Honeysuckle Nymph: description, photo, reviews, pollinators, planting and care

The palm of primacy in precocity and early ripeness of berry crops in the Russian garden belongs to honeysuckle, the most photophilous of garden shrubs-berry. Distinctive features of the culture are peeling light beige bark, sometimes leaving thin flaps, a special love for sunny areas and an amazing ability to thicken, if the grower forgot about pruning for 2-3 years.

The fruits of this excellent berry - a storehouse of useful substances. Their taste depends on the variety and varies from sweet and sour-sweet to spicy-sour with pronounced bitterness. The results of the large-scale activity of breeders were the emergence of many new promising varieties of this culture, derived on the basis of the type of honeysuckle edible. One of them is devoted to this publication.

Meet: Honeysuckle, Nymph

This newest grade of Pavlovian selection is today recognized as the best garden berry from the family of Honeysuckle with excellent taste properties of fruits. Honeysuckle Nymph is an upright tall (more than 2 meters) spreading shrub with an oval crown and strong pubescent shoots with large oval, pointed tips. The variety is late-ripening, berries ripen at the end of June. Honeysuckle Nymph is distinguished by its magnificent decorative features, and it is often used in landscape design and erection of hedges.

Honeysuckle is one of the most winter-hardy crops able to withstand not only anomalously cold winters, but also insidious recurrent spring frosts that easily kill currant or gooseberry flowers. Statistics say that it annually fructifies even in the most risky zones of agriculture - in the Urals, Altai and Siberia.

Honeysuckle Nymph, like other varieties, maintains its productivity for 25-30 years. Durability of the bush is a significant advantage of this garden culture.

Fruit

Particular attention should be paid to fruits - blue-violet berries with a thick waxy coating, elongated in shape and with a rough uneven surface. The fruits are large spindle-shaped, sometimes curving, reaching a length of 2.5-3 cm and a weight of 0.9-1.2 g. Their taste is sweet-sour-sweet with pleasant astringency. The advantage of the variety is the fact that the berries are firmly attached to the branches and do not crumble, than many varieties of honeysuckle are. It is the large fruit and taste characteristics that distinguishes the honeysuckle of Nymph. The reviews of gardeners who have already met this breed are unanimous: the culture is really good.

We will not list all the dignity of the honeysuckle fruit, we only note that rare garden plants will become equal to these blue-blue berries by their saturation with useful substances acting on the human body as a healing balm. We add that the variety of honeysuckle Nymph is universal: the fruits are excellent for both fresh consumption and for any culinary processing or canning.

Harvest and pollinators

The very average crop yield (up to 1.3 kg per bush) is markedly increased with the planting of various varieties of pollinators nearby. Planted with a culture such as the honeysuckle of Nymph, varieties with the same flowering period, so that cross-pollination passed as productively as possible. The most successful in this role are late-ripening varieties of Amphora and Violet, as well as Viola, Morena and the Blue Spindle. Honeysuckle Nymph, pollinators listed above, are planted in a permanent place with an interval between them of at least 1.2-2 m.

We learn about the rules of planting this berry bushes.

Planting: optimal timing and preparation

Honeysuckle is unpretentious, it can be planted throughout the spring-summer season, except for the period when there is an active growth of shoots (May-June). But the best time for planting shrubs is considered to be autumn. Do it better from late September to mid-October: before the onset of cold weather, the seedling manages to take root and survive the harsh winter time.

Honeysuckle develops well and fructifies in lighted and sheltered areas with neutral fertile loam or sandy loam. The soil at the selected site is preliminarily prepared: dig and lime, leveling the acidity index, if necessary. The sapling is also prepared for planting: inspect the roots, removing rotted or broken. Long roots are shortened to 25-30 cm.

Honeysuckle Nymph: Planting and Care

Planting pits for culture are excavated, being guided by the size of the root system of the seedling. Usually, the size of the pits is standard - 0.4 x 0.4 m. They are filled one third with an earth mixture from the surface fertile soil layer with 10 kg of humus, 100 g of superphosphate, 300 g of ash, 30 g of potassium sulfate, spreading with a small mound. Seedling is placed on its top, gently spreading the roots along improvised slopes, and covered with prepared soil. The root neck of the plant is buried 3-5 cm from the surface of the soil. Well compacted the soil around the bush, young honeysuckle is abundantly watered. In order for moisture to reach the roots of the culture, around the stem, a roller is arranged around the circumference, which holds water. After absorbing moisture, the soil under the plant is mulched with humus, peat, wood chips or plant residues.

Stages of care for the culture

Like many garden crops, the honeysuckle of Nymph, the description of which is given in the article, needs watering, loosening of the soil, timely fertilizing, binding scraps and protection from pests and diseases. Honeysuckle is responsive to care, proper care is affected by increased yield and overall ornamentation of the bush.

In the first three years, care for the culture is a high hilling in the spring, watering and weeding or mulching. Pruning is not performed at this time, young plants do not need it.

Watering

The culture requires regular moderate watering, the intensity of which increases in hot, dry weather. Particular attention is paid to the end of spring, when moisture becomes necessary for high-quality fruit formation. The lack of water reflects the taste of berries and the size of the crop. With mild, moderate weather with moderate rains, the edible Nymph should be watered 3-4 times per season. The rate of watering is 10-12 liters per bush.

Loosening and weeding

After rain or watering, careful loosening of the soil under the bush is recommended, removal of weeds and fragments of their roots. When loosening, it is important not to overdo it, as the root system of the bush is shallow, the roots are located in a dangerous proximity to the soil level. Therefore, the soil is loosened not deeper than 5-8 cm.

An alternative to periodic loosening is mulching. It retains moisture and inhibits the development of weed grass, which significantly saves the time and energy of the gardener.

Feeding

In the first two years, the young culture is not fed, it lacks the nutrients introduced during planting. Then, fertilizers are applied annually, giving preference to good organics - overgrazed manure, compost or humus. In the spring, before swelling of the kidneys, ammonium nitrate (15 g / 1 m²) or 30 g of carbamide under the bush is introduced into the soil, previously dissolved in water. On the eve of winter, the shrub is prepared for wintering, feeding 5 kg of compost, 100 g of ash and 40 g of superphosphate per square meter of the site.

When to trim Nymph honeysuckle

Pruning is carried out from 3-4 years after planting, when the honeysuckle begins to thicken. Do it better in the autumn. First cut out the zero stems, growing directly from the ground. Then remove the sick, broken, dried or very short branches, because they will not produce fruitfully. For a qualitative fruit formation it is necessary to thin the bush so that the sun penetrates through the foliage and shoots.

Berries are formed on strong one-year-old stems, so to ensure a generous harvest do not touch the shoots of the current year. Stems with a weak growth are truncated if their base and middle part are visually strong. Non-productive or drying branches are also cut at the base. Remove and unsuccessfully growing shoots that interfere with the correct processing of soil in the trunk. The old bush is rejuvenated, carrying out a total pruning of all the stems, leaving only a young growth.

In the spring, sanitary pruning is necessary, the purpose of which is to remove beaten by frost, broken or sick shoots. By means of pruning, decorativeness is increased and fruit formation of such a culture as Nymph honeysuckle is increased. The photos presented in the article not only demonstrate the elegant elegance of this garden beauty, but also emphasize its very high potential in yielding the crop.

Features of fruiting and harvesting

Honeysuckle Nymph - a non-degrading variety, so you can not rush to harvest the crop in stages, as the ripening of berries. Gardeners, not by hearsay familiar with the variety, are advised to wait 5-7 days and harvest in one step.

The fruits of honeysuckle are covered with a delicate thin skin, damaged by careless handling. Therefore, when collecting a shallow dish, laying berries in a thin layer. The honeysuckle of Nymph is not an exception to the general rule. Comments gardeners emphasize their delicate structure and the impossibility of long-term storage. The harvested crop is processed almost immediately, more than 2-3 days the berry is not stored even in the refrigerator.

Aftercare

After the harvest is collected, spend feeding. Culture is still moderately watered and cut out shoots, sharply knocked out of the shape of the bush. If necessary, the plant is treated from insect pests. As a rule, they bypass it by side, but sometimes attack. The caterpillar caterpillar is not averse to enjoying the honeysuckle, and the leaves are aphids, miners, sawflies, mastiffs and leaf rollers. Against insects that damage foliage, use insecticides, for example, "Inta-Vir", "Decis" or "Alexar"; Against the caterpillars of the fingerprint - "Aktellik", "Rogor" or "Confidor".

Reproduction of honeysuckle

The unpretentious berry successfully propagates vegetatively and seeds. Gardeners prefer to propagate honeysuckle by cuttings (green or lignified), or by layers, as these methods will allow to receive the first crops 2-3 years after rooting of the planting material, the fruits from seed reproduction will have to wait 6-8 years. In addition, it must be remembered that such a method does not always guarantee the transfer of varietal characteristics of the mother plant. Division of the Nymph bush can be done when the plant turns 6 years old. Ten-year-old bushes are difficult to divide, which is facilitated by the rapid growth of culture, so the cuttings and cuttings are the most acceptable and productive methods of propagation of honeysuckle.

Cuttings are prepared for rooting in the spring, before swelling of the kidneys, from strong annual shoots, whose diameter is not less than 8 mm. The length of the cuttings is 18-20 cm. They are planted in a greenhouse, deepening each 10-12 cm. Above the ground surface, 2-3 growth buds should be left. Cuttings are rooted for a month.

An even simpler way to reproduce the Nymphs is by layering. It is carried out this way: at the beginning of summer loosen the soil under honeysuckle and prepare a small groove in which the strong shoot growing at the bottom of the bush is laid, pinned to the ground with a wire brace and sprinkled with soil. Until the next spring they forget about the layer, and when it comes, a secateur separates the entrenched litter from the mother bush and plant it.

We have listed the features of the reproduction of a culture such as honeysuckle. Variety Nymph (reviews of gardeners growing shrubs, confirm this opinion) unpretentious, decorative and annually fructifies, endowing a good harvest of healthy berries.