2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Strawberry tree (lat. Arbutus) - a genus of shrubs and trees of the Heather family. Other names are Arbutus, Strawberry. Most of the species are distributed in Mexico, as well as in North America, the Mediterranean and some European countries. The strawberry tree is also found in the Crimea.
Characteristics of culture
Strawberry is an evergreen slow-growing shrub or a short tree with brown fissured or coral-red smooth bark and a wide-rounded openwork crown. Leaves are dark green, elliptical, leathery, serrate or whole-edged, alternate, sitting on petioles.
The flowers are medium-sized, yellow or white, collected in erect panicle or terminal drooping panicles. The calyx is five-lobed, remains with fruits. Corolla spherical, jug-shaped, spherical, pink or white, equipped with five obtuse teeth, turned outward.
The fruit is a multi-seeded five-nested berry covered with lumpy glands, depending on the variety, orange or orange-brown. The seeds are small enough, elliptical. Strawberry blooms in May, the fruits ripen in mid-autumn, which largely depends on climatic conditions. Flower buds of culture develop very slowly, usually it takes several months - from May to October.
Growing conditions
Strawberry is a thermophilic plant, it prefers areas that are intensely lit and protected from northern winds. Some species tolerate light frosts, but immature shoots, as a rule, freeze and die.
The strawberry tree is unpretentious to soil conditions, but it develops best on light, drained and fertile soils with a neutral pH reaction. The small-fruited strawberry species accepts poor, calcareous and dry soils, but a good harvest in this case should not be expected.
Reproduction and planting
Strawberries are propagated mainly by seed, less often by cuttings. The seeds do not lose their germination for a considerable time, they are easily stored at room temperature. Before sowing, the seeds need preliminary stratification, which lasts two months. Sow the seeds into a mixture of garden soil, peat and coarse sand. With the appearance of three true leaves on the seedlings, they are dived in separate pots with a substrate of the same composition.
If necessary, re-pick is carried out using the transshipment method. Young plants are transplanted into open ground only after 2 years. It is extremely rare that strawberries are propagated by cuttings, and this is due to the fact that cuttings, even when treated with growth stimulants, root poorly. Semi-freshened cuttings 10-12 cm long are cut in July. Then they are planted in a soil mixture and kept in a room with a temperature of 16-18C. With the appearance of roots, the cuttings are transplanted into open ground.
Care
For strawberries, fertilizing with mineral and organic fertilizers is important. With the onset of spring, the culture is fed with rotted manure, and after a couple of weeks potash and nitrogen fertilizers are applied. Such procedures will stimulate plant growth. Further feeding is carried out every three months. Water the strawberry tree every two weeks at the rate of 20 liters per bush. The culture also needs sanitary pruning, which consists in removing frozen and broken branches. Strawberry formative pruning is not required. For the winter, the soil in the near-trunk zone is mulched with a thick layer of peat or humus.
