Ornamental vegetation is one of the best ways to decorate a garden or summer house. Designers especially like to use undersized shrubs and trees of medium height for the design of sites. One of these plants, known and loved all over the world, is a gray Canadian spruce.

Botanical Description

Canadian spruce Alberta Globe (there is a description of Alberta Globe or Globa) was bred in 1967 by the Dutch breeder K. Shtrengom in the nursery of the city of Boscop as a result of a natural mutation with a common blue spruce of spruce. The new variety had an unusual crown shape - not conical, but rounded. The botanical name for this shrub is Alberta Globe (Picea Glauca). Sometimes, such names as Globa, Blue or Glauk are used to describe this plant, it is also called white or simply gray. An ordinary Canadian spruce can grow up to 40 m in height, but the dwarf form of Alberta Globe reaches a height of only 1 m. There is no exact explanation of the origin of the name of the bush.

Like relatives, Alberta grows every year for 15-17 years. The annual growth of the crown in the girth of 1 cm, and the increase per year in height 1-2 cm. In the tenth year of life, a growth jump is sometimes observed. Ten-year-old spruces usually have a perfect rounded shape, a fluffy and thick crown with soft needles of saturated green color. Branches are hard to see due to the density and density of needles. The trunk circumference of this shrub is 40 cm. The maximum height of the plant is 1.2 m. If you do not cut the bush, over time the round shape will begin to become more elongated, conical. Cones are small, up to 3 cm in length, infrequent, have a light brown color and an elongated shape.

In young plants, the needles are light green, darkens over time and becomes more saturated and bright. This shrub has an intense aroma reminiscent of the smell of black currant. The needles are thin and soft, they are softer than ordinary conifers. Alberta's frost resistance is high. With the right haircut, the bush grows densely, forms beautiful hedges and is used in landscape design in the northern countries. The plant will be an excellent substitute for flowers, revitalize the landscape and give the site beauty.

Landing

Globa's favorite soil is slightly acidic or neutral, with good drainage. The coniferous plant does not like an excess of moisture and stagnation of water after irrigation. Landing Albert Globe is a rather complicated process.

It is carried out in stages:

• dig a hole measuring 60 × 70 cm;
• lay on the bottom a layer of drainage of expanded clay, 20 cm thick;
• preparing a nutritious soil mixture of sand, peat and clay in equal proportions, also add 100 g of Nitroammophos fertilizer to the soil;
• the seedling is taken directly with an earthen lump on the roots, and then placed in a landing pit.

After the first stage of planting spruce in the ground, the following actions should be performed:

1. Press the ground around the seedling with your foot.
2. Form an earthen rampart at the trunk.
3. Pour a bucket of water on each planted plant.
4. Add a layer of acid peat 5 cm thick under the tree trunk.

Important! Before planting, the roots of the seedling in the pot are moistened and transplanted in this state. Sacking, which closed the roots, do not remove.

Spruce care

High-quality care of gray Canadian spruce is the proper feeding, regular watering, as well as mulching and loosening of the soil. Necessary hygienic procedures include cleaning the crown and preparing the plant for wintering.

Watering and feeding

After transferring the seedling to the soil, it should be watered a little every day so that the soil does not dry out. Further watering is carried out 1-2 times a week, depending on the actual dryness of the soil. It is also recommended to irrigate needles during irrigation (from a garden hose by rain). Watering time - early in the morning or after sunset. This is necessary for the complete drying of the needles and the prevention of sunburn. Fungi and parasites also actively multiply on wet needles, so excess watering is just as harmful as insufficient.

Fertilizing plants under 10 years of age is carried out regularly with special coniferous fertilizers. They are divided into autumn, spring and summer and are applied according to the instructions (most often they are bred in water and then applied to the crown from the spray gun). Dosage is always determined on the basis of 1 m², which corresponds to 1 m of the height of the tree. All trace elements are better absorbed by spruce if applied by spraying. The regularity of feeding is not more than 1 time in 14 days.

Did you know? Coniferous needles contain a record amount of vitamin C. Carpathian healers treated such infusions with scurvy and lung diseases, including tuberculosis.

Means for autumn dressing:

• compost;
• vermicompost.

Preparations for spring dressing:

• "Floravit";
• "Osmokot";
• "Bona Forte."

Loosening and mulching

The loosening process for such trees is rather complicated due to the lower branches tightly attached to the ground. Despite the inconvenience, it is important to loosen the soil regularly in the first two years of a tree's life in the open ground. Gardeners recommend using miniature loosening tools.

The process is not very time consuming:

• lower branches are lifted by hands and loosen the soil shallow, so as not to damage the roots;
• then acid peat is poured under the crown and gently mulched with sawdust, foliage or needles with a layer of 15–20 cm.

This care retains moisture in the root zone and protects the soil from weeds and pests. Branches do not lie on ordinary bare ground, and parasites do not settle in the root space.

Pruning

Crohn needs a minimal but regular pruning. Also, a haircut is needed if a side shoot appears on the bush. It is immediately removed to avoid deformation of the plant, and also so that the branch does not go into growth and does not spoil the varietal qualities of Alberta. Without high-quality pruning, a coniferous tree from a selection tree will turn into an ordinary one in a few years. If the spruce is old, then instead of a spherical shape, it can take an elongated, cone-shaped. Such specimens are also saved by a haircut conducted at the end of March.

Crown cleaning

Crown cleaning is an important part of caring for Canadian greens. Due to the density of the plant mass, practically no water or light enters the branches, therefore, the crown needs to be thinned out regularly, and clean dead dead shoots. Also, dust and fallen needles accumulate inside the crown ball.

Important! The crown is cleaned with tight gloves and a respirator. This is due to the fact that the needles are sharp, and inside the coniferous ball there is a large amount of fine wood dust, harmful to the lungs.

The cleaning process is very simple:

• during watering or pruning, the gardener spreads the branches of the plant with his hands;
• removes all dry and damaged specimens with a small pruner or garden shears;
• slightly moisturizes the shtamb and the bush from the inside using a spray gun.

The regularity of such cleaning is three times a year. The first is carried out before the kidneys open, after winter, the second - two weeks after the spring prophylactic treatment with fungicides; the third - in the fall, before spraying the bush with copper sulfate.

Winter preparations

To make Canadian blue-gray spruce tolerate the cold season, it is worth preparing. To do this, young plants are covered with deadwood or use white agrofibre to cover. In the lower part of the bush, the insulation material is wrapped with twine so that the cover is not blown away by the wind. In addition to creating a physical barrier to cold on the surface of the crown, they also protect the soil at the roots. It is mulched, adding sour peat, which is dug in the spring. Also, before winter, any prepared autumn fertilizers for coniferous plants are applied to the soil once. Adult shrubs older than 5 years in mild winters can not be covered.

Possible diseases and pests

Alberta Globe is considered an unpretentious coniferous plant, but there are diseases and pests that it poorly resists.

These include insects:

• spider mite;
• Hermes
• spruce leaflet;
• aphid gall;
• nun butterfly.

The most common diseases of Canadian gray dwarf spruce:

• rust;
• Fusarium
• rot;
• necrosis of the surface of the cortex;
• woody cancer.

To eliminate all types of pests (except for ticks, acaricides are used for them) insects such as Fury, Actellik, Aktara, Commander, Bifentrin, Krona-Antip, Clipper are used in conifers. All of them are bred in water according to the instructions on the packaging, and then the trees are treated from a sprayer. To combat coniferous diseases, substances containing copper and standard fungicides are used, for example, KhOM, Abiga-Peak, Strobi, Fundazol. They are also bred according to the instructions.

Breeding

The process of reproduction in Canadian spruce is carried out in two ways - by cuttings or by grafting. It is also possible to grow a species plant from seeds, but this makes sense in a nursery close to ideal, it will take at least 4 years to complete such a process.

Did you know? If the spruce dies, a “clone” can grow from its roots. Some coniferous centenarians thus live for several thousand years.

The grafting process, like vaccination, is a difficult task even for experienced gardeners. A simple method of propagation is the rooting of the lower shoots, which have a maximum length of 12 cm. Such shoots are cut with the old bark and planted in special containers with soil of weak acidity. Before planting, all cuttings are lubricated with growth stimulants. Direct planting is carried out in a mixture of earth and sand or perlite.

Part of the shoot, located in the ground, is preliminarily cleared of needles. All landing buckets must have openings for draining water. Seedlings are placed in a greenhouse that is protected from the sun. They are well watered immediately after planting in the soil. When the cuttings take root (2-3 weeks), they are transferred to a mixture of peat, sand and turf. Only after 5 years, after the appearance of buds at the top of the spruces, they can be transplanted into the open ground.

The use of wood in landscape design

Designers are advised to place medium-sized shrubs on the middle and lower tiers of garden compositions, as well as along garden paths or at the gates when entering the territory of a summer residence, garden, private house. Alberta Globe can be grown both in Moscow and the Moscow Region, as well as in countries with a harsh climate, for example, in Norway, Iceland, Sweden and others. This bush is unpretentious, grows well in the shade and is easy to shape. The shrub goes well with any kind of flower except curly.

No flowers should be placed on the crown of the plant, since air must flow into the branches. The best blue-gray spruce looks in the so-called regular style. It implies the presence of strict lines, geometric shapes in the garden, hedges, labyrinths. White Globe spruce fits perfectly into the area of ​​the correct shape (rectangular or square). Mowing of bushes is carried out by a usual garden secateurs.

With quality care and top dressing, Canadian gray spruce will delight garden owners all year round with its pleasant fresh look and incredible needles. The shrub is trimmed regularly, the thicker and more beautiful it will become, and the easier the process of constant care of the plant goes through.