Plants and Flowers

The peach is successfully cultivated in conditions of greenhouses and winter gardens in winter (November - January) at temperatures about 0 С, and also is used for bonsai. Mature plants survive frosts up to -10С. In January - February the temperature should be raised up to +4-8С for two weeks. This time is good for pruning. Then a peach-tree is moved in a warmer room (10-12С), where the plant starts to blossom. After flowering it can be contained in a warm room. The room should be regularly aired. The plant is light demander and in winter it needs additional illumination. The peach-tree does not require often sprayings, unless it is located in a room with very low air humidity. Watering in spring-summer period should be plentiful, and limited in winter.

From the beginning of flowering till August the plant is fed up two times a month with organic or full mineral fertilizer. The peach tree requires regular pruning. Large flowers and fruits develop on last year sprouts. During a winter pruning should be deleted dense crone sprouts and half shorten sprouts of the current year. In summer long branches (20-25 centimeters) are nipped.
The plant is transplanted in the early spring, before flowering.

Peach-tree is propagated from seeds. In nurseries you may get planting stock, which should be pruned after planting. For a pottery-gardening a peach-tree is engrafted on rain (Laburnum) or a blackthorn, for a tub-gardening - on slowly growing sloe stock.

Persica vulgaris. The native land - northern China.
The peach belongs to the same family Рrunus, as a plum, an apricot and a cherry.

Peach is a low straight-stemmed tree with the branches forming a wide crone, in container culture it seldom exceeds 2 m in height.

Slim flexible peach-tree blossoms in February - March before breaking of buds, it is decorative since early spring till the autumn, when fruits ripen. Leaves are simple, petiolar, spear-shaped, length 7-12 centimeters, width 2-3,5, with a serrate edge, green. Flowers are usually pink, single or binate, 5- petalled, 3-4 centimeters in diameter, on a short pedicel. Decorative varieties have white, red or striped, simple, double and semidouble flowers. There are also decorative varieties with red leaves, and also with hanging, weeping sprout.

Fruit are juicy stone-fruit with a thin peel, globular, with a furrow on one side, velvety (true peaches) or naked (nectarine). A stone is wrinkled-furrowed with dot dimples. A stone can be adnate to a pulp or free.

Those who prefer an alive and growing fur-tree in the middle of the manor and are sure that the tree will feel like comfortably, can seize the opportunity of the large-sized trees planting technology (up to 10 meters in height) with the closed root system, or, with a rootball.

Though this pleasure is expensive enough (depending on the variety and the size, one tree with the planting can cost from 300 up to 10000 dollars), but you will receive a big tree at once, and with an establishment guarantee. Certainly, such works should be carried by experts with special technical equipment.

Even if you had not time, or have not thought of it during the traditional landing period - in spring and in autumn - modern technical equipment allows to do it in winter. Buying large-sized coniferous tree, pay attention that the tree was not “one-sided”, had not spots of brown needles or branches without needles. Also pay attention to traces of strong pruning.

The small amount of cut off or broken branches is acceptable, but multiple pruning can indicate removal of damaged or sick parts of a plant. Remember, that you buy an alive green friend for a long time, and it will demand care.

New Year’s and Christmas tree in pots and containers are very popular in the Western Europe (though there fur-trees are “rented� for holidays, and then are again planted in a ground). To tell the truth, sellers say that keeping of these trees in indoor conditions is a big problem – conifers hardly adapt to overdried air of heated premises.

If cypresses and araucarias quickly get accustomed to indoor conditions, potted firs would better be planted out in spring. At that it is advisable to give fur-trees time to adapt in room conditions, though the temperature should not exceed 10-15 degrees C.

Those who do not want to cut down trees or wish to enjoy longer may buy alive firs in containers.

Container plants are optimal for decoration of areas near offices, where planting out is impossible for some reasons. However you should remember that the fur-tree in the container will not live for more than three-four years.

It is very difficult to create the necessary water-temperature conditions in the container, to provide a plant with the necessary amount of nutrients: its root system suffers from lack of space in a wooden tub, and without well-timed transplanting the fur-tree can die.

Planting stock with a young green bark, friable wood and having huge sizes frequently disappoint not very “wise” gardener, having died suddenly in a severe winter…

Delicate southern planting stock badly strikes root in cold conditions, especially if the matter is about sweet cherry and an apricot. But there is a simple way out: you may receive good and strong planting stock, having sown clingstones of these trees on a bed in your own garden.

An apricot-tree should be sown in the autumn in distances 25-30 centimeters between rows and 15-20 in a row. The next year planting stock should be planted farther apart.

With a sweet cherry the matter is little bit more difficult. Sweet cherries’ stones demand long stratification, that is keeping in damp sand in a refrigerator (temperature from 0 to 5 degrees C). During stratification the sand should be damp.

Before an approach of a cold night water plants which grow in your garden in an open ground. The plant should “slake its thirst”, so when its roots “will be switched off” because of cold, leaves have not lost the elasticity because of lack of water. If it happens, metabolism in leaves will be stopped, and they will freeze. The temperature of the ground is higher than air temperature; therefore watering won’t be harmful. If air temperature falls below zero, water all plant from a hose (warm water is preferable). At cooling and freezing water gives a lot of heat.

This advice does not concern plants in pots if you need to transport them - plentiful watering will lead to wet soil for a long time, which is bad for indoor plants in the winter.

You may warm a plant at a cold snap. For example, the small heater near a tree will allow to lift temperature a little. The best choice for this purpose is to use infra-red heaters with reflectors, which allow to heat up the removed objects without wasting energy for heating of air.

Next day after a cold night the plant should be “enabled to get warm�, being put on the sun. Tropical plants can survive a short-term cold snap (for example, one night), but they won’t survive cold for some days.

Vegetation of plum and cherry trees begins rather early. Plants begin blooming in early May. But spring frosts, which frequently damage young ovary and flowers, can be a real problem.

The plum and a cherry trees strike roots well on fertile, air-penetrable soils with moderate humidity. Sandy and loamy chernozems are the most acceptable for these plants. Gardeners can easily remove lacks of soil on their site by adding corresponding fertilizers.

Plum tree is considered the most water-loving plant from fruit trees and don’t like dry soils. Its cultivation requires regular plentiful watering to receive good harvest.
But various cherry varieties differently react to amount of moisture. Especially drought-resistant varieties grown from a steppe cherry do not tolerate excessive soil humidity and develop poorly. Cherry tree can tolerate shade, as against plum trees. But both plants require sufficient sunlight for good harvests. The steppe cherry tree and its derivative varieties are the steadiest to severe winter conditions. The same can be told about Canadian and Siberian plum trees. Other varieties are less winter resistant, and can suffer during frosty winters without snow.

The plum and cherry trees has already been cultivated for a long time by gardeners and enjoy the big popularity. These fruit plants are high early-maturing; they feature good food qualities of fruits and their early maturing. Fruits and cherries contain necessary for the person sugar, vitamins C, B, Р, РР and others. There are organic acids, antibiotics, and also microelements. Plum fruit improve digestion and normalize intestines activity, and cherry juice is applied to treat upper airways. Fruits of these plants are used to make tasty jams, juices, syrups, jelly, and also liquors and fruit liqueurs.

Bunch-forming cherries enjoy big popularity among gardens’ owners because they are considered the most early-maturing. Seedlings start to fructify for the fifth - sixth year, and grafted - for the second - third year. The root system of such breeds lies rather superficially in ground. Depth of roots - to 15,7 inches in ground, and the top roots lie not more deeply than 6 inches. The stool shoots is formed of the additional buds on roots. Plums are formed on annual suckers and fruit branches which are not longer than 4 inches.

It is difficult to say the exact period of appearance and construction of winter gardens and greenhouses. It is known, that already in Ancient Rome houses’ atriums were decorated with flowering plant in hanging pots, and for cultivation of vegetables and exotic plants Romans built hothouses. In northern countries of the European continent cultivation of heat-loving plants was impossible in open ground conditions. And already in the beginning of the XVII century in English country houses appeared the first prototypes of greenhouses and winter gardens - glass rooms meant for cultivation of citron plants and keeping of animals, brought from warm climatic zones.

Cultivation of exotic plants demanded special heating systems which had been widespread in Europe already at the end of the XVII century. One of such systems was the spiral flues built-in in brick walls. More simple way of greenhouses’ heating supposed presence of big holes in a floor filled with hot coal.

The system of water heating for the first time has been developed and realized at the beginning of the XIX century in Holland.

Later many of these systems were improved and adapted for cultivation of heat-loving plants in indoor conditions.

Glass roofs for catching of solar beams appeared in England in 1717 and in due course have turned to such constructions, as the “crystal” Paxton palace built in 1801.

In the XIX century in European cities appear passages with glass roofs - large trading-business centers with shops, representative offices and recreation zones, including winter gardens and flower beds.

The Brazilian melon growers have made contract with the largest in Europe supermarkets network Tesco about mass deliveries of square water-melons at the price of 10-15 dollars for a piece. Square water-melons, which main advantage - convenience of storage in refrigerator, - is the last achievement of the Japanese melon growers.

Tеsco management is sure, that the new goods will enjoy wide popularity.

To produce square water-melons, they are grown in special plastic containers. They are much more expensive than usual, round water-melons.

In Japan square fruits are sold for some years at the fabulous prices: from 80 dollars for a “small model” up to 300 dollars (!) for a water-melon of “a representative class”. It is considered, that specially selected gift water-melon is intended first of all for the high heads.

Square water-melons are less sweet, than round, but, nevertheless, they are popular. They are frequently use for decoration.