

An evergreen thuja from the Cypress family lives for about a hundred years. This plant has many species that amaze with a variety of color palette - there are bluish thuja and with a yellowish tinge. Some species are shrubs, others are giants of many meters, there are species that are low to the ground and are lush balls.

Thuja varieties

Several dozen varieties of thuja are now known, which are mainly used to decorate gardens and create landscape compositions. Most often used in gardening are such varieties of this plant:

• Western thuja Smaragd, otherwise called Columnar thuja. This variety of thuja grows well in shady areas of the garden on clay or sandy soil with good moisture. This plant can stretch up to 20 meters and live for 1000 years.

• Thuja Pyramidalnaya is another plant variety used for garden decoration. She perfectly tolerates severe frosts. The tree grows up to 7 meters and has a rather narrow crown. This variety grows fast enough for conifers, is not capricious to the composition of the soil, but it does not tolerate drought and dense shade very well. By regularly pruning the crown, you can achieve the ideal shape of the tree and use it to form tall hedges.

• Tuya Sankist is a graceful shrub up to 5 meters tall with a two-meter crown. The crown has a cone shape with strong branching. With age, the needles of this thuja change their color from golden yellow to lemon yellow with a bronze tint. This variety grows rather slowly.

• Thuja Wagneri can grow both in the garden and in the tub. This compact tree in the garden grows up to 3.5 meters, in a container it will be much smaller. This variety is distinguished by an egg-shaped crown of gray-green color. Most often, this thuja is used for keeping in flowerpots, which are in the garden in the summer and move indoors for the winter.

• Thuja Globoza is another variety of shrub thuja, which is grown mainly in a pot. The shrub is in the shape of a ball and grows only 2 meters. Its growth rate is very low; in 10 years, the shrub grows only 1 meter.

Planting thuja

Like other conifers, thuyu is best grow from cuttings. In addition, this method helps preserve the species properties of the new plant. The best time to get a cut is in April. Shoots of 2 or 3 years old are suitable for cuttings, which are separated from the upper part of the crown. Pull out the stalk with your hands to keep some of the wood that contains the nutrient supply.

For disinfection, the cuttings must be treated with a weak solution of potassium permanganate, and then kept in any growth stimulator for a day. Plant the cuttings in containers with drainage holes. Fill the containers with a mixture of soil and sand, pre-laying a layer of pebble drainage. For rooting, it is enough to deepen the cutting by only 2 cm and water it abundantly.

Place the boxes in a warm, humid place in the shade. Spray the plant with water every day for the first two months. In September, rooted cuttings should be planted in a separate garden bed or greenhouse. In these conditions, the thuja will spend another three years. Care during this time consists of watering and regularly removing weeds.

Thuja care

This plant prefers open areas with lots of light. If your plant is in constant shade, then over time it begins to lose its attractiveness. The plant needs frequent watering... The root system of the thuja is located on the surface, therefore, when loosening the soil, you must be as careful as possible and loosen the soil to a depth of no more than 10 cm.
For thuja, it will be useful to mulch the soil with peat, sawdust or tree bark. The thickness of the mulch should be about 7 cm. This is necessary to protect the roots from freezing and drying out.

For the winter, young trees must be covered with a transparent covering material so as not to disrupt the process of photosynthesis. Mature trees tolerate winter cold well and do not require such protection.

Thuja fertilizing

Thuja can be used only in spring and summer. When fertilizing in the autumn period, the development of shoots begins, then the branches that did not have time to form before winter will die in severe frosts.

After landing for feeding thuja use a solution of Zircon, which enhances root formation and improves moisture absorption. The same drug protects the plant at an early stage from many diseases.

In spring, thuja is fed in April or early May. At this time, fertilizers are applied containing nitrogen and other micro- or macroelements necessary for the plant. It is best to use special fertilizers used for conifers. It can be in powder, granular or liquid form. From the middle of summer, nitrogen fertilizers should not be given to the plant.

Then fertilizers containing potassium and phosphorus are used to feed the plant. They will help thuja prepare for the winter season. You can start feeding thuja with such fertilizers from the second half of summer.

You should also fertilize the thuja with preparations with a large amount of magnesium, with its deficiency, the thuja needles turn yellow and die off. Organic fertilizers are used to saturate the soil with microorganisms. Vermicompost is ideal for this purpose.

Thuja transplant

If a transplant is necessary, it is better to do this in the spring, so that over the summer the plant takes root in a new place. When transplanting a young thuja, it is necessary to outline the boundaries of the earthen coma around the tree with a sharp shovel, then remove it by prying it with a shovel. Immediately after extraction, the tree must be transported to a new location and planted.

The hole in the new place for the plant should be larger than the earthen lump. A mixture of soil and compost is laid at the bottom of it and a tree is placed, straightening the roots. The gap between the walls of the pit and the earthen lump is filled with the same mixture of compost and soil, lifting the plant by the trunk. Having tamped the ground well, the plant is watered with two buckets of water.

An adult thuja is transplanted in the same way, but it is required to bayonet the soil around it a year before manipulation. During this time, a new root system will form, and a clod of earth will not collapse when the tree is transported to a new place.

Photo of thuja