Dogwood: planting and care in the open field

Common dogwood is a paradoxical plant. It is unpretentious and able to grow on any soil, but this applies to an adult dogwood or its cuttings / root offspring. The common dogwood can be grown from seed, but is a very fussy plant early in life.

Of the berry bushes, this plant blooms first, and ripens last. The berries look already ripe, but in fact it is still a long time before ripening. The fruits of this plant were considered medicinal. Now they are used in folk medicine.

Dogwood: plant description

Deciduous medium-sized plant from a small dogwood family. The second name of dogwood is male deren. The root system of derain is located near the surface of the earth, fibrous. The leaves are large, 3,5-8 cm long. The location on the branch is opposite. The leaf shape is simple. The color is bright green. The leaf has 3-5 pairs of veins.

The fruit is an oval-shaped drupe of dark brown, almost black color. The berries of the common wild dogwood have relatively little pulp. It is less juicy and more dense than the fruits of cultural forms of derain.

The fruits of the garden dogwood are very large, juicy. They can be of different shapes:

• pear-shaped;
• spherical;
• oval.

Ripe berries are very dark in color. A more common belief is that dogwood berries are red. In fact, the picking of turf berries is carried out very early, while the fruits are still firm. Ripe berries are dark brown, almost black in color and burst easily.

The surface of the berries in the male derain is shiny, smooth. Perhaps the wrong structure of the fetus, then the berry will look bumpy. Ripe berries of common dogwood in the photo below.

Depending on the variety of garden deren, the weight of the berry ranges from 2 to 6 g. The percentage of pulp to the total weight of the fruit: in the wild 68%, in the garden 88%.

The natural habitat of the common wild dogwood is the southern regions. Thickets of plants are found throughout the South-Western part of Our Country. The most favorable conditions for male derain are in the mountains and foothills of the Caucasus and Crimea.

Common wild dogwood did not take root well in gardeners’ summer cottages, as it is essentially an undergrowth and requires forest soil for successful growth. Also, male deren could not be bred to the north of natural habitats.

Dogwood is a tree or shrub

Botanists often like to play a trick on non-specialists by asking a question about one or another representative of the flora: is it a shrub or a tree. To the amazement of ordinary people, a tree often turns out to be a bush, and a bush is actually a tree. With an ordinary dogwood, you can also joke like that. Initially, dogwood is a shrub 3-5 meters high. But on nutrient-rich soil, the strongest shoot can grow and turn into a tree 5-6 m high.

Dogwood compatibility with other trees

Gardeners know that many trees do not tolerate neighborhood with each other. The main enemy of all fruit trees is the walnut. But other plants are not always friendly. For example, a pear should not be planted next to a cherry. Due to the fact that the dogwood is still a somewhat exotic garden dweller, there is almost no compatibility data for it.

It is guaranteed that you can plant dogwood of different varieties next to each other. The compatibility is perfect. According to unverified data, plantings of a young dogwood can be placed under an adult apricot. What will happen in the reverse situation, no one knows. According to other gardeners, dogwood can be planted under almost any fruit tree, as it even prefers shady places. What the trees under which the owner planted a new plant “think” about this is not specified.

It is very doubtful that the dogwood bush is the only one of all that can grow under a walnut. In nature, in nature, walnut and turf do not touch.

Frost resistance dogwood

The plant is distinguished not only by relatively good drought resistance, but also by high frost resistance. Common dogwood is able to withstand frosts down to -35 ° C, which makes it possible to grow garden varieties of male deren in the northern regions. But in Siberia it will not be possible to grow a dogwood tree, since more severe frosts often occur there. Because of this, only the shrub form of derain is possible. When the ground part freezes, the plant recovers by sprouting from the roots.

Dogwood: from flowering to ripening

In addition to the official botanical names, the common dogwood has one more thing: devil’s berry. There is a legend about the origin of the name associated with the timing of flowering and ripening of dogwood fruits.

When Allah created the world and decided to rest, during his sleep, all living beings fled to the Gardens of Eden and began to divide the plants. There was a noise, a din, a fight began. Allah did not like this, and he demanded that everyone choose only one plant for themselves. Among those who wanted to get something useful for themselves, there was also a shaitan. And the shaitan asked for dogwood, considering himself the most cunning. After all, the common dogwood blooms before all other berry plants.

It really is. The flowering period of this plant is in April at an air temperature of 8-12°C. The flowers of the male deren are small, yellow. Umbelliferous inflorescences. The number of flowers in the umbrella 15-25. Flowers have 4 stamens and a pistil, that is, they are bisexual. Petals 4. Flowering lasts 10-14 days. Common dogwood blooming in the photo is a specimen from the forest. Garden varieties of derain do not look so beautiful.

“Early flowering of dogwood is an early harvest,” thought the shaitan. The first berry is highly valued, you can get a lot of money on it. Why does Satan need money, the legend is silent. He sat down under a tree to wait for his harvest of early berries. Summer has passed, all other fruits and berries have already ripened, and the dogwood is all green.

Satan decided to speed up the ripening of fruits (that’s when this technology was born) and began to blow on the berries. The dogwood turned bright red, but remained very sour and hard. Annoyed by the failure of the super-profitable business, the shaitan told people to take this muck for themselves, and spat in annoyance. So much so that the dogwood berries turned black.

And now, in late autumn, after harvesting the entire crop in the gardens, people went to the forest for dogwood berries. They collected black, but sweet berries, and laughed at the shaitan.

In fact, the common dogwood ripens not so late. The dates for harvesting the fruits of the male derain are the end of August – September. And it is impossible to delay the cleaning, as the berries fall to the ground.

And then everything was attributed to the shaitan, since he was very offended that he gave his berry to people. The next year, Satan managed to double the cornelian crop. People rejoiced at this. But for the ripening of such a number of deren fruits, it took twice as much solar heat as well. And the sun, which gave off all the heat during the summer, could not warm the earth in the winter. Since then, there has been a sign that if the common dogwood is well born, then the winter will be cold.

dogwood pollination

Although the common dogwood has bisexual flowers, pollination does not occur on one plant. Common dogwood needs a pollinator to produce a crop. The wind acts as a pollinator of the male derain at low temperatures, so it is necessary to plant at least two specimens of different varieties in the garden in order for cross-pollination to occur.

Common dogwood is a strict cross-pollinated plant, so you can plant two turf bushes of the same variety, but these seedlings must be from different mother bushes. The easiest way to get a guaranteed harvest from a plant is to plant a wild forest bush next to a male garden variety of deren.

If the turf is pollinated by wind, the yield will be low. Other pollinators of common dogwood are honey bees. If they are available, the owner of the garden is guaranteed an annual rich harvest of derain berries.

How the garden dogwood blooms

The flowering of garden varieties of male derain is the same as that of the wild ancestor. Due to the fact that summer cottages are usually protected from cold winds and have their own microclimate, garden turf can bloom even earlier than a wild plant. In the northern regions, the deren may begin to bloom too early and, as a result, not bear fruit.

When the dogwood is harvested

Cultivated common dogwood can be not only of different colors and shapes, but also have early, mid- and late-ripening varieties. Early varieties of male derain begin to bear fruit in the second half of August, late – in mid-October. Therefore, the timing of harvesting berries from the male derain bushes in the garden can stretch for 2 months, if you choose the right varieties.

Common dogwood does not ripen very well and unripe ones come across among ripe berries. When harvesting berries “for yourself”, you will have to pick the same plant several times.

The yield of male deren depends on age.

How to propagate dogwood

Reproduction of common dogwood occurs in 5 ways:

• seeds;
• vaccination;
• cuttings;
• layering;
• root offspring.

The first method is the most time-consuming and unreliable. The second fastest in terms of getting berries from a newly planted plant. The remaining 3 require a minimum of gardening skills.

Reproduction by seeds

In this way, it is easiest to grow male deren if the fruits were still green. The bones are buried directly with the pulp in the ground, watered well and they hope that in a few years the shell will rot and the stone will sprout.

The use of ripe turf berries implies some procedures that require a certain skill and accuracy, but allow accelerating the germination of the common dogwood. And still, the process of growing male derain will take several years:

• ripe fruits are poured with warm water and left for several days to ferment;
• after a few days, bones are taken out of the softened pulp, washed with water and put in sawdust in a cold place (refrigerator) for 1,5 years;
• in the second year at the end of February, the seeds are taken out of the refrigerator and placed near the battery for heating for a week;
• during the warm-up time they prepare the soil for planting: one part of sand, compost and fertile soil (preferably forest from under wild dogwood);
• the bones for accelerated germination must be carefully incised, and here the accuracy of the hand and accuracy will be required;
• after planting, the soil is watered, the containers are covered with foil and placed in a warm place.

When the turf sprouts appear, the film is removed, and the containers are placed so as to protect them from direct sunlight.

Seedlings of male deren are planted in a permanent place after the onset of stable warm weather. And also in the shade or partial shade.

You can simply plant deren seeds in May directly into the ground to a depth of 3 cm and wait until seedlings appear. To create more favorable conditions, the landing site is covered with a film.

Cuttings

Annual shoots are cut from the mother plant in the middle of summer. The lower leaves are removed from them by 1/3 and soaked in a stimulator for the growth of the root system for 5 hours. After that, they are planted in a shaded place. By autumn, about half of the cuttings of the male derain take root.

In autumn, cuttings are harvested from lignified shoots of male deren, which are stored in the refrigerator until spring. In the spring they are planted in a permanent place, after soaking in a root system stimulator.

Layers

The method is suitable for a bush, since it is very difficult to bend down a young shoot from a tree. It does not require any knowledge, special skills and fertilizers.

In the spring, one- and two-year-old shoots of the male deren are bent to the ground and covered with soil. There are two ways to propagate common dogwood by layering:

• horizontal;
• arcuate.

With a horizontal shoot, the plants are completely covered with soil. With an arcuate, only the middle of the layer is sprinkled with soil, leaving the top outside. The procedure is carried out in the spring. By autumn, the shoots of deren take root and can be separated from the mother plant and planted in a permanent place.

The difference between these methods is that many small seedlings can be obtained from horizontal cutting, since common dogwood takes root from each pair of buds. One “goes” to the roots, and the steam room sprouts.

With the arcuate method, only one seedling is obtained from each cutting of the deren. But this seedling will be older and will yield earlier.

Inoculation

Suitable for the region where wild common dogwood grows. It is used if you need to quickly grow a garden variety of male deren. With this method of reproduction, only a tree is obtained, since all the “wild” shoots of the male deren must be cut annually. In this case, a standard plant is formed.

Budding is carried out in the autumn, as the spring vaccination in the common dogwood does not take root well. The budding technique is the same as for other plants. If everything is done correctly, then the petiole of the leaf will fall off only after 3-4 days. After 1,5 months, the strapping is removed. In the spring, all new wild shoots are pruned from the grafted dogwood, leaving only the grafted.

Planting and caring for dogwood in the open field

Common dogwood belongs to plants that prefer to grow in open ground, since its root system, although it does not go deep into the ground, grows widely near the surface.

Planting and caring for common dogwood are almost the same as for other fruit plants. The bush is looked after as a shrub form. Seedlings are planted, making sure that the root system of the deren is preserved as best as possible. The more small roots the seedling has preserved, the better the male deren will take root and will give a harvest earlier.

But if caring for an already established plant is simple, then planting is a very crucial moment, since at this time the common dogwood is very vulnerable to external factors and water shortages.

Where to plant dogwood

For planting, choose a site in partial shade. Wild dogwood can grow in direct sunlight, but prefers shaded areas. For young shoots of male derain grown from seeds, the sun’s rays are contraindicated.

The site is chosen in the southwest. Preferably with a slight slope of 5-10° to drain excess rainwater. Groundwater should be at a depth of 1,5-2 m.

You need several bushes and the planting area of ​​this plant should be large. The average indicators for one bush are 6×6 m. On rich soils with irrigation, the feeding area for one plant can be 5×4 m. For poor soils without irrigation – 7×7 m.

What kind of soil does dogwood like

Common dogwood requires light soils with good water permeability. Well suited sandy soil. If you focus on natural conditions, then you need a soil with a large amount of half-decayed plant residues that pass water well and supply the bushes with nutrients.

How to plant dogwood

Having found a suitable site, they dig a hole under the seedling, 0,6 m deep. The plants are quite small, but the hole is needed to fill it with ordinary soil suitable for dogwood.

Since the plant needs a specific microflora, the bacteria will be able to multiply in the fertile soil that fills the pit.

When planting, the root neck is slightly deepened, since after watering the earth will settle and the neck will rise flush with the ground. After planting, the seedling is abundantly watered with water, compacting the soil. If the neck is too high out of the soil, add additional soil.

When does dogwood begin to bear fruit after planting

The fruiting time directly depends on the method of propagation of the plant. When growing from seeds, the first harvest must be expected no earlier than 8 years after the appearance of sprouts. In the first years, the development of the root system takes place and the young shoots are not up to fruiting.

A grafted tree can produce the first berries the very next year after planting, but the harvest will be small.

With vegetative propagation by offspring, it all depends on how old the seedling is. Harvest can be both next year and after 3-4 years. When propagated by cuttings, the harvest will be 3-4 years later.

dogwood transplant

Since common dogwood grows only in the open air and lives for 150 years, the best option would be to plant it in a permanent place where it will not interfere with other plants for a long time. And leave alone. But if there is a serious need to transplant a plant, then it should be dug out with a large clod of earth in order to damage the root system as little as possible. The plant is large and you will have to use a winch or crane to move it to a new place.

The excavated plant is carefully transferred to the newly prepared hole and covered with new soil, observing the same precautions as when planting young seedlings. Transplant in the fall, when the plant goes into hibernation.

How to care for dogwood

Caring for an established plant consists in the timely removal of weeds, loosening the soil and feeding the plant if necessary.

There are more worries with young and fragile sprouts. Before wintering, the soil under the seedlings of the first year is mulched to protect the roots from freezing. Later, after the plants hibernate, they are covered with spruce branches. In the spring, the insulation is removed in stages. First, the seedlings are freed from spruce branches. Mulch can not be removed, but when loosening, mix it with the ground.

For mulching, natural materials are used:

• sawdust;
• fallen leaves;
• grass;
• peat.

Organics, rotting, will provide common dogwood with nutrients.

How to feed dogwood

Common dogwood has adapted to grow on rather poor soil. On the one hand, territories close to the seas are not rich in nutrients. These substances simply have nowhere to come from where the sea was relatively recently. But these same areas are rich in calcium deposits. Although the common dogwood is a forest shrub, the forest litter is not very nutritious if it has not already turned into black soil.

In summer cottages, fallen leaves are removed to avoid infection of plants with pathogenic microflora. No matter how poor the soil on which the common wild dogwood normally grows, it will lack nutrients in the country. Therefore, in spring and autumn, fertilizers are applied to the soil around the plant. Although in small quantities:

• phosphorus 30 g per sq. m in autumn;
• potash at 12 g per sq.m and nitrogen at 18 g per sq.m in autumn.

Organics contribute at the rate of 2-3 kg per sq. m. The soil is dug to a depth of 10 cm.

 How to water dogwood

Young seedlings are watered relatively often in the first year, since after transplanting the bushes often suffer from a lack of moisture. An established adult plant usually does not need watering, except in a particularly dry and hot summer.

How to cut dogwood

In a grafted dogwood seedling, crown formation is carried out in the first few years of life. The stem is made about 70 cm in height, leaving 5-7 main branches. The shoots below are completely cut off. Later, only sanitary pruning of the crown is carried out, removing damaged and dry branches, as well as extra branches that thicken the crown.

The shrub is thinned out as needed. Ordinary planned pruning of dogwood is carried out in the fall, after the start of the dormant period. Also, after 20 years, the berry is rejuvenated. But even here, in order to properly trim the common dogwood for rejuvenation, it is enough just to cut off 4-year-old shoots. In this case, many new shoots are formed.

To maintain a decorative look, pruning will have to be done every year, without caring about the harvest.

The nuances of growing dogwood in the regions

If the cultivation and care of the common dogwood in its habitat does not present any particular difficulties, then with the more northern regions, not everything is so simple. Garden varieties are now grown even in the St. Petersburg region, and there it is not enough just to plant a dogwood seedling and take care of it. In other regions, not only the climate does not correspond to the usual for common dogwood, but the soil often lacks the necessary trace elements.

In the middle lane of Our Country

Planting and caring for dogwood in the Middle lane differs from the southern regions in that in this territory you need to choose a sunny place that is not blown by the winds and is well warmed by the sun. But even in this case, the bush does not grow above 1,5 m and usually does not bear fruit. The latter is due to too early flowering.

The common dogwood has a protective mechanism: when the temperature drops, the flowers fold back into buds. But this only works with small and short frosts. In addition, pollinating bees do not fly at this time.

A photo of how the common dogwood blooms during frosts with icing of the branches.

In outskirts of Moscow

There are no special varieties for the Moscow region. For the cultivation of dogwood in the Moscow region, you can use the frost-resistant varieties of common dogwood bred in Ukraine, applying the agricultural technology of the Middle Strip to them:

• Eugene;
• Coral Brand;
• Nikolka;
• Vladimirsky;
• Grenadier;
• Elena;
• Lukyanovsky.

You can go the long way and dedicate your life to breeding your own version of the hardy dogwood.

To do this, it is enough to grow several generations of dogwood bushes from seeds. The first generation is grown from purchased seed, subsequent ones will be homegrown. In a few generations, it will be possible to obtain specimens that will not be afraid of frosts near Moscow. And such instances already exist. Such a male deren was grown by Vladimir Vasilyevich Nikolaev, a resident of Moscow Region, an experienced gardener who was carried away by the issue of adapting the common dogwood in the north. The flower buds of the dogwood near Moscow bloom 10-20 days later than those of the southern ancestor.

In the Leningrad region

The Leningrad region is distinguished by an excess of groundwater, and the common dogwood does not tolerate waterlogging. When planting dogwood in the Leningrad Region, a well-drained area is first equipped, on which water will not linger.

The second feature of agricultural technology is the provision of daylight hours in spring, which will be longer than natural. Otherwise, flower buds may not bloom. The probability of getting a harvest is very small due to the absence of bees at this time.

Otherwise, agricultural technology in the Leningrad region is the same as in the Middle lane.

In the Urals

Due to the harsh winters for the southern bush, the common dogwood can freeze. Even if the roots survive the winter, new shoots will not produce a crop. Therefore, for the winter, turf in the Urals must be covered.

Even if the bush does not grow above 1-1,5 m, these are already long enough lashes for shelter in winter. And the tree, in general, will be impossible to close.

Dogwood is closed for the winter, bending the shoots to the ground. After that, they are covered with any heat-retaining material, since before a stable snow cover, the soil in open space can be even colder than the air. In order to save space, the bushes are bent to one side, although with sufficient areas, the shoots can be spread even in a circle. It is difficult to bend down old lignified trunks, therefore such branches are periodically cut off, leaving younger and more flexible shoots.

Just like Central Our Country, the Ural land is poor in surface deposits of calcium. Before planting seedlings and subsequently in the soil where the dogwood grows, it is necessary to periodically add lime. In this area, common dogwood is planted only on the southern, southeastern and southwestern slopes, which are well lit by the sun. Unlike the southern regions, in the Urals, turf does not grow in shady places.

In Siberia

Planting and caring for dogwood in Siberia are carried out in the same way as in the Urals, but frost-resistant garden varieties are chosen for breeding:

• Elegant;
• Pink;
• Vavilovets;
• Glowworm;
• Joy.

Since it takes 2 years for seed germination, it is better to plant dogwood seedlings.

Why dogwood does not bear fruit

Common dogwood does not bear fruit for many reasons:

• planted bushes are clones, that is, they come from one mother plant;
• absence of pollinating bees during flowering;
• lack of nutrients in the soil (very rarely happens);
• waterlogging;
• overdrying of the soil
• inadequate growing season.

If the summer is dry, then you can not be zealous with fertilizers. Due to the lack of water in the soil, the concentration of salts there is already increased. Additionally, fertilization will provoke the “sucking” of moisture from the roots, which will only exacerbate the problem.

Dogwood diseases

It is believed that male deren is not susceptible to diseases. At least in the northern regions. In fact, there are no living organisms that are not prone to certain diseases. Fungal diseases and pests in common dogwood are the same as in other fruit trees.

Fungal diseases that affect male deren:

• parshey (ventura cerasi);
• fruit rot (Monilia fructigena). More often affects fruits during long-term storage;
• powdery mildew (Erysiphales);
• leaf spot caused by three types of fungi: Ascochuta cornicola, Cercospora cornicola, Septoria cornicola;
• brown bordered spotting (Ramularia angustissima);
• dark brown spotting (Fusicladium pyracanthae);
• fruit rot (Colletotrichum corni);
• rust (fungus Fungosporangium chavarieformae).

Below in the photo is what rust looks like on a male derain sheet.

Methods for combating fungi are common to all plants: spraying leaves with fungicides.

In addition to fungi, the plant can infect such a large organism as the false tinder fungus (Fomes igniarius), which causes rot of healthy parts of the plant. The only way to get rid of the tinder fungus is to completely cut down all infected plants and burn them. Since male turf can grow from the root, all root systems of affected plants will also have to be removed.

Of the insects of the male deren plant, they eat:

• snail worm;
• micro fruiting body;
• multicolor caterpillar.

Ordinary methods of exterminating insect pests in gardens will also protect male sods from them. Insects are natural enemies of the common dogwood and indeed may not be found in the northern regions.

The leaves of the common dogwood curl not because of illness, but because of drought and on hot days. If by the evening the foliage of the male deren has unfolded, then everything is in order. If not, the plant needs to be watered.

Conclusion

Common dogwood in the northern regions is a very beautiful ornamental plant, even if it is impossible to get a crop from it. To the south of the man’s deren is not only a decoration of the garden, but also an opportunity to get tasty healthy berries. Given the modern colors of berries, the dogwood plantation will also look very elegant.