White rowan: photo, varieties with description

In the world there are over 100 species of mountain ash described in science. The dense crown of most of these trees and shrubs from early autumn to late winter is richly decorated with bright clusters of red, less often black fruits. However, white rowan is also found. It is presented in only a few variants, the most famous of which are the Kene and Kashmir species, as well as the White Swan, a hybrid of the mountain ash. However, these plants are a real find for a landscape designer.

In order to grow white-fruited mountain ash in your garden, you should know what are its types and varieties, in what conditions they prefer to grow and what kind of care they require. And then a bright unusual tree, strewn with white berries against the background of greenery or purple foliage, will become a spectacular decoration for any decorative planting.

Rowan with white berries – an unusual garden decoration

Is there a white rowan

Rowan with white berries is a plant rarely found in Our Country, but this is not a legend. It exists in the wild, hiding under the canopy of mountain pine forests, for example, Kene mountain ash, discovered by scientists in the warm climate of Central China, or Kashmir, common in the Western Himalayas. There are also white-fruited varieties that arose as a result of the purposeful work of breeders. By crossing an ordinary mountain ash with a two-color one, they got a new hybrid – Arnold’s mountain ash, which has many interesting variations with fruits of different colors. Among them is the ornamental variety White Swan (White Swan), whose large berries resemble snow in color.

Types and varieties of white rowan

The types and varieties of white mountain ash listed above are morphologically somewhat different from each other. In this regard, each of them should be characterized separately.

Rowan Kene

Outwardly, the white rowan Kene is a bit like its ordinary “relative”, but smaller and more elegant in appearance. In natural habitats, its height can reach 3 m, but in the climate of central Our Country, it rarely grows above 2 m.

White-fruited mountain ash Kene – a species plant native to China

Quene’s white rowan can be a large shrub or small tree. In cold conditions, the plant can develop 2-3 trunks at the same time, but most often it is one – straight and smooth, covered with reddish-brown bark with small light “lentils”. The crown of rowan Kene is openwork and wide, up to 4 m in diameter.

The leaves are long (from 10 to 25 cm), pinnate, consisting of 17-33 small elongated leaflets with serrated edges. Most of them are concentrated at the top of the plant.

White rowan Kene blooms for 10-12 days in late spring or early summer. The flowers are small, white, collected in loose corymbose inflorescences up to 12 cm in diameter.

At the end of summer, fruits ripen – the size of a pea (0,7 cm), milky white on red stalks, looking very impressive against the background of green and then crimson foliage. The white rowan Kene bears fruit every year. The berries are edible, not bitter, but very sour in taste. True, in the conditions of the climate, it turns out to collect only a glass or two of white fruits during the season. This plant is valued mainly for its decorative qualities.

Brief information about Ken’s white rowan is on the video:

White rowan Kashmiris

Rowan Kashmir is more winter-hardy than Kene. In Our Country, it can grow in the Central and North-West regions, up to the Leningrad region, although in severe winters annual growths can often freeze slightly.

In its homeland in the Himalayas, the Kashmir rowan can stretch up to 10 m in height. In domestic plantings, it usually grows only up to 4-5 m for 20 years. The diameter of its crown is about 3 m, the shape is pyramidal.

The bark of the plant is smooth, gray or reddish-gray. The complex alternate leaves of the white Kashmir mountain ash reach a length of 15-23 cm, usually they consist of 17-19 leaves. Their upper part is dark green, the lower part is colored lighter. In autumn, the leaves turn yellow, acquiring reddish-brown and orange hues.

The flowers reach 1 cm in diameter, they are white-pink in color and are grouped into large umbrellas. The flowering period of the Kashmir mountain ash is the turn of May-June.

The fruits are large, 1-1,2 cm in diameter (according to British nurseries – up to 1,4 cm), juicy, numerous. According to most sources, they are inedible due to the sour, bitter taste. Their color is usually waxy white, although sometimes it can be golden. They ripen in September-October.

Rowan Kashmir – a species that grows on the slopes of the Himalayas

Rowan white swan

Arnold’s rowan variety White Swan is a straight-stemmed tree up to 7 m tall with a compact narrow conical crown (1-2,5 m wide). Feels good in the climate of the Moscow region.

Leaves 7-12 cm long, compound, alternate, slightly concave down. Each of them combines from 9 to 17 oval leaflets with a pointed top and a slightly serrated edge. Their color is dark green in summer and red-orange in autumn.

The flowers are white, united in inflorescences with a diameter of 7-12 cm. The White Swan blooms profusely at the end of May.

The fruits are white with a red stem, spherical, 0,8-1 cm in diameter, grouped in clusters of small sizes. They ripen in early autumn and remain on the branches for a long time. They are inedible because they are very bitter in taste.

White swan – a variety of Arnold’s hybrid mountain ash

Advantages and disadvantages

The main advantages and weaknesses of the described species and varieties of white rowan can be presented in the form of a table:

Application in landscape design

Rowan with white fruits is grown primarily because of its high decorative qualities.

In landscape design it is used:

• as a “soloist” plant in a single planting;
• to create alleys, large and small plant groups;
• in combination with other types and varieties of mountain ash with red and yellow fruits;
• in compositions with coniferous and deciduous trees, bushes of viburnum, spirea, barberry, honeysuckle, wrinkled rose;
• as a background for flowering herbaceous perennials;
• in the background in flower mixborders in the company of a host, saxifrage, fescue, bergenia, tenacity.

Clusters look indescribably beautiful in autumn against the background of crimson foliage.

Features of reproduction

Species white rowan (Kashmir, Kene) is usually grown from seeds. They are harvested in autumn and sown before winter after stratification.

Varietal trees are propagated as follows:

• green cuttings (in early summer);
• budding “sleeping kidney” (summer);
• cuttings (autumn, winter).

In the cold season, the usual grafting of varietal material of white mountain ash is also performed on seedlings of Finnish or ordinary. A powerful root system of species used as a rootstock will help varietal plants to more easily endure adverse conditions – drought, heat.

Planting white rowan

The rules for planting and caring for white rowan are in many ways similar to those developed for the most common varieties of mountain ash. This plant is unpretentious, but there are some requirements, the observance of which is highly desirable in order for the tree to grow healthy and beautiful.

Recommended dates

You can plant young white rowan trees on the site in autumn (September-October) or early spring (preferably no later than April). If the seedling is prepared with a clod of earth, the season does not really matter. However, in the case of planting plants with open roots in the ground, this is best done in the fall, during the leafless period – then there is more chance that the white mountain ash will take root well.

Choosing the right place

The place in the garden that is most suitable for white rowan should have the following characteristics:

• sunny and dry, preferably at a slight elevation (best in the upper third of the southern or western slope of the hill);
• protected from drafts and strong gusts of wind;
• well-drained soil that does not allow dampness and stagnant water.

White rowan is not particularly demanding on the composition of the soil. However, on fertile soil, ideally, medium or light loam, it grows better, blooms more abundantly and bears fruit.

White rowan is unpretentious, but loves sunlight and fertile soil.

Selection and preparation of planting material

Two-year-old seedlings of white rowan are best suited for planting. When choosing planting material, you should pay attention to the following points:

• the root system of the plant should be healthy, not look weather-beaten and dried up;
• well-developed roots have at least 2-3 large branches more than 20 cm long;
• the bark of a healthy plant is not wrinkled, but smooth, without cracks and damaged areas.

Before planting, a seedling of white mountain ash is carefully examined, broken and damaged shoots and roots are removed. If the plant is planted in the fall, then the leaves are carefully removed from the branches, while trying not to damage the buds located in the leaf axils.

Landing algorithm

First of all, you should prepare a landing pit for white rowan:

• it is dug out in the form of a square with a side of 60-80 cm, and the depth is approximately the same;
• fill the hole 1/3 with a mixture of peat compost, humus and the top layer of soil, to which 200 g of superphosphate, a handful of ash and 2-3 shovels of rotted manure are added;
• from above, ordinary earth is poured up to half the volume;
• pour a bucket of water into the pit and let it soak completely.

Next, the plant is planted:

• a white rowan seedling is removed from the container (if the roots are open, they are dipped in a mash of clay and water);
• install it in the center of the pit and carefully fill the remaining space with soil;
• well compact the earth in the near-trunk circle;
• watered white rowan;
• mulch the soil at the roots with peat, sawdust, hay, straw with a layer of 5-7 cm.

Proper planting of white rowan is the key to the health of the tree

Aftercare

Caring for white rowan in the garden is simple:

1. During dry periods, it is watered. The calculation of water for 1 plant is approximately 2-3 buckets. Watering is desirable to carry out in the grooves dug around the perimeter of the near-stem circle.
2. Several times during the season, it is necessary to loosen the soil shallowly (no more than 5 cm) under the white rowan, simultaneously getting rid of weeds. This is usually done the next day after watering or rain. After loosening, the soil is mulched with organic matter.
3. Systemic top dressing is advised to produce from the third year of life of mountain ash. They increase its productivity. Nitrogen fertilizers – ammonium nitrate, mullein, urea – are applied to the soil in spring; complex, for example, nitroammophoska – in the fall.
4. Sanitary pruning is done in early spring and autumn, in preparation for winter. During this period, shrunken, diseased and branches growing deep into the crown are removed, the longest shoots are shortened to the upper bud. The crown of an adult plant must be thinned out. For the formation of an umbrella-shaped crown (in particular, in the Kene mountain ash), the shoots that form in the middle of the trunk sometimes blind at the very beginning of growth.
5. If the white mountain ash was planted before winter, be sure to spud its near-stem circle with earth. Before the onset of frost, the trunk is insulated with dry tree foliage, coniferous spruce branches, and dense agrofibre. In winter with little snow, it is worth additionally spudding the plant with snow.
6. To protect, if necessary, the trunk of a young tree from rodents, a fence made of fine-mesh metal mesh or special pesticides scattered in the near-trunk circle will help.

Diseases and pests

Species and varieties of white rowan are actually quite resistant to diseases and pests. Among the diseases and insects that can affect it are:

Conclusion

White rowan is a bright, unusual ornamental plant that can become an ornament to any garden. Its berries are generally inedible or tasteless, but this tree or shrub is not cultivated for the harvest. White rowan looks great in many landscape compositions – both planted on its own, and in combination with other trees, shrubs, flowers. Clusters of white berries that appear in autumn usually remain on the branches all winter, allowing the plant to remain decorative almost all year round, invariably attracting admiring glances.

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