Blueberry Elizabeth: a description of the variety, characteristics. Planting blueberries

Blueberries are a valuable berry for vitamins, especially for those regions that are characterized by a short cool summer and a severe winter period. Due to its high frost resistance, it is grown in our climate. What kind of blueberry berry is Elizabeth? How to plant it, read in the article.

Blueberry Elizabeth: characteristics

The native land of the plant is North America. It is a very strong deciduous shrub whose life expectancy is a hundred years. Its height reaches two meters. The branches are sprawling, the processes have a specific color, indicating high frost resistance. This culture with a late maturation period has small leaves, painted in a bluish-green color. The flowers are small, with a pinkish tinge.

Propagates with the help of lignified branches. Culture is demanding on the composition of the soil. It grows in peaty-sandy and peaty-loamy acid soils of blueberry Elizabeth. The variety description includes many characteristics, including the amount of expected harvest, taste and size of the fruit. Read about this in the article. In the natural environment grows in all conditions. These may be hills with gristly soiled soils, wetlands or drained peat bogs.

Description of fruits

Strong berries are large in size and have small scars. Blueberries Elizabeth fructifies well, up to six kilograms of berries from one bush, and a long time, sometimes several weeks. This is due to fluctuations in spring temperatures. It negatively affects exactly in the period when the blueberry Elizabeth blooms. The description of the variety will be incomplete, if not to say about the palatability of the fruit. This is the best grade for this indicator. The berries are sweet, fragrant with honey aroma.

The surface of the berries is bluish-coal color, has a wax coating. Greenish pulp has a liquid consistency. The size of the fruit in diameter reaches twenty-two millimeters. Ripen berries in early August. Thanks to a dense skin, their collection does not cause any difficulties. Berries are transported well, they are not compressed during transportation.

Place of planting

To grow blueberries on the garden, you need to choose the right place for its comfortable growth. It must be a sunny, not blown cold winds.

If the shrub is planted in the shade, a large crop should not be expected, but the berries will be sour, with bitter taste. In the event that the site has clay soil, it is better to choose a small mound for planting, where the drainage layer will be traced. In the lowlands of blueberries Elizabeth does not land, as excessive moisture harms. It should be borne in mind that the plant does not like drafts. Around the bush, blueberries should not grow tall trees or other shrubs.

The soil

If the bush is provided with favorable conditions, it will grow well and bear fruit abundantly. The best option is to plant blueberries in acid soils. If the entire area is covered with heavy loamy soils, their upper layer is diluted. For this, suitable peat, the land from under the pines or river sand. The earth is mixed with additives in a proportion of three to one. Acidify the soil with vinegar or a small amount of citric acid.

If the soils are depleted, they are fertilized with mineral fertilizers containing nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. After having made the necessary water, the bed should be well digged and left alone until planting blueberries.

Planting material

Planting is most often carried out by seedlings purchased in the store. On the roots should be a clod of earth, protecting the plant from drying out. If in the garden already growing blueberry tall Elizabeth, then you can independently obtain the planting material, using the cuttings and cuttings of the plant.

It is also possible, when transplanting an adult bush, to separate a small part of it and plant it as a new plant in another place. So you have to spend some time on work, but you will get a significant cost savings. This method is used quite often.

Landing

The procedure for correct planting largely determines the further growth and development of the plant. Large seedlings are recommended to plant in autumn, and small and weak in spring. Purchased planting material before being determined for a permanent growing place is first placed in water for twenty minutes. Planting blueberries is carried out in pits dug in advance. Their depth is sixty centimeters, and the width and length are one hundred.

The shrub is distinguished by a horizontal arrangement of the root system, and therefore the pit must correspond to its size. The bottom of the hole is covered with drainage. To do this, use broken brick, rubble, porous pebbles or something else that is in the garden. If several bushes are planted simultaneously, the distance between them should be at least two meters. The seedlings, together with a clod of soil on the roots, are placed in a well, spread out the roots and covered with soil. Then abundantly watered.

The soil around the trunk is mulched with sawdust, chips or shavings of conifers. The layer of mulch should not be powerful, enough seven to ten centimeters in height. This will protect the soil from weathering and retain moisture in it. Weeds will not grow so fast. It is advisable to update the mulch every year. If it does not work, then in two years once. Since the root system needs aeration, the soil under the bush should be regularly loosened.

Watering

With good care gives a high yield of blueberry garden. Elizabeth needs a lot of moisturizing, otherwise the berries will not ripen. It is especially important to water the plant more often in hot, arid weather. But the stagnation of water should not be allowed, otherwise the plant will die. In all the measure is needed.

Water the bushes as necessary, not allowing the cracking of the soil, but at least twice a week. However, this procedure has an important feature. The amount of water (two buckets) is divided in half. One part is poured under a bush in the early morning, and the second - in the evening, approximately at nineteen hours. In a particularly hot weather for the benefit of spraying the bushes. This should be done in the evening, after sunset, so the leaves will not get burned.

Top dressing

If the bushes of blueberries were planted in a well-dug and fertilized land, then in the first year no additional fertilizer is needed. Only a year later, twenty grams of mineral mixture and five kilograms of organic matter are added to the soil. It can be peat or compost. For a three-four-year-old bush, you need more fertilizers: one hundred grams of mineral, and ten to fifteen kilograms of organic. At the end of the summer, ammonium nitrate should be added in quantities of eighty grams.

Shrub formation

In the first year after planting, the blueberry Elizabeth does not need pruning. In the following year, the branches damaged by rot, diseases, and also broken by the wind are cut. Such pruning is called sanitary. A few years later, thickening bush shoots are removed, because of which there is no good growth of the plant.

Approximately from the sixth year of life they begin to form a bush, giving it the desired shape. Remove all dead branches, incidentally sick and broken. Such pruning is carried out in the spring or winter, at the beginning of the season. Leave four fruit bearing branches and as many young shoots. The shoots in the lower part of the bush are completely removed to exclude its thickening and fungal diseases. That's all the basic information.