It is not surprising that modern people try to surround their living and working space with green spaces, even if it is a stylish bonsai or an ordinary decorative flower in a pot. In this way, they compensate for the lack of time or the opportunity to visit nature more often, spending many days in the “jungle” of glass and concrete.
Boxwood is one of the ways to decorate your interior or yard with a beautiful evergreen shrub, and an increasing number of gardeners and designers are paying attention to it. This is because the methods of how to propagate boxwood, as well as caring for it, are available even to beginners.
About boxwood
In the world there are about a hundred species of boxwood, among which there are both trees and shrubs. The "home" of these plants, which are famous for their extremely slow growth, is the Mediterranean, East Asia and the West Indies, but the popularity of this species is so great that they can be seen both in the form of a hedge in many cities of Europe, and as decorative bushes in flowerpots in many homes around the world.
The boxwood trees and shrubs were especially fond of landscape masters, as they tolerate a haircut, taking the most bizarre shapes and shapes that give them.
Boxwoods are characterized by leathery, dense, fleshy leaves of a slightly elongated or rounded shape. The plant blooms with inflorescences, consisting of small unisexual flowers, in the axils of the leaves. Although boxwood is a honey plant, the harvest collected by bees cannot be eaten, as it is poisonous.
If designers appreciate the plant for its beautiful crown, from which you can create living masterpieces, then gardeners - for its unpretentiousness. How to propagate boxwood, we will talk further.
Boxwood landing
The best time to plant boxwood is the beginning of autumn (September - the first half of October), when it is still warm enough for the plant to fix the roots in a new place. Although much depends on the region, this ornamental plant survives well after spring or summer planting.
Even knowing how to grow boxwood and how to propagate boxwood at home, for further planting it in the yard, you need to choose the right shady or semi-shady place with clay soil. When planting in a pot, use soil with lime content.
Important: although this plant is evergreen and loves heat, it is better to avoid sunny places for planting it, since boxwood leaves are damaged under direct rays.
The sequence of actions during landing:
- If you have to transplant the plant from the pot into the open ground, then 24 hours before this, you should water it abundantly, which will allow you to easily and without damaging the roots, remove it from the container.
- A hole is being prepared. It is important to consider that its size should exceed the root lump 2-3 times in width and depth.
- At the bottom of the pit, a perlite drainage layer is preliminarily laid out.
- The earth obtained by digging a pit should also be sprinkled with perlite.
- When everything is ready, the boxwood needs to carefully straighten the roots and put it on the bottom of the pit.
- Covering the plant with a mixture of earth and perlite, its layers should be lightly tamped with your hand so that air tunnels do not form between the roots.
- After filling the hole, the plant needs to be watered, based on the calculation that for a seedling 20 cm high, at least 3 liters of standing warm water will be required.
Important: the soil will sag after the first watering, so you need to fill it up again, but no longer tamping it.
Boxwood should be planted strictly vertically, and around the hole at a distance of 30 cm, a shaft should be built from the ground so that during future irrigation water flows under the root, and not to the side. To retain moisture, it is recommended to sprinkle a trunk circle in the immediate vicinity of the trunk with a perlite layer of 2 cm.
Plant care
How to propagate boxwood, and look after it is very simple. Many flower growers therefore love him because he is unpretentious. Care Rules:
- If the plant has only been planted, then the first watering in the absence of rain should be no earlier than a week later.
- Water is poured into the circle outlined by the earthen rampart, with a bucket of liquid leaving a meter-tall plant.
- In order not to damage the plant, you should use the settled water and do it either in the morning or in the evening, and in the case of dry summers, increase the amount of watering, but not its amount.
- Each time after the water is absorbed, you need to loosen the earth.
- Experts recommend that as soon as the heat is established, apply peat mulch, sprinkling with it a trunk circle of boxwood with a layer of 8-10 cm. Important: it is impossible to allow the mulch to touch the trunk or shoot of the plant.
- The first "feeding" is carried out 30 days after planting, for which both organic and complex mineral mixtures are suitable. In the future, similar work is carried out in the summer, during the period of growth.
In general, this is all care for boxwood, and its haircut is carried out in April-May, and the owner himself decides what shape to give him. As a rule, the crown is given a rounded appearance.
Diseases and Pests
A big threat to the plant is boxwood gall midge. Her eggs can be found in the foliage. The larvae hatching from them bite into the leaves and spend the winter there, in the spring to be born by adult insects.
The presence of pests is indicated by its drying and falling leaves, which can be stopped by using Karbofos, Aktar or Tagore. If the primary treatment did not produce results, then after 10-12 days the process is repeated.
Sometimes a plant suffers from necrosis, which is manifested in the death of its branches and characteristic rusty spots on the leaves. Fungicides and pruning of damaged branches will help to solve the problem.
Seed propagation
If the question is raised about how to propagate boxwood in the spring, then you can make it seeds, although this process is lengthy, therefore it is rarely used.
You should know that boxwood seeds very quickly lose their properties, so you have to look after them.
- First, they need to be soaked for 24 hours in a growth stimulator.
- Secondly, for the next month, place between pieces of damp cloth (you can use cloth napkins or towels) and regularly maintain this condition until the first sprouts hatch from them.
- Thirdly, prepare a mixture of equal parts of sand and peat and sow prepared seeds into it with sprouts down, cover with a film and keep away from the sun for 20 days until seedlings appear.
With the advent of sprouts, the film is removed, and their further care consists of watering and fertilizer.
Cuttings
Spring is the time to think about how to propagate boxwood cuttings at home, because this particular method is the simplest and most common.
Strong, but still green, not covered with bark shoots 10-15 cm long are suitable for this. They need to be cut at an angle, tear off the lower leaves and put for 24 hours in a container with root-forming fluid. After this period, the sprouts are washed and sent to the soil, which includes compost, land with deciduous humus and sand.
Cuttings need to be deepened to the bottom leaves into the ground and covered with five-liter plastic bottles with a cut bottom. This approach will protect the tender sprouts from possible hypothermia, and for watering it is enough to unscrew the lid and spray them from the spray gun.
After a month, the cuttings will acquire the first roots, and after two they will have a strong root system, after which the bottles can be removed. Here's how to propagate boxwood with cuttings in the spring, but if necessary, the whole process can be carried out in the fall, but in flowerpots, in order to transplant them into the open ground with the first heat.
Propagation by layering
This method is also reliable. There is nothing easier than to propagate boxwood by layering. It is enough to bend its shoots, sprinkle with earth and during the summer water and fertilize in the same way as the main bush. As soon as the cuttings take root and grow, they are separated from the mother bush and transplanted.
Looking after boxwood in the cold season
You already know how to propagate boxwood at home, but if it grows in the courtyard of a private house, you will have to prepare the plants for the cold.
To do this, they need to be watered abundantly before the start of frost, mulch the trunk circle, and cover the crown with spruce or burlap. If the plant is an adult, then you should tie its branches so that they do not break under the snow.