Description of balsamic fir Nana, planting and caring for it

Balsam fir: description

Balsam fir

There are both small ornamental shrubs, up to 50 cm in height, and powerful trees, reaching 40 meters in height. Almost all types of balsam fir have a pyramidal cone-shaped crown of regular shape, widely spread branches with lush needles.

Cones are oval-cylindrical, brown, brown and brownish-purple, up to 10 cm in length. The bark is gray-brown, smooth. In the wild, the height of trees usually reaches 23-35 m. The length of the needles reaches 25 mm and has a comb-like arrangement. The upper part of the needles is dark green, shiny, with light stripes in the lower part. Balsam fir has its own structural features – the absence of resin passages in the wood. They are concentrated in the bark, unlike other conifers. In addition, the plant has a superficial root system. The average lifespan of a tree is over 200 years.

Did you know? The medicinal properties of balsam fir are very popular; medicines are made from all of its parts. Bark, needles, buds, resin, as well as essential oil obtained from the plant are widely used in medicine.

Seed method

If the grower was able to get seeds from high-lying cones, then you can try to propagate the typical species in a generative way.

  1. In winter, the seed is kept in refrigerators for stratification.
  2. In mid-spring, the seeds are planted 2 cm deep and covered with a film that prevents crusting.
  3. When shoots appear, the beds are loosened and watered.
  4. In winter, in the first year, the seedlings are covered with spruce branches.
  5. And in the spring, new rooted specimens are planted in a permanent place of growth.

Popular varieties of balsamic fir

In nature, there are more than twenty varieties of balsam fir, including wild and cultivated forms.

The most popular for growing in summer cottages are dwarf, slow-growing varieties:

  • Kiwi – slow-growing, dwarf shrub up to 50 cm high. It has a rounded crown and dark green, dense, shiny needles, relatively short. Young trees have a bluish color of needles. Popular in small, rocky or rockeries or rockeries, it is an ideal form for growing in pots.
  • Nana – dwarf, slow-growing shrub with a height of 50 cm to 1 m. The crown is rounded, up to 2 m in diameter. It has spreading, dense, horizontal branches. The needles are dense, dark green, short with blue-white stripes at the bottom. This shade-tolerant and frost-resistant variety of balsam fir is easy to plant and care for. Looks great in containers, rocky gardens and terraces.
  • Gudzonia – one of the most common firs, also dwarf. It has very dense branches and short, flat needles, painted black-green above and bluish-green below. Bred in the USA, New Hampshire, where it grows in the upper forests.
  • Piccolo – a highly decorative, miniature variety, the height of the tree does not exceed 30-50 cm. It has a rounded dark green crown, rich in color. Young shrubs of light green color. Great for alpine slides, container landings.
  • Green Globe – a small coniferous plant with very dense and soft dark green needles. The height of an adult fir is up to 1 m. The crown is even, spherical, and does not require pruning. Plants alone to decorate lawns, alpine slides and rocky gardens, and grows well in containers.

In the landscape

Buttermilk looks great in the alleys. Plants are often used for hedging. The decorative properties of balsamic fir makes it attractive singly and in group plantings. Also, the plant is combined with other trees.

Description of balsamic fir Nana, planting and caring for it

Under natural conditions, the plant grows remarkably in the coastal area, so it is ideal for planting near water bodies. When building a personal plot, it must be remembered that 2 varieties of plants are in demand in landscape design – Hudsonia and Nana. Wonderful decorative trees will be a real decoration of the site.

Features of planting balsam fir

The peculiarities of growing a plant consist in timely planting, since planting balsam fir is preferable in spring than in autumn.

Selecting a landing site

Balsam fir is a shade-loving culture, so for planting it, you should choose shaded areas of the site – shade or partial shade. It is good if there is a pond near the place chosen for the fir.

What kind of soil does balsam fir like?

Balsam fir

Since it is quite difficult to grow fir on heavy soil, you will need to arrange a 20 cm layer of drainage from fine rubble or small broken bricks. Then, on top of the drainage layer, it is necessary to pour a mixture of complex mineral fertilizers with rotted sawdust. It should also be borne in mind that although balsam fir and loves well-moistened soils, it does not tolerate stagnant water.

Diseases and pests

Description of balsamic fir Nana, planting and caring for it

Symptoms: a dangerous type of aphid that causes the needles to turn yellow.

Methods of struggle:

  1. In the spring, treat with Rogor or Antio solutions.
  2. Take 10 g of the drug for 20 liters of water

Description of balsamic fir Nana, planting and caring for it

Symptoms: red spots began to appear on the shoots, the needles turned yellow.

Methods of struggle:

  1. Remove all affected areas.
  2. Treat the trimmed places with garden pitch.
  3. Spray the crown with a 2% solution of Bordeaux liquid

Planting balsam fir

To plant balsam fir in the country, you will need seedlings of at least four years.

Landing takes place in April, and it is better to choose a rainy or cloudy day for this. Two weeks before planting, you need to dig a hole of about 60x60x60 cm, depending on the size of the root system of the seedling. Then 2-3 buckets of water are poured into the pit and, after it is absorbed, the bottom is dug onto a half-bayonet of a shovel.

Lay a five-centimeter layer of drainage from crushed stone or bricks and fill it halfway with the substrate. A composition of 3 parts of humus, 2 parts of clay, peat and sand in 1 part, 10 kg of sawdust and 0,2-0,3 kg of nitrophosphate is well suited. Two weeks after the soil settles in the hole, place the seedling in it so that the root collar remains level with the surface of the plot. Then straighten the roots and fill the hole with the remaining half of the substrate, compact the planting and water. If you want to grow a balsam fir alley, then the plantings should be located at a distance of 4-5 m from each other.

General characteristics

Balsam fir is originally native to North America. On the territory of this country, this plant is quite common, and most often the tree grows in swampy places. The most favorable for the plant is a cool climate of high humidity, but high temperatures and heat are destructive for fir.

In natural conditions and in natural habitats, the tree can reach 25 meters in height and 0,8 meters in diameter. The outer covering of the trunk is brown bark. The root system is not very deep, on the contrary, it is close to the surface of the earth.

The fir of this variety was called balsamic due to the fact that the tree emits a specific aromatic resin, which, among other things, has healing and medicinal properties. The tree has an unusual cone-shaped crown. The branches themselves are quite thin, but long and close to each other, so sometimes you can see specimens of balsam fir, the branches of which hang almost to the surface of the earth. The branches are covered with needles, the length of which can vary from 1,5 to 2,5 centimeters. By themselves, these needles are not sharp, since there is a small notch at their tips.

Thanks to these properties, everyone has the opportunity to hold balsamic fir in their hands without any discomfort.

Fir of this variety also has cones, which are located at the very top of the tree in small and compact groups. Interestingly, the buds change color over time. At first, they have a slight purple tint, and then they can acquire brown tones. In the fall, the buds release the seeds needed for the plant to reproduce. Balsam fir is a plant that has the status of a long-liver, as it can grow up to 300 years.

It is important to take into account that the growth rate of the tree is rather low and is only 1 meter in 10 years.

Features of caring for balsam fir

But in harsh climatic conditions, with a sharp change in temperature, frostbite of the trunk of a tree is quite often observed. Therefore, for the winter, you will need to cover the young plantings of the plant with spruce branches. It is also worth remembering that fir has a shallow root system, which makes the plant unstable, because of this, it is often damaged by strong gusts of wind.

Watering the plants and caring for the soil

Despite its relatively high drought resistance, balsam fir responds well to regular watering.

In the summer, a weekly sprinkling of the tree crowns is recommended. In spring, 2-3 irrigations are enough with up to 15-20 liters of water at a time.
After watering, loosening of the soil will be required, as well as timely removal of weeds.

Top dressing of balsamic fir

Balsam fir

The plant needs feeding only 2-3 years after planting. In the spring, you will need to add 100-125 g of “Kemira Universal” to the trunk circle.

Important! Make sure that the mulch layer does not touch or cover the root collar of the balsam fir.

How to shape the crown of a fir

Balsam fir does not require special care, however, to grow a lush coniferous beauty in the garden, periodic sanitary pruning will be required.

It is carried out in spring, before the active movement of juices begins. Old, dry and damaged branches are removed with garden shears. Decorative pruning in order to form the crown is done if necessary, since the fir has a neat and correct crown by nature.
But if there is a need to correct the shape, this must be done by shortening the shoots by no more than a third of the length.

Reproduction of an evergreen tree

Fir can be propagated by seeds and cuttings.

Cutting

To preserve varietal qualities, a vegetative propagation method is used, in which:

  1. For harvesting cuttings, annual shoots with an apical bud on the north side of the tree are selected.
  2. The process of cutting cuttings 8 cm long with heels is carried out in the spring on a cloudy day.
  3. The container is filled with a mixture of peat, sand and leafy earth in equal parts.
  4. The planting material is buried in the substrate and covered with caps.
  5. The container is transferred to a bright place, from where it moves to the air in the summer.
  6. In winter, the container with cuttings is kept in the cellar, and in the middle of next spring it is again taken out into the street.
  7. Cuttings take root only in the second year.
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Anna Evans

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