Locust

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Robinia (lat. Robinia) - a genus of shrubs and trees of the legume family (Fabaceae). Robinia is native to North America and the northern regions of Mexico. Today, the plant has naturalized throughout Europe, South and North Africa, Asia, New Zealand, Australia and South America.

Characteristics of culture

Robinia is a highly ornamental shrub or tree 4-25 m high (there are specimens up to 35 m high), with an openwork spreading crown, consisting of isolated, slightly translucent tiers. Leaves are compound, pinnate, rich green, golden-green or gray-green, up to 25 cm long, consist of 7-19 leaves, arranged alternately. Leaves petiolar, elliptical or obovate, with a soft styloid stipule.

flowers of a moth type, purple, white or pink in color, collected in large axillary racemes on the shoots of the current year. The calyx is bell-shaped, has five wide teeth, two of them are fused. The corolla is longer than the calyx, rounded, slightly curved back, equipped with a short marigold. The fruit is an oblong, polyspermous, bivalve, laterally flattened pod, can be gray or brown in color. Seeds are smooth, kidney-shaped. Robinia blooms in May-June.

Growing conditions

Robinia prefers well-drained, moderately moist and light soils with slightly acidic or neutral pH. It develops best in intensely lit areas, but also in partial shade gives rich foliage and abundant flowering.

Negatively relates to soil compaction and cold water stagnation. The culture is resistant to drought, winds and severe frosts. Only shoots of young trees are susceptible to freezing, which quickly recover with the onset of spring.

Reproduction and planting

The simplest, most effective and common way to propagate robinia is to sow seeds. Sowing is carried out in the spring. Before sowing, the seeds are stratified or treated with hot water followed by immersion in cold water. Without drying, the seeds are sown in moist soil in a greenhouse or greenhouse. The optimum temperature for germination is 20-25C.

Crops are regularly watered to avoid waterlogging and weed control. The emerging seedlings are sprayed with phytostimulants of growth ("Larixin", "Novosil" or "Epin"). For the winter, young plants are covered, and next spring they are transplanted to a permanent place. Very rarely, gardeners propagate the culture by root suckers, and for some forms they use grafting.

Care

Robinia is considered an unpretentious plant and undemanding to special conditions of keeping. Crop care consists of moderate and regular watering, top dressing, weeding and annual crown pruning or cutting. Top dressing is carried out three or four top dressing with slurry diluted with water, or bird droppings and granular complex fertilizers. Fertilizing is not recommended starting from August.

It should be remembered that robinia has a negative attitude towards sodding, therefore, there should be no long-rhizome grasses in the near-stem zone. Do not plant pears, apple trees and other fruit and berry trees next to Robinia, since their root system can suppress the plant.

Application

Robinia is widely cultivated in many countries of the world due to its high decorative effect. Very often, the culture is used in landscape design as tapeworms, group plantings and when landscaping streets and parks. Robinia is ideal for creating hedges and trellises. Nowadays, there is a wide range of breeding varieties and hybrids of Robinia, distinguished by a beautiful crown, delicate foliage and bright flowering.

Robinia easily tolerates a haircut, so a wide variety of shapes can be formed from the bushes. The species of robinia pseudoacacia is an early honey plant; this species is often used to strengthen railway embankments, sands, ravines and in the formation of windbreak strips. The flowers of the culture have found their application in herbal medicine and homeopathy, and its dense and rot-resistant wood is an excellent material for making sleepers, piles and parquet.