Growing seedlings of shepherdia silvery
Shepherdia silver looks good in solo and group plantings. Its beautiful foliage makes a nice contrast to the conifers. Bright red berries give the plant a special decorative effect.
Saplings are planted in open ground in autumn or spring. The depth of the holes is 65 cm, the distance between the plants is 1,5-1,8 m. The seedlings are watered abundantly, and the trunk circle is covered with mulch – peat or humus.
Shepherdia’s flowers are modest but attractive
The branches are covered with thorns, so this plant can also be used to create a dense and inaccessible hedge. In this case, the landing pattern looks like this:
- at a distance of 60−70 cm from each other in one row;
- at a distance of 70-90 cm from each other in a checkerboard pattern.
The culture is distinguished by good frost resistance and undemanding soil composition. This is facilitated by the peculiarity of the root system of the tree – small tubers with microorganisms that assimilate nitrogen directly from the air. Thanks to this, the culture can grow and develop well even in poor rocky areas.
The plant can be shaped like a tree or a bush. Since the branches grow quickly, they need to be pruned in a timely manner. With age, the tree grows more slowly, so pruning can be done less often, about once every 4-5 years. This rejuvenating pruning accelerates the growth of shoots, has a positive effect on the quantity and quality of the fruit.
Shepherdia is propagated by seeds, cuttings or root suckers. Seed propagation is a laborious and time-consuming process, other methods are easier and simpler.
How Shepherdia silver bears fruit
To get a bountiful harvest, you need to plant several female plants and at least one male tree at the same time. Belonging to one sex or another is easy to determine by the shape of the flower buds. If the buds are large and round, then this is a male plant. Female specimens have oblong, with a pointed tip, flower buds.
Shepherdia saplings enter fruiting at the age of 2-3
The tree bears fruit regularly and abundantly. But old trees bear fruit better: from them you can collect 35-40 kg of berries. A maximum of 25 kg of fruit can be harvested from a young tree.
The berries are harvested in September. They are easily detached from the branches, so to save time, you can simply shake them off on the foil spread under the plant.
Shepherdia is an ornamental plant with useful fruits. Therefore, it is worth planting at least a few seedlings on the site.