Contents
Tui planting technology in the fall with a step-by-step description is necessary information for beginners who want to save a tree in winter. Experienced people already know what to do and how to do it. When planting new plant species in your area, you first need to study the needs of the plant and how to care theoretically.
What kind of tree
The genus thuja has 5 species:
- Korean;
- folded / giant;
- Japanese/standish;
- western;
- Sichuan.
Korean thuja in the climate can only grow in a greenhouse. It is not used when decorating open-air gardens.
Sichuan thuja is endemic to China and is endangered. The plant is very rare and is not used for decorative plantings.
Storage camel
The folded thuja has an additional name: red cedar. It is not uncommon to add the definition of “Canadian” or “Western” to this name. This is a powerful tree. At the borders of the range, under adverse conditions, the folded thuja grows in a shrub form.
Folded thuja is cultivated as an ornamental tree in parks and gardens. For decorative purposes, three forms of this species are used:
- with dark green needles;
- with a “weeping” crown;
- with a cylindrical crown.
It is preferable to propagate this tree by seeds.
Japanese thuja
Under natural conditions, it grows up to 18 m. The crown is cone-shaped, loose. With candelabra branches. At home, thuja is grown for wood. In Europe, they are used for decorative purposes.
western thuja
Native of North America. This is a frost-resistant plant that can withstand colds down to -36 ° C. In parks, squares, in summer cottages, it is planted because of its decorative appearance.
The western thuja is propagated by green cuttings and seeds. For germination, seeds require mandatory stratification. The time at which thuja should be planted depends on the method of reproduction.
When to plant thuja: in autumn or spring
You can plant thuja in autumn and spring. If you plan to plant seeds, it must be borne in mind that the “spring” ones will not germinate without prior stratification for several months. To avoid unnecessary labor, seeds should be planted in the fall. In winter, they will undergo a natural stratification and germinate in the spring.
It is also better to plant seedlings in the fall, but so that they have time to take root. It is possible to plant in the spring, but then the tree will endure the first year very hard. Some spring seedlings are dying.
With cuttings is a rather complicated issue. Although the western thuja can propagate in this way, not all cuttings take root. Like seedlings, cuttings planted in a permanent place need time to root.
Tui planting dates in the fall
Seeds can be planted almost any time in the fall. If necessary, they can be “planted” in the frozen ground in winter. But then there may not be enough time for stratification.
But the plants were grown indoors, and not in the country. After a couple of years, the question arose of where to put the trees if no one needs all these twigs.
Saplings and cuttings that have taken root must be planted so that the arborvitae have time to take root before frost. In the southern regions, thuja is advised to plant in autumn in October. You can plant trees in mid-October. In the northern regions, it is better not to rely on the frost resistance of thuja, but to plant them early: at the end of August or in September.
Is it possible to plant thuja in October, in November
In the southern regions, October is the main and most favorable time for planting thuja. In November, even in the south, you can only plant if they promise positive temperatures until January.
In the northern latitudes, frosts in autumn occur as early as October. In such regions, it is better to plant thuja at the very beginning of autumn or at the end of summer.
How to plant thuja in autumn
In autumn, thuja is planted in exactly the same way as in spring. That is, they dig a hole of the appropriate size, fill it with prepared soil, and then plant a plant. Much more important is the choice of landing site. Although there are no differences between autumn and spring. After all, thujas are not planted for one year.
The only difference is watering. In the spring, thuja begins to grow and requires fairly frequent watering. In autumn, the trees most likely do not need to be watered at all. This function will be performed by rains.
Site selection and soil preparation
In the conditions of growing thuja there are interesting “buts”:
- moisture-loving, but tolerates drought well;
- shade-tolerant, but prefers the sun;
- undemanding to the structure of the soil, but prefers fertile or medium;
- at home it is a calcephile, that is, it needs a large amount of lime in the soil;
- does not tolerate salinity;
- requires a lot of nitrogen.
Taking into account these features, they choose a place for thuja and a soil mixture.
The depth of the roots of an adult tree is at least 76 cm. When choosing a place, you need to make sure that the groundwater during the spring flood will be lower. Otherwise, there is a risk of root rot.
A place for a thuja is chosen well-lit by the sun, but with the expectation that it will be in the shade for several hours a day. A decorative hedge is often made from thuja, and in this case the trees cover each other from the sun.
Ground
When preparing the soil for planting thuja, you need to not only take care of its fertility, but also add those substances that the tree especially needs: chalk and nitrogen.
The soil taken out of the pit is mixed with peat, black soil or humus. If the soil is clay, you can add sand. Chalk and ash are added to the mixture.
Seedlings preparation
If it is planned to plant seedlings purchased at the store along with a clod of earth, then their preparation consists in shaking them out of the pot and placing them in a prepared hole.
From the hands of the trees are sold without soil. And in this case, young thujas are carefully examined. Cut off all rotten roots and dried branches. Since the root system of the tree could dry out during the sale, the thuja is placed in a root system growth stimulator. The plant is kept in solution for 12 hours. Only after that the tree will be ready for planting.
Preparation of cuttings
It is not recommended to propagate thuja in spring and summer. The cuttings do not take root. The cuttings are rooted in autumn. Harvesting thuja cuttings has its own characteristics:
- for rooting, take either 2-3-year-old lignified shoots, or young lateral ones 50 cm long;
- a prerequisite is the presence of a “heel”.
By “heel” is meant a piece of old wood that broke off along with the shoot. The “heel” is obtained either by cutting it with a knife along with the shoot, or by sharply breaking off a branch so that it breaks along with a piece of the mother tree.
There is an opinion that rooting in water is inefficient, since there are few nutrients. For this reason, many gardeners prefer to root thuja immediately in flower pots. A cutting rooted in a pot is later planted in the same way as a seedling.
How to plant thuja in autumn
Sowing seeds does not require much labor, but then you will have to feed the growing tree more intensively than a seedling planted in prepared soil.
Tui seeds are small. By autumn, holes are prepared, about 20 cm deep, and filled with a fertile mixture. Seeds are buried to a depth of no more than a centimeter. Since the seeds should germinate only in the spring, they do not even need to be watered. With the onset of spring and the melting of snow, they will receive enough moisture.
But the disadvantage of this method is that it grows very slowly from thuja seeds. But the gardener will receive a tree well adapted to the conditions on his site.
From the point of view of convenience, it is easier to buy a grown seedling. The rules for planting thuja in the fall are the same as for other trees.
Prepared soil is poured into a dug hole with a diameter of 1 m and a depth of at least 70 cm so that a seedling with a clod of earth can be placed on top.
After that, the soil is poured into the pit, completely covering the root system. It is impossible to immerse the root collar in the soil, the thuja will rot. The soil is lightly compacted and watered well.
When planting, you need to remember that after watering and wintering, the soil will sag. In the spring, a depression forms around the thuja. It may also turn out that the root collar will be above ground level. In this case, you need to top up the soil.
When planting a seedling with a “bare” root system, the technique is different:
- soil is poured into the bottom of the pit;
- a thuja is placed on top of the resulting cone, straightening its roots so that they “wrap around” the ground;
- fill up the soil until the pit is completely filled, making sure not to close the root collar;
- tamp the earth and water the thuja.
Since planting is often carried out in the fall, later it will be necessary to prepare the thuja for winter.
Tui care in the fall
Watering in the fall is needed if the year turned out to be dry and there is little rain. With an abundance of rain, thuja is not watered in autumn. The only exception is pre-winter watering in order to soak the soil around as much as possible.
Thuja is a tree that you can not be afraid to overfeed with nitrogen in preparation for winter. This is an ornamental plant, and the more it “fattens”, the more beautiful it looks. In addition, thuja needs nitrogen even more than fruit trees. Of course, you don’t need to dump a bag of urea under the barrel either. But if you pour a glass of ash on the trunk circle, there will be no harm to the thuja.
Tui pruning can be done at any time of the year. Evergreens don’t care. Since thuja varieties have already been bred, having a spherical, cone-shaped or cylindrical shape. Therefore, in most cases, crown pruning is not required.
In thuja, only sanitary pruning is usually done, removing yellowed and diseased branches. The only exception is the spherical thuja variety. This plant has to be “combed”, as sometimes young shoots begin to bulge out of the ball and the crown becomes untidy.
In winter, pruning is not carried out only because of very low temperatures.
How to prepare thuja for winter
Since thuja is a frost-resistant plant, it may seem that it is not necessary to cover it for the winter. But a small thuja can even freeze in winter. Especially if it is a sprout that is not yet a year old. Larger arborvitae should be covered for the winter so that they do not get burned or break under the weight of snow. It is better to cover not only the trunk and crown, but also the root system. But before that, it is necessary to complete the autumn work.
Pre-winter watering and top dressing
Water charging irrigation is carried out according to the standard scheme. The maximum dose of water is necessary if the soil crumbles during a soil sample. The full norm for an adult tree is 100-140 liters of water per m³. For a thuja less than a meter high, 30-40 liters of water per m³ will be required.
Top dressing from ash and chalk is poured into the root circle after watering is completed and before mulching. Then everything is carefully dug up to a depth of no more than 10 cm. Instead of natural fertilizers, you can use store-bought complex fertilizers.
Mulching
Sometimes moisture-charging watering in the fall does not save from freezing the roots. If the winter is snowless, the moisture from the soil quickly “freezes out”. In this case, the thuja may die.
Mulch not only protects the roots from freezing in winter, but can also serve as fertilizer in the spring. For mulch use:
- humus;
- peat;
- straw;
- sawdust;
- fallen leaves.
The covering material is laid out in a layer 10-30 cm thick. If the region has usually very cold winters, spruce branches are placed on top of the mulch. In spring, spruce branches are removed, humus and peat can be left. The rest of the mulching material is best removed. Leaves, sawdust and straw decompose slowly and pests can start under them.
Do I need to cover the thuja for the winter
Although the thuja is a winter-hardy plant, it has another problem: at the end of winter and early spring, the tree can get sunburn. In southern latitudes, a tree can generally get these burns in any winter month, since in the south frosts often alternate with strong thaws.
And it also happens that immediately after the rain, the air cools sharply, and ice forms on the branches of trees. It works like a lens that focuses the sun’s rays. Even at a temperature of -20 ° C, burns can form under the ice.
For lignified branches, the burn is unpleasant, but not critical. For Tui, everything is worse. If you do not cover the thuja for the winter, such ice lenses can “burn out” almost all the foliage.
If there was heavy snowfall with “wet” snow that sticks to surfaces, branches may break off at an unclosed thuja. Such a wound in the spring will turn into a fungal or bacterial disease.
When and how can you cover the thuja for the winter
Plants in the southern regions begin to cover in November. In the northern regions, the dates may move closer to summer. For thujas for the winter, it is better to use non-woven covering material. The main purpose of the shelter is to protect the thuja from the sun in winter. Sometimes there are tips to close small trees with improvised means: PET bottles. Such a shelter will protect the thuja from snow, but it may well “fry”. Both glass and transparent plastic transmit infrared radiation well. Inside such a bottle there will be a very high temperature if the shelter is not covered with snow. Instead of “sleeping” in winter, thuja can grow.
For low tui, you can make a hard-base cover for the winter. The base is wrapped on the outside with any suitable covering material. Burlap or modern plastic bags from sugar or flour will do.
For tall tui, such a frame is inconvenient. It is difficult to install and has nowhere to store. Usually high thujas are simply wrapped with covering material. One of the ways to cover the thuja for the winter is shown in the photo. Polyethylene was used. But the minus of the film is that it does not let air through, and when heated in the sun inside the cocoon, moisture condenses on the walls. In winter, when it cools, the water freezes. But this principle is quite suitable if you use burlap.
What to do with thuja in winter
It is unlikely that in winter you can do something with a thuja, especially wrapped in hibernation. Even evergreen trees slow down metabolism in winter. Only if it was decided not to close the thuja for the winter, as in the photo, will you have to inspect the trees after each heavy snowfall.
Branches, unable to withstand the weight of snow, can sometimes break off. In this case, it makes sense to try to root the cutting. It will not be worse.
How to plant a thuja shoot in winter
Strictly speaking, no way. If suddenly, under the weight of snow, the shoot breaks off, it will have to be germinated at home. But the chances that the stalk will take root are negligible: a piece of arborvitae roughly torn from hibernation is unlikely to give roots. Cuttings and under normal conditions take root in about 50% of cases.
A seedling with an earthen clod can be planted in winter. Wintering in a pit is even more preferable than in a pot. Planting rules are the same as in autumn. If you are not too lazy to hollow out the frozen ground, digging a hole and then without fail to insulate the root system of the thuja and the tree itself. Or just wait until spring.
How to care for thujas after winter
Caring for thujas after winter is no more difficult than for other trees. Provided that the tree was not damaged during the winter. Covering material is removed from the thuja, the tree is inspected and, if necessary, sanitary pruning is carried out. With a probability of 95% sanitary pruning will be required. For a faster awakening of the plant from hibernation, it is watered with a warm solution of complex fertilizer.
When to open thuja after winter
In the spring, the covering material is removed from the thuja, depending on the climate of the region. It is not worth rushing and taking shelter from the thuja already in March. Astrological spring comes only on March 21, and the real one can come later.
In most regions, thujas can be opened at the end of April or in the middle of May. It is undesirable to open the whole tree at once. Thuja, weaned from the sun, can get sick. Therefore, the tree is opened in parts so that it can adapt to the sun’s rays. If you need to open the whole tree at once, this must be done on a cloudy day.
What to do if the thuja turned black after winter
The needles of the thuja turn black in two cases: as a result of exposure to the urine of animals and a fungal disease. After winter, blackening is most likely due to fungal infection. Provided that the thuja was covered.
If the plant hibernated without shelter, then blackening may also be associated with animals. An observant site owner will notice a yellow mark in the snow even in winter. And in this case, the needles can begin to turn black even in winter.
The difference between a fungal infection and damage due to excrement is that the needles first turn yellow when sick. Blackness appears in the center of the affected areas.
If the needles turn black due to exposure to animal urine, a large black spot without yellow areas forms on the plant.
In any case, the needles will not recover. Affected areas must be removed. After that, to protect against animals, they put up a fence (it won’t help against a cat) and use repellents. Usually these are sharp-smelling and slowly weathering preparations. For the treatment of fungal diseases, use any of the commercially available fungicides.
What to do if thuja dries after winter
Yellowing of the needles does not always mean that the whole plant dries. The simplest reason why needles may turn yellow after winter is sunburn. The affected areas are excised. Often the whole tree turns yellow if you immediately remove the covering material on a sunny day.
There may also be more serious reasons:
- planting thuja in sandy or clay soil;
- landing on a site with a high level of groundwater;
- deepening or exposure of the root neck;
- too much fertilizer applied;
- arboreal fungus.
If the thuja roots are infected with fungi belonging to the genera Phytophthora or Fusarium, the needles first acquire a gray tint, become lethargic and subsequently dry out.
Flaws in planting can be corrected by digging up a thuja and planting it in another place. When exposing or deepening the root neck, it is enough to add or remove soil. But if the plant is infected with fungi, it can only be dug up and burned. It is better to thoroughly shed the soil in this place with a fungicidal preparation.
Conclusion
The technology of planting thuja in the fall with a step-by-step description is equally applicable to almost any tree that the gardener is going to plant on the site. Only planting cuttings directly into the soil is somewhat different. But this method is not very common due to the very low survival rate of cuttings with such a planting.