How To Turn "Komatoznikov" Into "Wonderful Garden" By Cutting

Sad & Sadik magazine continues to raise the educational level of its readers, now in practice. On Saturday, March 1, on the territory of the Magli nursery, located 100 km from Moscow along the Varshavskoe highway, a practical training on pruning was held. Despite the damp, uncomfortable weather, the listeners enthusiastically mastered the rules of formative pruning of fruit, berry and ornamental crops under the anxious guidance of Alexander Petrov, Candidate of Agricultural Sciences.

The nursery started 3 years ago from the site of unsold imported plants, which was originally called "Komatozniki". The plants successfully took root, acquired, thanks to careful care, a completely decent look and became a testing ground for cuttings and experiments. Now the grateful owners have renamed these plantings to "Wonderful Garden" and continue to tidy up the crowns with even greater determination.

Today the nursery covers an area of 20 hectares, and although the territory has not yet been fully developed, there are plans for its further expansion. A greenhouse complex for growing annual seedlings and cuttings began to function. Already this year, a wide range of ornamental trees and shrubs and herbaceous perennials is offered, among which you can find both typical plants for our strip, and rare species in our country.

Alexander Petrov taught pruning directly on the nursery plantings. There are fruit trees, berry crops, ornamental trees and shrubs. The guests had the opportunity to practice formative pruning of seedlings as young as the nursery itself.

We will not describe this lesson in detail theoretically. Let's just say that the time for pruning comes in late winter - early spring, when the soil begins to thaw. This period is short, you need to complete pruning a couple of weeks before the start of sap flow. And you need to do it with an unwavering hand, cutting off all that is superfluous, but with a great love for plants, just as they do in Maggie. Otherwise, a beautiful plant will not work.

When pruning, stumps should not be left, which subsequently die off anyway and create a gate for infection. The cut is made over the outer kidney, slightly obliquely, with an inclination in the direction opposite from the kidney.

Pruning apple and pear trees consists in shortening the central shoot in order to enhance branching and lateral shoots, observing the principle of subordination. Branches located close to each other on the stem can cause the crown to break in the future. Therefore, those shoots are distinguished that will help to form a symmetrical crown, cutting out the rest from the trunk at a distance of 1-2 mm. Vertically directed shoots are bent horizontally with a wire, this measure not only promotes proper growth, but also stimulates an earlier entry into fruiting.

Cherries bear fruit on last year's shoots, so pruning is different from apple trees. Pruning is done on a vegetative bud (pointed) rather than a flower bud (swollen) to get a shoot growing in the desired direction.

Pruning conifers, contrary to popular belief, the process is not difficult, but painstaking. To form spherical thuja or just to increase the density of the crown, it is enough to trim the tips of the shoots. It is convenient to cut with wide scissors with a large grip. Lawns are ideal.

Spruce is also a moldable plant, but it will take years of effort. The nursery grows common spruce hedges, which are not yet ready for sale. Trimming the tops maintains a given plant height, and the pinching of annual growths stimulates the formation of lush closed crowns in the hedge. By the way, in this way it is possible to form dense fir trees with a continuous, tiered arrangement of branches.

Everyone knows the prices for bonsai forms of pines, so demanded by landscape designers to create gardens in an oriental style. But the formation of pine crowns is quite accessible to a patient gardener, this requires an artistic taste, the correct choice and bending of individual shoots, as well as plucking out the central buds to increase the density of the needles.

We thank Magli kennel for hospitality and wish prosperity to its Divniy Sad!

Information about the cattery:

www.greeninfo.ru/siter/?page…

Please note that the assortment of the nursery can be found on our portal:

www.greeninfo.ru/siter/?page…

For wholesalers a representative office of "Magli" has been opened in Moscow, where you can place an order for plants with delivery: st. Krzhizhanovskogo, 13, building 2, office. 36, tel. (495) 124-30-83