Lilac is a flowering shrub with lush clusters of delicate flowers, pleasing no less delicate and delicate aroma. This plant is well prone to pruning, which allows you to decorate the site and single decorative forms, and groups, and even living fences.
- Where to plant a lilac
- When and how to plant a lilac
- The optimal time for planting shrubs
- How to choose planting material
- Lilac planting pattern
- How and what to feed the lilac
- Rules for pruning lilacs, whether to prune it
- When need pruning lilac
- How to prune correctly
- Lilac reproduction
- Seeds
- Cuttings
- Root shoots
- Inoculation
Where to plant a lilac
The best conditions for lilacs are as follows: flat place; the soil is moistened, with good drainage and indicators of acidity, close to neutral; the passage of groundwater at least one and a half meters from the surface; sun lighting most of the day; shelter from drafts. Lilac does not grow in waterlogged or often flooded areas. In these cases, if there is no other possibility, it is planted on hills piled up following the example of an alpine slide.
Sour soil before planting must be treated with lime or dolomite flour. Lilac tolerates penumbra, and in the shade it weakens, slows growth and development, blooms poorly and not abundantly. But on the lighted place - it is a bright shrub with lush greens, strong shoots and many inflorescences.
In areas open to wind, especially in the cold season, lilac buds freeze, which affects flowering. Pick up for planting a warm sunny place, sheltered from the wind, for example, among the tall perennial plants.
When and how to plant a lilac
Lilac is well acclimatized, all that it needs is compliance with the landing conditions, healthy planting material and attentive care.
The optimal time for planting shrubs
The best time to plant a lilac is August-September. During this period, seedlings have time to take root until frost. Plant a plant in the evening or on an overcast day. Possible landing in the spring before the awakening of the kidneys. In this case, you need to prepare the ground for planting in the fall.
How to choose planting material
The solution to the question: how to dissolve the lilac on the plot, begins with the selection of a sapling. A lilac seedling should have green leaves, a well-branched root system with densely growing thin roots.
The best age for a sapling is 2-3 years, the plant can be grafted and own-rooted, and the growth of a sapling is from 50 to 70 cm, the diameter of the root lobe is about 30 cm. Such plants tolerate transplant more easily and root more easily, their root system is less traumatized. Consider this for the future when you dig up your own seedlings: the roots cannot be damaged, the seedling is dug with a clod of earth.
Lilac planting pattern
When planting, for a start, deal with the pit for the seedling: in fertile soil, the depth of the pit is equal to the length of the roots (up to 30 cm), on poor soils, the pit has a size of meter per meter. At the bottom of the pit lay drainage (fragments of brick, large pebbles), fertilize with soil mixed with humus (15 kg), wood ash (200 g), superphosphate (30 g).
Further, the distance between the bushes depends on the form of landing. If you are planning a single landing, make a distance of 2 m, for a group - one and a half, and for a hedge a distance of one meter is permissible.
Plant the bush, straighten the roots, leave the root neck at ground level, if you do not want a lot of root growth to develop, 2 cm above the ground level. If you plan to propagate overgrowth, on the contrary, deepen the root neck. Sprinkle the seedling with soil, compact around the trunk and pour. After the soil has absorbed water, mulch with peat or other material.
How and what to feed the lilac
If at planting the soil was well fertilized, fertilizing in the first 2-3 years is not needed. Further, to stimulate the growth, top dressing of lilac is carried out in the spring with nitrogen compounds, for better flowering - with phosphate ones. Once every 2 years they feed with potash fertilizers after flowering.
Rules for pruning lilacs, whether to prune it
To keep the bushes neat and elegant need lilac pruning. When fading, lilac partially loses its appeal. By nature, the shoots of the bush grow too fast and a little sloppy: in all directions, thickening strongly.
When need pruning lilac
The optimal time - the period before the beginning of the movement of juices along the branches - is early spring. In the summer, only damaged or useless shoots are removed. When to prune the lilac, tell the calendar: in the summer, pruning results can be used as cuttings or grafts. After a period of flowering dry inflorescences are carefully removed, try not to damage the leaves. Broken and dried branches can be removed from the bush during the entire period of development - flowering. Grafted plants are cleaned, mainly from abundant wild growth.
How to prune correctly
Forming a bush "under the natural" will look good against a background of rustic style in the garden. To form such a crown, create a base. The bush is formed from 3 - 4 stem branches, removing all crookedly growing and directed inward branches in the first year. If 2 approximately the same development branches are formed, growing crosswise, one of them, the weaker one, is removed. The branches of the base are shortened to half the length, leaving buds oriented towards the growth direction of the future branches.
In the second year, all the branches that have grown inside the bush are pruned, annual shoots are cut to the buds, from which the shoots forming the shape will grow. The main task this year is to evenly grow a crown, without voids and chaotic directions. Once this is done, trimming is stopped. Next, you need to maintain shape, sometimes removing damaged or growing inside the branches, unnecessary shoots.
If there are many bushes, the shaping can be made easier. The first couple of years to give the bush to grow freely, and then cut off all the weak, interfering with each other shoots, leaving strong. After flowering, you can neatly shorten the branches so that everyone looks the same.
To form a lilac in the form of a tree — a trunk — an annual bush is shortened at a height of a trunk, leaving 3-4 buds. The shoots grown from these buds form also like a bush, laying the foundation of the crown. Next you need to cut off all the shoots in the area of the trunk and thin out the crown.
Lilac reproduction
There are several ways to propagate lilac. Having understood them, each gardener will choose for himself more suitable.
Seeds
Seed collection occurs at the end of autumn in wet weather, so that the seeds do not accidentally wake up. The seed pods are dried for several days, shake the seeds out of them, removing the garbage.
Seeds need to be stratified: pour in wet sand, fall asleep in a container with holes at the bottom and send for 2 months to a room with a temperature of 0 to 5 degrees Celsius. In March, they are sown in a box with steamed soil (for the prevention of diseases). Depending on the variety, shoots appear after 10 days or 2-3 months.
When the second pair of leaves is formed, the sprouts swoop into the seedling boxes at a distance of 3 cm. They are planted in open ground in the month of May. You can sow under the winter snowy crust. Seeds are buried 1.5 cm in the ground, and in the spring they swoop into boxes and grow.
Cuttings
Lilac cuttings with lignified shoots does not produce results, it is rather an exception to the rules. Consider breeding green shoots. Harvest cuttings at the beginning of flowering. The stalk must have 1 internodes and 2 buds. The lower cut is done, departing 1 cm from the bud, the leaves are removed. For better rooting before planting, treat with a growth stimulator. Plant to a depth of 1 cm.
Reproduction of lilac cuttings in spring is also possible at home: rooting can be carried out in a container with a transparent lid. To do this, prepare a nutritious soil and coarse sand. The temperature should be maintained within 25-28 degrees of heat. Spray the shoots from the sprayer with water daily. A month later, the roots are formed, and in the fall you can land in the ground on the site, protecting from freezing.
Root shoots
The first seedlings are separated at the beginning of June before the shoot sprouting.Before separating, the soil around the donor plant should be moistened. Since the roots are still weak, conduct the procedure on an overcast day so that they do not dry out. The length of the roots should be 3-5 cm. At the bottom of the picking box, put wet sand or peat, plant seedlings there and spray with water. Then land in a cold greenhouse at a distance of 5 cm.
The first 7 days the plants are under the film and sprayed twice a day. Then the film is removed, and watering occurs as needed. The optimal growing period is two growing periods. Then the bushes are planted in a permanent place. Care is to maintain the soil moisture and thin out if necessary. Soil pristvolnyh circles mulch.
Mass flowering of such bushes begins at the age of 5-7 years. Despite the late flowering, this method of reproduction gives the bush longevity.
Inoculation
There are several methods of vaccination, let's talk about the most common of them.
Copulation is a method where the graft tissue and the stock are most closely aligned. Stocks and scion shoots should be of the same thickness. Copulation is carried out at the root collar in the stem at the selected height and in the crown.Each branch of the backbone is grafted separately. With proper performance of actions in 2.5 months the graft grows together.
Copulation is simple, or an oblique cut is carried out before the onset of sap flow. The cutting is cut at an angle of 45 degrees to 2 cm in length, a cut of the stock also. Graft pressed to the rootstock and tightly tied.
English copulation. The cuts are made at an angle of 45 degrees to the longitudinal axis of the branches. In order to increase the contact area and connect the graft and stock more closely and firmly, longitudinal cuts are made in both sections.
Successful vaccination depends on weather conditions. In hot summer with a minimum amount of precipitation the rootstocks are watered a few days before the inoculation. Planted and grafted plants require frequent loosening and watering, mulching. Graft bushes, reaching the growth, it is desirable to tie up to the pegs. Proper planting and attentive care of lilacs will fill your site with delicate fragrance and lush purple or white.
