Junipers belong to the cypress family and include more than 60 species. To date, a large number of hybrids have been bred (more than 150). Due to the different form, undemanding to the conditions of cultivation and care, these plants
widely used in the design of personal plots, in parks. There is a
type of juniper, which under favorable growing conditions can have a height of 20 meters, and there are plants with a height of not more than 20 centimeters. The color of the needles can also be different - from green to bluish and bluish-blue. There is a type of juniper (hybrid), which has a golden color, there is a plant with bluish needles, and there is a motley color.
Junipers are unpretentious to soils and growing conditions, tolerate a lack of moisture, severe winters. Some are able to withstand smoke and gas contamination. Plants live 600 years or more. Among them there are centenarians. So, there is a type of juniper, whose age can be estimated in thousands of years (up to 3000!).
These plants propagate by cuttings or rooting of shoots lying on the ground. Reproduction by seeds is possible, but it requires long painstaking care and special preparation of seeds.
The most common type of juniper is ordinary. It is a small shrub resembling cypress. Juniper is an ordinary long-liver, whose age can be up to several thousand years. This plant loves pine and spruce forests, where it grows like undergrowth. If you decide to plant ordinary juniper in your area, caring for it will be very simple. You only need to choose a well-lit place for it and plant it.
The main thing for this plant is good lighting; it adapts perfectly to all other conditions. If the summer is very dry - water the plant 2-3 times per season (the norm is 20-30 liters for each adult plant). The only minus of junipers is that they grow slowly. Therefore, they are cut very carefully and carefully - the flaws overgrow for a long time. The main work on the formation of the crown consists in cutting dry branches. For winter, only young plants shelter. Adults winter well themselves.
The appearance of juniper can be very different.
There are columnar (varieties "Spartan", "Olympic", "Streakta) and shaggy (irregular), sometimes you can find a goblet shape (variety" Blaav "), weeping (hybrid" Oblong Pendula "), multi-stemmed (but these plants are still reach up). A separate group is creeping varieties. Chinese juniper “Variegata” looks very decorative. It has the shape of a wide cone, and the color is generally unusual - whitish-cream stripes resembling strands follow bright greenery. The common juniper of the varieties "Suecika" and "Sentinel" has the appearance of small pyramids up to one meter high.
In general, juniper species can be enumerated for a long time, and a brief description of them will take a couple of volumes, but what can be said for sure - they all look just fine, especially in the middle of winter, and even against the background of summer greenery are not lost. And junipers have a delicate coniferous aroma, and their fruits are used in folk and traditional medicine.