Juniper Cossack Variegata is a multi-stemmed shrub with variegated dark green foliage. Its scaly-like leaves remain green throughout the year. This plant is able to decorate your garden both in summer and in winter. About how to plant and grow juniper, read further in the material.

Botanical Description

Juniper Cossack (Juniperus Sabina) refers to easily grown coniferous evergreen trees. It is tolerant of most soil types, including clay. But prefers to grow on well-drained soils in full sunlight.

Also loyally perceives many urban air pollutants and even drought. In the natural environment grows in the mountainous regions of Central and Southern Europe and the Caucasus. Distribution area - alpine-subalpine meadows with rocky outcrops, steppes or semi-deserts.

And although varieties of this plant are rarely found in the distribution network, since they are not too decorative, a number of cultivars can still be found. So, Variegata is a dwarf form, the branches of which are decorated with scaly green leaves, shaded with a cream tint. The plant retains its variegation all year round. Its height can reach 1.5 m, width - 1-1.5 m.

Important! The leaves and seeds of some species of juniper are poisonous. They cause severe irritation of the mucous membranes, block the intestinal tract and can lead to death.

Botanical description of Juniperus Sabina:

• a type: evergreen, creeping, dioecious;
• family: Cupressaceae;
• view: Variegata variety;
• the size: dwarf (Dwarf) height and diameter up to 1.5 m, which will reach after 10 years of growth;
• crown: compact, funnel-shaped, dense;
• shoots: arcuate;
• annual growth: 2.5-15 cm;
• needles: acicular pointed, 4-6 mm long;
• Colour: mottled, creamy green;
• bloom: does not bloom;
• cones: small, oval, 5–7 mm in size, brown-black-gray with a wax coating;
• lighting: full sun;
• watering: moderate;
• service: undemanding;
• winter hardiness zones: 3–7;
• we tolerate damage to animals, drought, soil erosion, rocky areas and air pollution;
• life span: up to 30 years.

The dark green needles in the winter do not change their shade. Another feature of it is that if it is ground, it emits a very sharp and unpleasant aroma. In landscape design, some of the varieties of Cossack juniper are used. The curved shape of the branches allows you to use the plant as an accent in rock gardens, Japanese-style gardens.

Landing

Juniper does not require much care and is easy to grow. It can be argued that the plant will look equally elegant on loam, chernozem and other types of soil. But still prefers well-drained fertile soil. Drought-resistant and does not like wetlands. Juniper is also salt tolerant and can be grown in coastal areas where other plants cannot survive.

Juniper seedlings are sold in nurseries. At the time of sale, they will be fully prepared for landing on a permanent place in the ground or in containers.

To land you will need to prepare:

• soil mixture;
• fertilizers containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium;
• drainage material - pebbles, broken brick.

Juniper nutritional formula may have the following composition:

• sand, needles and humus take 0.5 parts;
• turf and leaf land, as well as peat - 1 part.

Important! Fresh manure is not used in soil mixtures. It has too much nitrogen, and it can burn the roots.

Seedling preparation

Juniper is equally well received at any warm time of the year. But you need to keep in mind that this culture does not tolerate transplantation, so it is advisable to buy a seedling of 2-3 years of age. He will transfer the procedure more easily. Juniper is an evergreen plant, so the bush should be green, branched and with enough needles.

There should not be bare branches, brown needles, traces of diseases on the shoots. Healthy roots will peek out from the bottom of the container. If you are offered a tall plant, then either do not buy, or ask the seller for a guarantee that the bush will really be accepted. Otherwise, you are wasting your money.

When planting, pay attention to the variety. Cossack juniper reaches a height of 1.5 m and a width of up to 1.5 m, which means that it will need significant space, therefore the distance between several specimens should be at least 0.7 m.

At home, remove the seedling from the container in which it arrived. Inspect the roots. Remove the broken ones. Prepare a bucket with a solution of water and a root growth stimulator. Dip the seedling there for 12-24 hours, depending on what is indicated in the instructions for the drug.

For instance, "Kornevin" 5 g of active substance are diluted in 5 l of water and the roots are soaked in it for 12 hours. "Zircon" stir in the amount of 20 drops per 1 liter of water and soak the roots of the bush or tree for 18 hours. After this period, the plant must be planted in a prepared pit and pour the water in which it was soaked.

Important! To prevent infection with fungal diseases, after treatment with a growth stimulator, the roots can be dipped in a clay mash. This is a combination of an aqueous solution of clay creamy consistency with the addition of 2–3 g of copper sulfate.

Site selection and preparation

Juniper prefers bright sunlight. It can grow in partial shade, but varieties with decorative needles in this case will be faded. You will also need to consider that when the bush grows, it can block the view from the window or interfere with the passage along the alley, therefore between it and other objects should remain about 0.5 m of the territory.

Also look at the selected area from the window of the house. Make sure the landing site you like. After all, you will admire your plants from the inside of a building much more often than walking around the yard.

Landing area must be dug up, stones, weeds are removed. For optimal development, you need fertile and loose soil, so you need to pay attention to the quality of the soil. The most suitable soils are sandy loam (sandy loam). They are quite nutritious, they retain many useful mineral compounds. They warm up easily, pass air well and dry at a moderate speed.

But such a soil is not everywhere, so it has to be ennobled. So, pure sandstone is modified by the addition of clay (for weighting) and compost for nutrition. Clay soil, on the contrary, needs to be diluted with sand. If the soil holds up moisture too much, you can try creating a raised bed. It looks like a box, which was installed in the right place and was covered with soil of the desired composition.

Landing process

Having picked up a site, be convinced that the soil is well drained. This can be done by filling the landing pit with water. After it completely drains, the procedure is repeated. If there is still water in the pit after 2 hours, you will need to create a drainage layer. It can be made of pebbles, medium-sized stones or other materials. The optimum thickness is 15–20 cm.

Step-by-step landing instructions:

1. Prepare a planting hole 2 times the size of the root layer. If there are several plants, then the distance between the pits is about 70 cm.
2. The soil removed from the pit is refined if necessary.
3. Then lay on the bottom layer of drainage.
4. Pour part of the prepared soil mixture.
5. If the seedling was soaked in a growth stimulator, then set on top of the formed hillock of soil and pour water with a stimulator.
6. Start to fall asleep with the remaining soil. Be sure to control that the plant is planted at the same level as in the nursery.
7. Fill up the soil. Seal around the trunk.
8. Abundantly watered with 1-2 buckets of water.
9. For the first two weeks, juniper is watered 2-3 times a week.

Varieties with a small crown grow better in partial shade, as they will be less exposed to intense sunlight.

Juniper Care

Post-planting care of coniferous shrubs is very simple.

It consists of standard events:

• glaze;
• top dressing;
• trimming
• preparations for winter;
• disease prevention.

Did you know? Essential oil from the leaves and shoots of juniper has strong diuretic properties, so it is used in pharmaceuticals.

Watering

No need to water the juniper too intensively. Waterlogging is detrimental to the plant's health and can cause rotting of the root system, so the soil should dry out slightly before each subsequent watering. This is especially important for a newly planted seedling. Its underdeveloped roots will not be able to absorb a large amount of moisture.

A year after planting, when the root system is sufficiently developed, 1 watering in 3-4 weeks is enough for it. And for an adult juniper, 2-3 waterings per season are enough. At a time, 30–40 L of water is added under the plant. Also pay attention to the degree of soil drying. If there is a drought, then the amount of incoming moisture must be increased.

It will be nice if 1-2 times a month in the morning the bush will be sprayed with water. This helps flush away accumulated dust. But you need to do this early in the morning, as conifers can get burns from intense sunlight.

Top dressing

In the natural environment, juniper costs a minimum amount of nutrients. It is able to grow in the mountains, on stony soils and even on salt marshes, so if fertilizers were applied during planting, then in the first 2 years of development the bush can not be fertilized. And then start feeding.

To enhance growth in the spring, a composition with a higher nitrogen content is used. For example, 15:10:10, where the numbers show the percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the mixture.

But if you do not want to enhance the growth of the bush, then use balanced compositions in which all substances are in equal proportions.

If you prefer organic matter, you can feed the bushes with compost, humus and other substances.

Applying them gardeners plant 200 g of compost or rotted manure in 4 l of water. This composition is watered the root zone and then irrigated with water.

Loosening and mulching

Loosening the soil in near-stem circles has 2 goals. You remove weeds that compete with the plant for nutrients and moisture. And also allow air to penetrate into the lower layers of the soil to create an environment for the development of beneficial soil microorganisms. They help juniper process and absorb fertilizers.

But if the near-trunk zone is covered with a layer of mulch up to 6–7 cm thick, then it will interfere with the growth of weeds, evaporation of moisture and compaction of the soil. For mulching, you can take needles, sawdust or other materials. Decaying under the influence of water, it will nourish the soil with the substances that it contained.

Pruning

Juniper is one of the main plants used for bonsai, so it lends itself to pruning.

When forming a haircut, it is important to understand the structure of the branch and its growth features:

• pinching the apex activates the growth of sleeping buds, as a result, branching occurs at the end of the branch, and it becomes more magnificent;
• the needles are not eternal, it is replaced after a couple of years, but when the sleeping buds on the shoot are no longer left, it is exposed, so trimming the tips prevents excessive branch elongation.

Did you know? The name "gin" comes from the French "genievre" or from the Dutch "jenever", which means "juniper".

Evergreen shrubs do not stop their development even in winter. In the cold season there are no active fungi and other pathogenic microflora, therefore pruning in winter is preferable for conifers. Before starting work, be sure to wipe the edges of the working tool with alcohol.

Then cut dry branches or broken ones. Then those that interfere with the general shape of the juniper. If you decide to give it a geometric shape, then use a metal frame. Around it form a contour. Juniper branches alone are not able to maintain geometrically regular shapes.

Video: Juniper pruning

Winter preparations

Cossack juniper belongs to the winter-hardy crops and tolerates frosts above -34 ° C, so it hibernates well in the ground.

Important! It is advisable to leave a hole in the upper part of the burlap cone. Sun rays will penetrate through it and support photosynthesis.

The complex of winter preparations for it will consist of the following steps:

1. Abundant watering in October before frosts. Pour, wait until the water has absorbed, and water again. Watering allows the plant to stock up on moisture in order to use it in winter when the soil freezes.
2. Be sure to replace the mulch layer. In autumn, wintering pests can be in it, so it is updated. In winter, it will cover the roots from frost and will help maintain a stable soil temperature. After all, most often small roots are damaged at a time when the thaw is replaced by sharp frosts.
3. Set shelter over young seedlings. To do this, 4 sticks knocked into a cone and wrapped in burlap. A wintering bush is sheltering under this structure. Burlap near the ground is fixed with stones or stakes.

Possible diseases and pests

Juniper perfectly resists pest infection. It is also resistant to disease. But we must not allow the whorls at the ends of the branches to become too dense. Otherwise, it will be easier for pests to use them as places to live and preserve their offspring. In winter, the juniper should have enough sunlight. Sun and air are natural ways to prevent infection.

Did you know? In folk medicine, juniper berries were used to control the birth rate of women.

The main pests:

To prevent infection by pests, the plant is sprayed in May Actellicus. But you must also find the reason why it was attacked by pests. Usually this is facilitated by thickening. Also, insects often affect those bushes that are already weakened by the disease.

The big problem for juniper is rust. Various types and varieties of plants have a very different degree of susceptibility to it. But varieties with blue-green needles are more resistant to both rust and other diseases.

You may also encounter the following diseases:

To prevent disease, it is necessary to process bushes in spring and autumn Fitosporin-M, "Fundazolum" or HOM. As for the damage to the bark, they are cleaned with a sharp knife to a clean surface. Then lubricate with a solution of copper sulfate 0.5% and cover the section with garden var. This should neutralize possible phytopathogens and prevent the spread of the disease.

Breeding methods

Like all plants, juniper bushes can propagate by seeds and cuttings. The first method is actively used by breeders. It allows you to derive new varieties and varieties of plants by cross-pollination of parental bushes or gene modification of plants. But propagate juniper for personal gardener seeds is impractical.

Cuttings cut from a healthy shoot. Harvesting time is May. The correct size of the handle is 15 cm. Planting is carried out in a peat mixture. For this, nutrient soil is poured into a container. The end of the handle is moistened in “Kornevin” or in powder for root growth. Make a hole with a pencil and plant a stalk in it.

Spray the soil from the spray gun. Cover the container with a film to create a greenhouse effect and then install it in a sunny room at a temperature of + 21 ° C. Seedlings can take root in about 3 weeks, after which they will grow in the same container until spring, until the time of planting in the soil comes.

Juniper can also be propagated layering. To do this, a very tall shoot is pressed to the ground with a metal bracket. Then they sprinkle with soil and watered. After some time, the escape will take root. And next year it can be separated from the mother plant.

Use in landscape design

The main task of landscape design is landscaping. Conifers will decorate the garden in winter, when there will be no other green plants in it. They are combined with roses, spirea, other ornamental shrubs and herbaceous flowering plants.

For juniper, several uses are possible:

• single landing;
• in the composition as an accent plant;
• in a group of several shrubs of different sizes.

When creating a composition, consider that it should create a mood and evoke emotions. Analyze your desires.

You might like the Japanese or English garden, the alpine slide, or any other planting option.

Options will depend on the size of the landing site and your desires.

There can be many variations of the use of juniper in landscape design. Growing it is easy. But you need to remember that some types of juniper are poisonous and not all of them should be used when planting in the garden.