The most that neither is a New Year's attribute, along with Santa Claus and Snegurochka, we consider a fluffy Christmas tree.
Someone simplified their lives by buying an artificial tree, since the range of thorny beauties in each store increases every year.
And someone traditionally brings a tree carefully cut down by the forestry into their apartment on New Year's Eve, and for some time the apartment is immersed in a cloud of aromas of resin and pine needles. Unfortunately, this beauty is short-lived.
Recently, more and more people are buying live coniferous plants in pots and containers, and you need to work a little so that these "fluffies" survive the holidays in full health and then please you for a long time, planted in the ground in the garden.
1. When buying, be sure to pay attention to how the plant got into the container. This could happen in two ways: a conscientious seller professionally grew a coniferous plant for you in a container, so its roots are not damaged, the plant feels great and, accordingly, its price is quite high.
And the second method used by dealers: a Christmas tree is dug out of the open ground, its roots are chopped off quite hard, and such a obviously unviable specimen is tamped into a pot, sprinkled with soil and sold at a lower price. Therefore, a relatively low price, below 3 thousand rubles. per meter tree, should alert you.
When buying, ask to take the plant out of the pot and inspect the roots: a well-developed fibrous system of light roots, braiding a lump - feel free to take it!
2. If you are going to leave the plant for planting in the garden in spring, do not buy species of conifers that do not survive in central Russia: this is the so-called "Danish tree" with beautiful blue needles (which is not a spruce at all, but Caucasian fir), but also cypress (do not confuse with cypress, it can grow in our conditions).
You can easily purchase such plants as Canadian spruce "Konica", blue spruce, common spruce, Serbian spruce, juniper, western thuja, pea cypress, Siberian fir. Read the plant names on the labels carefully.
3. When buying, bend the twig and try the needles for shedding. If a branch breaks, and the needles are falling, they sell you an almost dead plant (although it looks just like a living one!).
4. Gradually prepare the purchased plant for transfer from the street to a warm room with dry air. First, to a cold garage, then to a warmer veranda, the next stage is a glazed balcony, and only then - into the house.
5. Place the container with the plant on a pallet in the coolest and brightest place in the room (near the balcony door).
6. Decorate the plant with light toys that won't bend or break branches. Moreover, do not use garlands and candles heating needles.
7. Spray needles with water at room temperature regularly 2 times a day.
Watering is required, preferably in a pan, as the coma dries up. However, keep in mind that even short-term root drying in conifers leads to the death of the plant.
8. Once a week spray the plant in the evenings with a solution of the drug "Epin-Extra" (the concentration of the drug is in the instructions for it). This is a good adaptogen, it will help your pet adapt to difficult indoor conditions.
9. It is difficult for a coniferous plant to withstand the whole winter in a warm apartment, it needs coolness. Therefore, a couple of weeks after the holiday, transfer it to a glazed or open balcony, be sure to shade it there with a curtain or screen, otherwise the needles will "burn" under the sun's rays.
10. If the balcony is cold and the temperature drops below 0 ° C, insulate the container from all sides (as well as from the bottom of the pot and from the top of the ground) with foam plastic, layers of newspapers, old warm clothes.
eleven. If there is a summer cottage, you can place your plant on the northern side of the bathhouse, in a shed in a large snowdrift and additionally cover it with snow "headlong". A snow coat is an excellent protection against freezing and drying out.
12. In the spring, at the slightest opportunity, as soon as the snow melts, plant the plant in the ground, be sure to shade it from the south side. Help the plant adapt by spraying with Epin.
