Tales of a winter garden in which sleep a white sleeptrees, no literate gardener believes. He knows for a long time: in winter the tree does not fall asleep at all, it continues to grow, however, much more slowly than in other seasons. And every tree in the garden continues to rely on the person, his knowledge and help. For example, how to keep the apple tree in winter, if you let things go by themselves, hope for a moment? Do not throw your apple trees in the cold, snow and frost, help them to winter, so that next spring they will blossom again and more than one year pleased you with large juicy apples.
How do you think, when preparation beginsapple trees for winter? With the first cold? Too late! In the first autumn days? Again they were late. Exactly six months before this, in the early spring, when full mineral fertilizer is brought under the apple tree. Then, in the second half of the summer, it must be supplemented with potassium-phosphorus fertilizers. Especially it is necessary to make sure that potassium is in abundance. Then the chances of a successful wintering will greatly increase. But nitrogen fertilizers are brought in to stop, not to provoke the growth of shoots, not to weaken the bark and cambium.
The tree should receive the whole vegetation periodits norm of moisture, no more and no less. Saturated with moisture (but not excessively), apple tissue improves their condition in the cold season. The last time the autumn-winter varieties of apple trees are watered, when they finish forming fruits, and summer varieties - after harvesting.
It will be possible to avoid dangerous, especially foryoung gardens, the phenomenon of a summer suspension of growth. If after this secondary growth starts, which often happens, new woody fabrics simply do not have time to ripen to cold weather, the tree will be defenseless before them, and all the rest of apple tree preparation for winter will not help much.
Freed from the severity of the fruit, the apple beginsactively store nutrients and actively grow suction roots. Time for a horticulturist - only two weeks, during this period, he must have time to dig a trunks and make fertilizer from organic and mineral fertilizers. Using a shovel, you can not especially care about the integrity of small roots - they will recover very quickly. Delay is highly undesirable: it will entail a delay in the end of the vegetation of the apple tree, which will significantly reduce its winter hardiness.
Preparing apple trees for winter includes measures againstdiseases, pests and rodents. All fallen leaves, fallen trees, trapping belts, nests in which pests winter, mummified fruits should be collected and destroyed (best of all - burned). Also, the burned branches of the apple tree should be burned. The digging of the soil around the tree must destroy the pests that winter in it. Do not forget to feed their feathered enemies - the cedar and other birds. In the late autumn, the apple tree should be "dressed" in armor of roofing felt, roofing material, etc. from mice, rabbits and other rodents. The main thing is that the material densely adjoins the bark, and the bottom is sprinkled with earth, because to cover the apple tree for the winter must be on conscience.
With the termination of autumn rains the air temperatureis +2 ... + 3 degrees. In dry and windless weather, you can start whitewashing the tree trunks. This is the preparation of apple trees for winter, and an old tradition that has not lost its meaning to this day. Lime solution will help the apple trees to avoid frostbites, sunburn in winter and early spring. If you add fungicide and insecticide to the solution, fungal diseases will pass, and the stem pests that have settled for the winter in the cracks will die.
Before whitewashing, an adult apple should be cleanedtrunk. All dead cortex, mosses and lichens should fall on a film or tarpaulin placed in advance under the tree. This garbage must be burned. The young apple tree is whiter without any preparation.
Winter will pass, however, as always. And the fact that the apple trees in the spring are wrapped in flower clouds, and in the autumn they will drop sweet fruits into the hands of the caring gardener, and his works on the pre-winter preparation will also be.
