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Pruning your blue spruce helps keep it looking neat and prevents it from becoming a huge tree. After all, this plant is quite tall, some of its varieties are capable of developing very rapidly and gaining up to 1 m in height per year. Therefore, in order for the blue spruce to fit beautifully into the landscape of the site, it must be trimmed periodically. Pruning also allows you to rejuvenate the plant, is considered a preventive procedure against fungal diseases and insects, and helps provide the branches with nutrition and oxygen.
Blue spruce can be pruned in a variety of ways.
How often is pruning required?
Each procedure for caring for a plant must be performed correctly, including pruning blue spruce. When cutting your hair, you need to adhere to a certain pattern, do it at the right time and not very often.
At most, the procedure is carried out a couple of times a year; only broken and diseased branches are subject to it, as well as yellowed and dried shoots, which interfere with development and cause the loss of decorativeness of the plant.
If you want to form a crown, it is best to prune the blue spruce before it is 8 years old, after which it is advisable to leave it alone and let it develop on its own.
When to form a prickly spruce
Formative pruning is necessary for the prickly spruce at the moment when it has grown to a certain size, and the gardener does not want it to become taller, or damage to its top occurs. In addition, the procedure allows you to add splendor to the crown. Many gardeners form it in the form of a ball, spiral or flames, thereby creating an original appearance.
It is best if pruning to form a plant is carried out in early spring, before the growth of young shoots begins. Then, already in the second half of summer, the regrown branches will be able to cover the formed stumps. Formative pruning of blue spruce is also allowed in early June, after the shoots have finished growing, but then the tree will look less decorative. Throughout the summer, you can lightly prune shoots that grow beyond the boundaries of the form, but from the moment of the first frost until March, do not touch the spruce, otherwise its wood will freeze, and in the worst case, the plant will die altogether.
Formative pruning allows you to grow even tall blue spruce trees in your plots
Tool selection
To avoid causing harm to the blue spruce during trimming, you should use suitable sharpened and treated garden tools for the work.To get rid of large branches, use a hand saw or hacksaw, and trimming small shoots can be done with regular pruning shears or scissors. To treat the instrument, use any disinfectants, most often potassium permanganate, alcohol or hydrogen peroxide.
Blue spruce cutting technology
Pruning prickly spruce can be decorative and sanitary; it is largely determined by the method and purpose of cultivation, for example, the tree can be free-standing with an interesting shape or serve as a hedge. The first type of haircut is carried out solely to restrain excessive growth of the crop and give it a more tidy appearance, the second is for the purpose of rejuvenation and providing nutrition to healthy shoots. In the case when the spruce is very young, up to three years old, it is pinched.
Pruning blue spruce is an important point in caring for the plant, on which its growth rate and appearance depend. If the procedure is performed in accordance with the instructions, the ephedra will be beautiful and healthy.
In order for blue spruce pruning to be carried out according to the rules, you need to take into account certain recommendations:
- carry out the procedure in cloudy and cool weather;
- Before starting work, sprinkle the crown;
- When cutting, take into account the natural shape of the plant;
- pruning a tree that is more than a year old;
- use well-sharpened and disinfected equipment.
If a blue spruce is not trimmed, it will sprout additional shoots and become very tall and wide.
Topping
To help the blue spruce crown become denser and more lush, experienced gardeners often resort to pinching, which is considered more gentle than pruning. Most often it is used in relation to young trees with tender shoots. It should be carried out at the beginning of the summer season, after their growth has stopped, when active sap flow occurs. The procedure involves completely breaking out part of the candle, sometimes cutting off small branches. Most often, the shoot is pinched between the thumb and index finger and the tip is twisted with your free hand. In this case, it is important to carry out the work carefully, avoiding damage to dormant buds, and ensure that there are 2-3 of them left. So next year, shoots will grow at the treatment site, which will also need to be pinched.
Thanks to the pinching procedure, the awakening of new branches is provoked
How to shape a blue spruce
Pruning and shaping of blue spruce must be carried out in accordance with existing agrotechnical rules. If we are talking about a full-fledged pruning, then it begins after the tree reaches the desired height, at the same time it is given the desired shape, for which they resort to a certain technology. Usually a wire frame is attached to the spruce trunk and excess branches are removed. The best time recommended for such pruning is spring, when the buds have not yet woken up and started to grow.
Step-by-step instructions on how to trim a blue spruce look like this:
- Remove the top part of the plant to the developed side branch.
- Tie a rail to the trunk, so the top of the conifer will straighten and will always remain in an upright position.
- Give the spruce the desired shape.
The main thing is to carry out the procedure taking into account agrotechnical rules, as shown in the following video on the formation of blue spruce:
As for the basic rules of pruning, you should know that coniferous crops cannot be cut off more than 1/3 of the green mass, in this case a healthy plant can quickly recover. Attention! If the spruce is weakened or sick, then it is better to postpone the cutting procedure until it is restored.
On a healthy tree, three shoots usually form at the base of a cut branch.
Sanitary pruning
Sanitary pruning of blue spruce is allowed at any time, except for the period when the air temperature outside is below freezing. Periodically, the plant is inspected for weak and damaged branches, and if any are found, they are carefully removed. Sanitary pruning is also recommended in the fall, before the onset of cold weather. By this time, some of the needles have already fallen off the old branches and they become bare. In order for new shoots to grow from dormant buds with the arrival of warmer weather, the ends of such branches are removed.
Care after pruning
After pruning a blue spruce, it needs to be properly cared for. The rate at which the plant recovers will depend on the quality of care. Mainly, the crop needs to be provided with proper watering and fertilization. It is advisable to carry out a one-time feeding with a growth stimulator. The blue spruce care plan after pruning is as follows:
- Watering. After cutting, the spruce is moistened by sprinkling. This means that water is supplied not only to the roots, but also to the needles. It is recommended to water evenly.Since the crop does not tolerate drought well, each specimen should require at least four buckets of water. When watering, you should adhere to the rule of the golden mean, since overwatering the plant can also be detrimental. The procedure should be performed no more than once every three weeks.
- Loosening. It is advisable to loosen the soil in the trunk circle of blue spruce from time to time. This is usually done before adding soil. Since its roots are well developed, the procedure is carried out to a depth of 10 cm.
- Fertilizer. After pruning to restore the spruce, it is advisable to feed it with strong growth stimulants. It is recommended to add 30 g of Zircon, diluted in 10 liters of water, to the root, and spray the crown with Epin solution (50 g per 10 liters). As for fertilizers, they are applied in order to increase frost resistance in the last week of October. Usually use 100 g of superphosphate diluted in a bucket of water.
- Preparing for cold weather. Before winter arrives, it is useful to mulch blue spruce. The material usually used is sawdust, fallen leaves or straw. The tree trunk circle is covered with a layer of mulch about 15 cm.
Since coniferous crops secrete a resin that creates an airtight coating, there is no need to treat cut areas
Conclusion
Pruning blue spruce is most often done to curb its growth rate so that it does not take up too much space on the site. Since the plant can grow very large, up to 10 m in height or more, almost every gardener is involved in its formation. Pruning can be done at any age of the crop, as soon as there is a desire to stop its growth or you want to give it neatness.
