Mountain ash is among the low-value fruit trees due to the characteristic bitter taste of its berries. However, being very common, it is widely used as an ornamental plant. Strong and resilient wood is also often used in carpentry.
Botanical Description
Under the name "mountain ash", the types and varieties of which you will find in the article, in modern botany it is customary to understand a whole genus of woody low plants from the large family Pink. The number of species exceeds a hundred, with about a third of them growing freely on the territory of Russia. Rowan is widespread in North America, Asia and throughout Europe. This deciduous plant in the form of a shrub or tree is especially effective in the autumn, when the leaves are painted in crimson tones, and the branches are decorated with huge bright clusters.
Use and properties of mountain ash
Rowan wood is characterized by elasticity and high density, which allows it to be used for the manufacture of carpentry. A flowering tree or shrub is an excellent honey plant.
Rowan berries are eaten, especially due to the breeding of new varieties, the fruits of which have lost their bitter aftertaste. You can eat them fresh, canned (compotes, jams, preserves), make marmalade or marshmallows, dry, pickle or soak them. Some properties of mountain ash, or rather its berries, are used in folk medicine. Among the useful qualities are the following: diuretic and choleretic, laxative, hemostatic, diaphoretic, anti-zingotic. The first frosts help get rid of bitterness in berries. They lead to the destruction of a specific glycoside.
Mountain ash: varieties and species
The most famous and widespread species is the mountain ash. Its Latin name comes from the phrase "attracting birds." Perhaps this is due to the fact that bright red berries remain on the bush not only in the fall, but almost all winter, serving as food for birds. The species is distributed throughout the world in a temperate zone. Most often this tree, less often a shrub with a round crown and a height of up to 12 m, but, as a rule, only within 5-10 m.
Specialists in the field of breeding divide the cultivated varieties of mountain ash into two varieties: Nevezinskaya and Moravian. The first includes hybrids of Eastern European descent, and the second of Central European hybrids. Differences are not only rowan berries (in taste, color, shape), but also the plants themselves - the shape of the crown, leaves, bark, etc.
Mountain ash Moravian
The mountain ash is sweet, or Moravian, is an ordinary variety. It was first discovered in the 19th century in Moravia in the region of the Sudeten Mountains. They introduced it into the culture thanks to beautiful and tasty fruits. A tree 10-12 m tall at a young age has a narrow pyramidal crown, large leaves up to 25 cm long, fruits up to 1 cm in diameter. The varieties of the Central European group presented below are of most interest.
Edulis
Not very tall tree (10-15 m) is distinguished not only by sweet fruits, but also by its decorative appearance. The crown is narrow-pyramidal, the leaves are large, not leathery, pinnate, look like openwork on the side, are painted in the autumn in rich red and yellow shades. Flowering begins in late May, the inflorescence is corymbose, dense. Fruits are round-oval in shape, large with juicy sweet-sour flesh, scarlet-red. The rowanberry of the Edulis cultivar has high winter hardiness, photophilous, but withstands slight shading, prefers fertile and well-drained soils. It does not tolerate bogging and excess moisture, reacts poorly to gas contamination and smoke. It is used as a fruit crop, as well as in group alley plantings.
Bissneri
A hybrid with a narrow compact crown shape grows up to 11 m high. It is decorative throughout the year thanks to large beautiful pinnate leaves, small size and bright berries. There is no bitter taste in the fruit. Like many other varieties of ornamental mountain ash, Bissneri is not afraid of frost, but is sensitive to gassed urban air, swampy and heavy soils. It prefers sunny, well-lit areas, tolerates a slight shadow.
Concentrator
Another West European variety with a pyramidal crown shape. The leaves are large, whitish on the underside with serrate edges. The fruits have an oval-round shape, broad-ribbed, color - bright orange, collected in a dense shield of 70-100 pieces, have good taste without too much astringency and bitterness with juicy orange flesh. The variety is highly resistant to frost and disease. Prefers loose fertile soil without stagnation of moisture, good lighting.
Nevezhinsky mountain ash
Nevezhinsky mountain ash is also an ordinary variety, and by appearance only a specialist can distinguish them. As mentioned above, rowan berries have a characteristic bitter aftertaste and become suitable for food only after the first frost. However, the Nevezinsk variety has a distinctive feature. Its berries are deprived of bitterness even in an immature form, and in terms of vitamin saturation, it is comparable to lemon and blackcurrant. The tree was not obtained by selection, but is a natural species. The story of his discovery is very interesting. The tree was found by the peasant Shchelkunov in the St. Andrew's Forest, which was located near the village of Nevezhino. Having planted it in his garden, he did not suspect that a frost-resistant and unpretentious tree would spread throughout the country. Fellow villagers planted mountain ash seedlings and sold them to neighboring regions. At the moment, a large number of varieties are bred, we draw your attention to the most famous and proven.
Eastern European varieties
- Vuba is a medium-sized tree with a paniculate crown shape, large thin leaves and elongated bright orange fruits. It is characterized by very high frost resistance, photophilous, undemanding to soil, but prefers medium or light loam. The rowan of the Kubovaya variety does not have a bitter taste, moderately tart, the pulp is bright yellow, juicy. Fruits weighing 0.5 g.
- Sugar Petrova is a low tree (up to 5 m) with large decorative leaves. The variety is valued for its high sugar content in fruits in the absence of astringency and bitterness. Frost-resistant, unpretentious.
- Spark is an early variety for universal use. The plant is medium-sized with straight ascending branches located compactly. Fruits are large, weighing 1.5-1.7 g with yellow flesh, in the mature state of a red-orange hue.
Michurinsky varieties
Varieties bred by I.V. Michurin, a famous domestic breeder, are extremely rare to find in modern gardens. Currently, some of them are lost, others are simply mixed together and indistinguishable. But there is a preserved hybrid Michurin mountain ash. Variety Titan (photo above), in particular, is still sold and bought by gardeners to this day. It is bred by pollinating the flowers of mountain ash with pollen of a pear and a red-leafed apple tree. The plant is a low tree (up to 3.5 m) with a rounded crown. Large berries are gathered in powerful clusters, have a characteristic taste without bitterness and a rich dark red hue. The tree is highly resistant to even the most severe climatic conditions. Close to the Titan variety in all characteristics are the hybrids Likernaya, Garnet, Burka.
Do not forget that ordinary and aronia, whose varieties are also very numerous, are far from the same thing. Even if you compare the appearance of plants, you can notice significant differences. Aronia, or the chokeberry of Michurin, belongs to a completely different genus - Aronia, but also to the Pink family. The species was bred in the 19th century in the nursery of Michurin. This is a low shrub (up to 3 m) with large dark green leaves and spherical black (sometimes with a purple tint) fruits with seeds. It is popular as a melliferous, medicinal and fruit-and-berry crop.
Features of growing mountain ash
- Mountain ash is a very large tree, so it makes sense to plant seedlings around the perimeter of the site. The plant prefers well-lit places, tolerates slight shading, develops poorly in the shade, and bears little fruit.
- Almost all varieties of mountain ash are unpretentious and undemanding to the soil, but nevertheless they develop better in a light substrate, on loams. He does not like excessive moisture and waterlogging.
- All mountain ash (varieties do not matter) prefers autumn planting or early spring (before growth). To make the crop plentiful, it is recommended to plant several different hybrids.
- The main tree care is the timely removal of root shoots and shoots that develop below the place of grafting, watering (if necessary), loosening the soil and processing against pests and diseases.
- Rowan starts to grow quite early, in this regard, it is advisable to trim and top dress in a short and early time.
- From the third year after planting, it is recommended to feed the trees with complex mineral fertilizers in three stages: before flowering in the spring, summer during the formation of fruits and in the fall after harvest.