Judge for yourself: weeds are not terrible for trees and shrubs — young ones can be mulched.

Conifers do not need pruning, unless you yourself wish to shape them.

Watering for such a garden is required only in the first year after transplantation — then the conifers are watered only for the purpose of fertilizing two or three times per season.

As a result, you get an evergreen landscape.

FOREST IN THE GARDEN

Before acquiring my own estate, I rented a house in a resort area near Kyiv. Around the forest and the stunning aroma of pine needles. Having moved to a new place, she firmly decided to plant around the house … a forest, coniferous.

And the air around will be healthy, and you won’t have to go far for mushrooms, and caring for coniferous plantations is much easier than caring for a deciduous ornamental garden. In general, I immediately planted eight pines in the yard, and after that I began to develop the remaining territory. My garden is still too young to boast of pictures, so in the article I give photos of the best landscape compositions with conifers from the Internet.

Where to plant conifers?

The main «difficulty» of a coniferous garden in the private sector is relations with neighbors. If the plot is in the village, then the adjacent plots, for sure, have been developed for gardening and horticulture. And adult conifers are large-sized and the time will come when they will begin to cast a fairly dense shadow on the territories to the north.

Ordinary conifers planted in front of the facade of the site and near the house are not a hindrance to neighbors, the main thing is that the root of adult trees should not come closer than 2 meters to the foundations of buildings.

The distance between the trees is observed depending on the vision of the future result. A dense planting will stimulate upward growth, and in small areas this is highly undesirable.

As for the interval, it is not less than the diameter of the span of the branches in the adult form. So, in order to develop a beautiful pine crown and reduce the final height, trees are planted in increments of 6 meters or more.

When to plant?

Someone considers autumn to be the best time to plant conifers in the garden. But my personal experience has shown that it is easier to get a guaranteed result when planting trees with a lump during a spring transplant. The best period is April, when the ground has already thawed, but is still full of moisture. The deadline is May 20th. In any case, soil moisture control and watering will be required in the first year.

If the plant has not taken root, you will know about it already in June by the yellowed needles. And during the autumn landing, the result will be clear no earlier than May of next year, this is a whole six months of uncertainty.

Most conifers are very fond of the sun, but when transplanted, each species reacts to the degree of illumination in its own way. I have pines (three-year-old seedlings 30 cm tall), planted in the sun, took root much faster than those planted in partial shade, and those that were in light shade adapted for a very long time and began to grow only in the third year.

Juniper seedlings, on the contrary, “froze” in a sunny area and “prettier” only after transplanting into partial shade (where the earth is wetter). However, when they grew up a little (grew the root), I still picked up a sunny place for them.

All conifers are very fond of water procedures in the form of evening sprinkling.

Carefully study the growing conditions of each species before inviting them to your future «forest».

Only conifers in the garden are too boring even for the forest. Deciduous trees and shrubs will color a somewhat monotonous palette. At the «edge» it is worth planting mountain ash, viburnum, mock orange, elderberry or lilac.

• watering in the first year of growth and feeding twice a day in subsequent years,
• in order not to lose young seedlings in the grass, it is periodically mowed, and the trunk circle is generously mulched with coniferous litter or wood chips.

In the meantime, your forest garden is growing, you can start planning paths, arranging large stones, benches and other beauties 🙂

GARDEN IN THE FOREST

The difficulty of developing a site in the forest zone lies in the fact that this area is shady and trees greatly affect the composition of the soil: conifers make it acidic, and oaks are generally unsuitable for growing flower beds because they emit tannins.

The shady area of ​​the forest creates ideal conditions for growing rhododendrons. This flowering shrub will make up for the lack of bright colors during the period May-June.

UNUSUAL CONIFERS

Mysterious forest will not leave anyone indifferent. Shaggy trees with twisted trunks grow in it. This picture is captivating and eye-catching.

Such strange-shaped individuals are planted in the foreground as tapeworms or in small groups (if they are undersized).

At the moment, a large number of coniferous plant varieties with desired characteristics have been bred.

Many of them are easily recognizable by the prefix to the name «pendula». It makes no sense to list, just type in the search engine the type (for example, «spruce» and add «pendula»).

Here is a list of those that are difficult for beginners to recognize by their name alone.

Horstman’s common juniper is shown in the photo above.

In my opinion, this is the most mysterious and mystical juniper.

In nature, you cannot find two identical ones, because it is difficult to predict which of the branches will begin to grow more actively. But you can take advantage of this feature and create your own. For example like this…

…So…

…or like this.

Such a charming garden monster…

Tousled branches of the Meyeri juniper (photo above), if grown as a bush form.

It does not look like it, but the Nutkan cypress Glauca is unusually attractive (pictured). Having a conical shape and a loose crown, it also captivates landscape designers with its «shaggyness».

He has two more unusual relatives: Nootka Pendula and Nootka Green Arrow.

Norway spruce Virgata, Brevera, eastern Aurea (considered the most beautiful among relatives), prickly Bealobok (pictured) are completely different from each other, but not similar to traditional ones.

Prickly spruce «Mecki» (photo above) does not have a central shoot and can grow like a bush. The same principle of growth is characteristic of the common spruce Akrokona. It is distinguished by the green color of the needles and red cones at the ends of the branches. Both spruces are stunted and require free space within a radius of 2 m.

Spruce nifidormis also does not have a central shoot, and an adult is more like a coniferous cascade.

Ate Froburg (pictured), Engelman, Rotenhaus, Formanek look somewhat mystical and all thanks to drooping branches and a discordant trunk.

Thuja folded Whipcord is not visually identified at all as a coniferous plant: a small green ball-waterfall of thin flowing filamentous branches.

In addition to varietal trees, grafted standard specimens are on sale. They are also worth paying attention to. For example, if you graft the branches of a horizontal juniper to a rooted trunk, you will get a beautiful individual with a crown falling like a fountain (photo above).

Varieties with a weeping crown shape in the first 7-10 years need supportuntil the stem is strong.

LOW-GROWING CONIFERS FOR THE GARDEN

Of these plants, you can completely make up your coniferous garden, if the area on which it is located is narrow or small in area. All categories are presented in traditional green, yellow, blue (gray) and some in two-tone color of needles. Most dwarf varieties have «Nana» in their names.

All thuja, definitely suitable for landing in a small area, because they do not grow above 5-6 meters. They love the sun, clay soils and adore water procedures. There are fast-growing species, for example, columnar.

cypress trees — plants from the same category. And although some of them grow up to 10-15 meters, it will take about 30 years.

Most varieties are slow growing and thermophilic. Therefore, carefully study the growing conditions of each particular variety so that your pet does not die.

They are afraid of cypress trees and winter sunburn, so they choose semi-shaded places for them.

I personally have two of them (but the most beautiful ones: pea-bearing Boulevard and Nutkansky Pendula — (I took the last one in the Kremenchuk nursery Gardi). , so as not to get burned), but the blue handsome Boulevard «drowned» in a snowdrift and looked somewhat sluggish in the spring, but by the summer he was back in shape.

Junipers subdivided into trees and shrubs. The former grow no higher than cypresses, while the latter represent the mostthe forest category, since their height ranges from 10-180 cm. As they say, what is needed to fill the middle and lower tiers, since the color of the needles is presented for every taste.

Feel free to plant any variety, but away from fruit trees. Why? Click on the link with the name (above).

Pines, piercing the sky with their peaks — this is in the forest. And in the garden, their growth is restrained by formation. The disadvantage of this method is the need to do this regularly. And for a lazy, sorry, busy gardener, it is better to choose dwarf options or give preference to other conifers.

These include pinesoft, growing no more than 3 m in height.

Mountain pine of any variety grows low, and in most cases dwarf. The disadvantage of some of them is the growth in width, which requires a lot of space.

Spruce — the most interesting and controversial plant of the coniferous garden. In the ordinary view, this is a tall tree, but there are also undersized varieties, and some trees literally spread along the ground without rising above 10-15 cm.

Blue spruces grow traditionally low. In addition to them, a lot of dwarf varieties with an ovoid or prostrate crown have been bred.

Hemlock (pictured Canadian hemlock) looks very unconventional.

A place for her is allocated not in the «more often of the garden», but in plain sight in the company with coniferous contrasting forms. It grows very slowly.

Yew also not in a hurry to grow, so feel free to plant it in your garden.

Only your great-grandchildren will see a truly tall tree, and it is up to them to decide what to do with this most valuable (after all, mahogany) breed.

In the photo: yew berry Fastigiata

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