Black-fruited cotoneaster: description and useful properties

This shrub requires careful care after planting, but for the care of the black-hearted cotoneaster will thank the owner, having transformed the cottage, the garden or the backyard of a country house. In addition, this plant has long been valued by traditional healers for its medicinal properties.

Black-capped cotoneaster: description

It is an evergreen deciduous shrub that grows quite slowly. Black-fruited cotoneaster (Latin - Cotoneaster melanocarpus) is most often a small tree from the Roses family. The name of the plant was given by the Swiss botanist Kaspar Baugin. It consists of two words: cotonea, which is translated from Greek as "quince", and aster - "similar, having a look." This is due to the fact that the leaves of one of the types of cotoneaster have a likeness to the leaves of quince.

The leaves of the plant are simple, not large, entire, regular, ovoid. In summer they are painted in a dark green color, and in autumn the color becomes a brilliant reddish shade.

Flowers are tender pink or white in the form of small scutes, solitary or collected in a brush. The duration of flowering is up to twenty-five days.

This plant is an excellent honeycomb, and from its branches make various crafts: pipes, walking sticks, etc.

Fruit is a false drupe. It looks like a small black (or red) apple. Inside contains from two to five ossicles. Fruits remain on the branches until late autumn, until the first frost. Owners of shrubs should know that the black-chested cotoneaster differs radically from a similar dogwood. At the same time, its fruits are edible, which can not be said about most other species.

Spread

The plant has more than forty species that grow in North Africa and Eurasia. The arthritis chernolplodny (the photo you see below) is frost-hardy and drought-resistant. In addition, this plant is not exacting to the composition of the soil, light and humidity. The plant in the culture is widespread: from Northern China to the Western regions, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, it is found in light deciduous forests, on the slopes of mountains. In Eastern Siberia, in natural conditions, grows alone or in groups.

Healing properties

Black-fruited cotoneaster is used for food, often compotes, soft drinks. Its medicinal properties are used by folk healers to treat certain diseases, including:

• Chronic and acute gastritis;
• diarrhea;
• gastroenteritis;
• fever;
• neurasthenia;
• jaundice;
• Edema;
• Stressful conditions.

It is believed that with liver diseases, infusions and decoctions should be taken. The treatment of epilepsy uses fruits. Black-chested cotoneaster successfully heals eczema and scabies. In Tibetan medicine, the properties of this plant are used to stop bloody diarrhea. Infusion of fruits is a powerful antiseptic.

Chemical composition

In folk medicine, flowers and plant branches are used, which must be collected during flowering. In addition, bark, kidneys and fruits are used. You should prepare only fully mature (late summer) fruit.

In leaves in large quantities contains vitamin C, flavonoids, glycoside. In the seeds prussic acid, in fruits - ascorbic acid, coumarins. The resin of the plant is used to treat skin diseases.

Tincture

This compound is recommended for patients with gastroenteritis and gastritis. You need to take a tablespoon of shoots and leaves (well ground), pour in 0.5 liters of boiling water, and insist for about two hours. After this, tincture is filtered. Take a quarter cup three times a day. The same composition will help with diarrhea.

Contraindications

To date, there are no contraindications to the use of formulations based on the black-fruited cotoneaster. Only individual intolerance is possible. To date, culture has not yet been fully explored. Before the beginning of treatment, consultation with the attending physician is necessary.

Black-capped cotoneaster: landing

The seedlings are planted in early spring, when the earth is waning, and the buds in the trees are not yet open. You can plant bushes in the autumn. Time is chosen between the beginning of the leaf fall and the first frost. The black-chested cousin is quite comfortable in the shade or penumbra. This will in no way affect the decorative qualities of the bushes. To the quality of the soil, the plant is also not demanding.

For a cotoneaster, a pit of at least 50х50х50 centimeters size is needed. It is covered with a layer of gravel or broken bricks (20 cm). Soil mixture is prepared from peat, humus and sand (one part) and turf ground (two parts). It will not be superfluous to add to the soil mix three hundred grams of lime. The distance between the cotoneaster's bushes or the building should be from fifty centimeters to two meters. It depends on the estimated size of the crown of the plant.

Injecting the seedling, make sure that the root collar is flush with the surface. Then the soil is compacted fairly densely, abundantly watered and mulched by the near-trunk circle. To do this, it is best to use a layer of peat eight centimeters thick.

Care of the plant

Even an aspiring gardener can grow an arterial cotoneaster. Care of the plant is not complicated. The main thing that it is necessary to know about this plant is the categorical rejection of excess moisture at the roots. The rest of the whims of nature citizel transfer easily.

Experienced gardeners say that watering the bushes is very rare, and if the summer is rainy, then it's better to forget about watering altogether. In the arid and hot summer it will be enough to water the plant once every two weeks at the rate of eight buckets of water per adult plant. After the rain (or watering), remove from the site all the weeds and loosen the soil no deeper than fifteen centimeters.

Top dressing

In the first spring days, when a positive temperature is established, the cotoneaster should be fertilized with nitrogen fertilizer. You can use urea (25 g), diluted in ten liters of water. Suitable and granules "Kemira-universal" (prolonged action). Before flowering, feed the plant 15 g of potassium and 60 g of superphosphate per square meter of soil. At the end of the season, the landing circle is mulched using peat (or cover material).

Pruning of the cotoneaster

Bushes are responsive to pruning. This is the plant that designers use to form shrubs of various forms: a prism, a cone, a hemisphere and even more complex shapes. Recommended pruned by a third increase in annual shoot. Figure pruning will require special tools and certain skills. After pruning, the shoots grow quickly, but the shape attached to the shrubs persists.

Pruning the cotoneaster can also perform a sanitary function, since sick, old, broken branches appear from time to time in any bush.

Cotoneaster: preparation for winter

The cotoneaster is cold-resistant and perfectly hibernates without shelter. It is enough to cover the planting circle using peat. But if there are fears that the winter will be too cold and snowless, duck it to the ground and secure it in this position. Top the bush with dry leaves.

In very cold and snowless winters, warm the plant with lapnika or any covering material. If the snow begins, free the cotyperm from the shelter. Much more useful if it will be wintering under the snow.