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Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring is gaining popularity every year not only among landscape designers, but also among lovers of country farming.
Description of Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring
Before we begin to describe the Golden Ring barberry, it is worth noting that the shrub is a nominee for the Award of Garden Merit - an award for varieties of garden plants. The Golden Ring barberry was nominated by the board of the English Royal Society of Horticulturalists in 2002 for its decorative appearance and undemandingness in matters of care and cultivation.
Thunberg's Golden Ring barberry was bred by students of the Faculty of Forestry Sciences at the University of Toronto in 1950. To carry out scientific selection work, the thunberg barberry Atropurpurea was taken as the basis as the mother material. The presence of the main maternal gene is clearly visible in Golden Ring barberry. Initially, the bush was used for landscaping the urban landscape, and later gained popularity among lovers of country farming.
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring has the appearance of a shrub. Only 10 years from the moment of planting will it be able to reach a maximum height of 2.5 m.In this case, the spherical crown will reach a diameter of 3 m.
It is safe to say that the Thunberg Golden Ring barberry is endowed with good growth vigor and is capable of adding up to 30 cm in height and width over a calendar year.
At the early stages of development, the crown of the bush has a funnel-shaped shape, and at later stages it acquires a spreading shape with drooping branches.
During different periods of the growing season, the color scheme of the shoot bark also varies:
- at a young age there is a bright red tint;
- When mature, Thunberg's Golden Ring barberry turns a darker shade of red.
The bark on the shoots has a ribbed structure with the obligatory presence of single spines.
The leaf blade has an alternate arrangement and an ellipsoidal shape with a maximum length of 3-4 cm.
The color of the leaves changes depending on the time of year:
- in summer – a dark shade of red with a narrow golden or golden-green border around the edge;
- in autumn – a uniform coating of dark red, orange or purple.
It is because of the color scheme of the leaf plate that the shrub was given the name Golden Ring, which literally means “golden ring”.
The peduncles of the Golden Ring barberry are racemose; there are no more than 5 of them, red in color with a yellow tint. The size of one flower does not exceed 1 cm in diameter and has a round shape. You can see the flowering shrub only from May 15 to May 31.
Fruiting occurs by mid-September. The Golden Ring barberry berry has the shape of an ellipse of red color with a glossy sheen. The fruits are resistant to shedding and are able to adhere well to the branches even at negative air temperatures.
Barberry Golden Ring in landscape design
Thanks to its original and bright color, the shrub fits perfectly into any design project for arranging the landscape of a personal plot. The photo shows how organically the Thunberg Golden Ring barberry looks in group (photos 4-7) and single (photos 1, 2) plantings. Also a good solution would be to use shrubs as a hedge (photo 8, 9) or to form a rock garden (photo 3).
Planting and caring for barberry Thunberg Golden Ring
Even novice gardeners will not have questions related to planting and caring for Golden Ring barberry. The shrub is absolutely unpretentious to growing conditions, but there are still some subtleties that will be discussed further.
Preparing seedlings and planting area
The site for planting barberry must be prepared in the fall:
- The future planting site must be dug to a depth of at least 50 cm.
- Remove all weeds.
- Sow with green manure: mustard, oilseed radish, phacelia.
- In the spring, before planting, the area must be dug up again with the obligatory embedding of green manure grass seedlings into the soil.
- If the soil acidity is low, it is necessary to carry out liming - 400 g of slaked lime per 1 seedling.
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring will do well in sunny areas with light shade. Full shade will not allow you to see the richness of the color of the leaf plates and, importantly, the golden edging of the leaves.
When choosing a site for planting barberry, an important condition will be the absence of groundwater close to the soil surface. With prolonged stagnation of water, the root system of the shrub will simply rot and the plant will die.
Landing rules
Before planting seedlings, it is necessary to prepare the holes:
- When planting alone, the hole should have a size of 50x50x50 cm. The distance between seedlings is at least 2 m.
- When planning to plant a hedge, it is better to prepare a trench with the same width and depth parameters. The length of the trench in this case directly depends on the length of the future hedge. In this case, barberries must be planted at a distance of 50 cm from one another.
Further steps for preparing holes or trenches are absolutely identical:
- It is necessary to lay drainage at the bottom of the planting hole. Broken brick, sawdust and crushed stone will help solve this issue.
- The soil mixture used for planting should consist of turf soil, humus and sand, which are mixed in a ratio of 2:2:2.
- Fertilizers must be added to the prepared soil substrate. For a bucket of organic matter you will need 200 g of superphosphate and 60 g of potassium salt.
- The prepared soil mixture is poured over the drainage.
The planting holes are ready, now it is necessary to prepare Golden Ring barberry seedlings for planting.
If the seedling was purchased in a pot with a closed root system, then planting occurs by transferring the plant from the container to the hole.
If the root system is open, then the roots must be carefully straightened and the seedling planted. Next, the seedling is spilled with water and covered with earth.
When planted correctly, the root collar of the bush should be at ground level. After planting, the soil around the seedling must be slightly compacted.
Next, the seedlings need to be well watered, at least a bucket of water under each bush. After watering, the ground under the bush is mulched with peat or sawdust to better retain moisture.
Watering and fertilizing
In the first stages of development, young seedlings need frequent watering - at least once a week. No additional fertilizer is required. The shrub will need only those made during planting.
Only from the second year of life the plant will need nitrogen fertilizers; you can use urea or ammonium nitrate. For each bush you will need a matchbox of fertilizer diluted in a bucket of water. Pour the fertilizer strictly at the root of the plant. Subsequent application of fertilizers is carried out every 4-5 years.
The shrub does not require frequent watering; the amount of precipitation will be quite sufficient for hydration. If the summer turns out to be very hot and dry, then one root watering per week will be enough for the barberry.
Do not forget about loosening the tree trunk circle to remove all weeds. The depth of loosening should be no more than 3 cm. This procedure will also be an excellent solution to the issue of aeration.
Trimming
Pruning is a fairly important stage in the development of a shrub. There are 2 types of pruning:
- Sanitary.
- Formative.
When starting any of the stages, it is important to remember that the bush has thorns, so you need to be extremely careful when carrying out work related to pruning.
Sanitary pruning of shrubs is carried out in early spring.This work includes the removal of frozen, damaged, dry shoots with the obligatory subsequent treatment of the cut areas with garden pitch or copper sulfate.
Two-year-old shoots that are capable of flowering and bearing fruit are pruned in the fall before frost.
When using shrubs for decorative purposes, pruning is a must. It is carried out from the next year after planting, cutting off 70% of above-ground shoots. Formative pruning is carried out 2 times a year - at the beginning and at the end of the summer period.
Preparing for winter
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring is characterized by increased winter hardiness and does not require shelter for the winter. But it’s better to play it safe and cover the seedlings of the first year of growing season.
Reproduction
Reproduction of Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring is carried out:
- seeds;
- cuttings;
- dividing the bush.
To propagate using seeds, it is necessary to prepare planting material. Seeds should be collected only from the ripest fruits, dried and processed by soaking in a pale pink solution of potassium permanganate for 20 minutes.
Seeds can be sown in late autumn directly into the ground. During the winter months they will undergo natural stratification. When planting in spring, the seeds are buried in damp sand and placed in the refrigerator for 2 months for artificial stratification. After this time, the sprouts can be planted into open ground. Of all the young shoots, after a year it will be necessary to select the strongest ones and transplant them to a permanent place.
To propagate shrubs using cuttings, it is necessary to collect material from young shoots of the first year of vegetation. A future cutting no more than 10 cm long is cut out from the middle of the shoot.
The upper part of the cutting should be cut strictly horizontally, while the lower part should be cut at an angle of 45 °. Next, the cutting is placed in an aqueous solution with a rooting agent (kornevin, heteroauxin) for a week. Only after this can it be planted in the ground under cover. Watering the planted cuttings is carried out as necessary, but loosening the soil must be done at least 2 times a week.
By dividing the bush, Thunberg Golden Ring barberry can be propagated only after it reaches 5 years of age. To do this, the bush must be carefully dug up and the root shoots divided into 3 parts, after which the finished seedlings can be planted again in the ground.
Diseases and pests
The Thunberg Golden Ring barberry shrub is largely not susceptible to fungal diseases, but can sometimes be affected by powdery mildew or rust. To solve these problems, solutions of drugs with a fungicidal spectrum of action are used:
- colloidal sulfur;
- foundationazole;
- fast;
- arcerides;
- Bordeaux mixture.
The main pests that can harm the bush are the barberry aphid and the moth butterfly. To combat them, it is necessary to carry out foliar treatment with acaricidal-insecticidal preparations:
- Decis-pro;
- Kinmiks;
- Carbphos;
- Metaphos;
- Fitoverm.
Conclusion
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring is able to bring bright colors to the garden plot, thanks to its excellent decorative properties. But it would also be useful to mention the possibility of fruiting of this ornamental shrub. Minimal follow-up care for Thunberg Golden Ring barberry should be a deciding factor when purchasing a seedling.
