2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
It is customary to greet the approaching Christmas with gifts. An evergreen of the genus Skimmia can become such a gift. Its glossy leaves, decorated with bright red bunches of berries, may well replace a Christmas tree, which is much more at ease to remain in the forest, and not be felled under the root
Rod Skimmiya
The number of plant species combined by botanists into a genus
Skimmia (Skimmia) does not exceed ten. These are evergreen shrubs with elegant foliage, magnificent flowers and bright clusters of fruits that adorn the plant for a long period.
Compact shrubs grown as a potted crop can easily replace a Christmas tree or decoration made from branches of the Holly tree, whose leaves with their sharp thorns can injure, turning the holiday into a sad event. While the smooth and shiny neat leaves of Skimmia are very peaceful and decorative.
True, they write that the plant is poisonous, so caution is also needed with it, so that the children do not dare to taste the temptingly shiny bright berries.
Personally, for me, the appearance of a compact shrub is associated with Lingonberry, although botanists attribute them to different families. Skimmia is included in the Rutovye genus, being thus a relative of lemons, tangerines and oranges, with which the celebration of Christmas is also friendly, and Lingonberry, which is more modest in size, is a representative of the Heather family.
In culture, two types of plants are most often grown:
Japanese skimmy and
Skimmy Reeves
Japanese skimmia
If you decide to buy yourself
Japanese skimmy (Skimmia japonica), you will have to buy at least two copies, since the plant is dioecious. And even more, among which at least one specimen must be masculine, so that the vegetative process reaches its logical conclusion, delighting you with bright red (sometimes reaching black) shiny fruits. The seller should tell you how to distinguish the sex of the seedling in the store.
Star-shaped miniature creamy flowers are divided, like people, into female and male, and prefer to live in different bushes. They dissolve their petals in early spring, grouping into luxurious apical panicle inflorescences, towering over lanceolate glossy leaves with a solid edge.
Japanese Skimmia bushes can grow up to 1.5 meters, therefore, after admiring a plant at home for a while, it is better to plant it in open ground.
Skimmia Reeves
Skimmy Reeves (Skimmia reevesiana), unlike Japanese Skimmia, can be purchased in a single copy, because its white, often with a pink tinge, flowers blooming from April to May, are bisexual.
Its bushes are smaller in size than Japanese, and oval berries are creamy in color. If you need to create a dark "spot" against the background of bright ornamental plants, then this is your plant.
Growing
Skimmia loves bright places, but without direct sunlight. Skimmia Reeves tolerates partial shade.
A plant acquired for Christmas, which has formed a crown with a diameter of 20-30 cm, should preferably be planted in the garden in the spring, where it will show all its best qualities.
Although Skimmia is thermophilic, covered with high snowdrifts, it will calmly overwinter in order to please with its flowering in the spring. Only young, tender shoots cannot withstand low temperatures.
Watering should be done more often in summer, and very scarce in winter when grown indoors.
Reproduction
When Skimmia is propagated by seeds, they are pre-hardened (or hardened) with cold, and then determined in the acidic, peat-sandy soil of a cold greenhouse.
The second method is that semi-lignified cuttings treated with growth stimulants are buried in a container with sand, which is removed to a secluded place or an unheated greenhouse.
Enemies
Excess moisture provokes fungal diseases.
Worms, aphids, red ticks can attack.
Recommended:
Gooseberry Moth - A Pest Of Berries And Fruits
The gooseberry moth, also called the gooseberry moth, is found everywhere. It damages not only gooseberries with black currants - although less often, this pest will not refuse to feast on bird cherry, peach, apricot and plum as well. The main harm is caused by gooseberry moths during the period of spring development, therefore, you should be vigilant in relation to this pest and start a fight against it in a timely manner
How To Properly Freeze Berries
Every summer, any summer resident faces the question: how to preserve the harvest. Let's try to figure out how to properly freeze berries in order to give ourselves a piece of summer in winter
Strawberries With Unusual White Berries: A Gentle Princess In Your Garden
This berry looks unusual and very elegant: not only is it incredibly tasty, but also very beautiful! It can be planted on the site for food, and to decorate this very site. But many gardeners are suspicious of new varieties of strawberries with unusual berries, considering it the result of the work of genetic engineers. But in vain
How To Grow Goji Berries
Nowadays, small red goji berries are gaining immense popularity in the fields of health food and medicine. Possessing a unique set of vitamins, amino acids, minerals, this berry surpasses other food products in phytochemical properties. The complex of nutrients contained in goji helps with many diseases
Ornamental Leaves And Berries Of Loja
Perhaps the name of this plant served as the prototype of the slang label that today is easily hung on people who live by their own labor. Trees and shrubs with decorative leaves and edible berries can grow on very scarce soils, without shifting the care of nutrition to others, but giving shelter in root nodules to bacteria that are involved in the restoration of nitrogen molecules - the basis of the diet of any plant. Fragrant flowers attract bees with nectar. Loch is also a healer
