Creating a hedge isn't limited to planting. By choosing to grow a hedge, you will provide yourself with work for life, especially if it is a molded hedge.
Plants in hedges are highly competitive, so it is very important to provide them with good care, which includes caring for the root system (weeding, loosening, mulching, watering, feeding) and caring for the ground part (sprinkling, spraying against pests and diseases , cropping). Neglecting the needs of plants quickly affects the appearance of the hedge.
Tillage
Due to the high density of planting of plants in hedges (especially in molded ones), there is a strong compaction of the soil, therefore it is necessary to regularly loosen on both sides of the hedge to a width of at least 50 cm.If the hedge is formed from trees, it is necessary to process trunks with a diameter of 1 m Do not allow the soil around the plants to sod by cutting the lawn in time.
The depth of tillage should be determined by the structure of the root system. If the root system is deep, pivotal, you can dig it; if superficial - limited to shallow loosening (enough to a depth of 5 cm). At the same time, weeds are removed and, to further curb the growth of unwanted vegetation, the soil is mulched with sawdust, peat, bark, chips, nutshells or other material with a layer of at least 5 cm.
Watering
The root system of plants should not dry out, therefore it is important to ensure timely and sufficient watering with complete moisture to the root layer. After planting, the plants must be watered intensively for 3 weeks to the depth of the roots. Further, after the autumn planting, as a rule, there is enough natural precipitation. In the case of spring planting, the hedge must be regularly watered throughout the season, especially during dry periods and during active shoot growth - the water consumption at this time should be 20-30 liters per running meter of the hedge with weekly irrigation.
During the summer after planting, it is advisable to apply sprinkling - spray the plants abundantly with water under pressure from the splitter, especially in windy, dry or hot weather. Moisture-loving breeds are sprayed up to twice a day - early morning and late evening. This is especially true of evergreen conifers, in which the needles live for 3-5 years and therefore are more susceptible to dust and pollution than the leaf.
In subsequent years, watering is carried out in accordance with the needs of a particular plant species. The most effective irrigation method is to pump water slowly over several hours using an oozing hose, which provides deep permeability and prevents soil leaching.
Sometimes they are combined with watering foliar feeding and the use of growth stimulants, which are dissolved in irrigation water. In the first year after planting, watering with stimulants - for example, heteroauxin - is recommended up to 10 times per season. For hedges made of shrubs, the working concentration of heteroauxin is 0.002% at the rate of 5 liters per plant, for hedges made of trees - 0.004% at the rate of 30 liters per plant. Foliar dressing is usually used from the second year.
Top dressing
In formed hedges, with dense planting and regular mowing, a large amount of nutrients is removed from the soil, which must be replenished with the introduction of organic and mineral fertilizers. They are brought into fertile soils once every 3-4 years, into poor soils - every year or every other year.
Due to the dense planting of plants in the hedge, top dressing does not reach the roots everywhere, part of the root system is deprived.To solve this problem, you can use a hydrodrill or homemade root feeders, which must be provided even at the stage of planting a hedge. A flexible perforated hose is laid in a trench at a root depth (30 cm), the ends of which are brought to the surface. They are subsequently filled with solutions of mineral and organic fertilizers, which go directly to the roots.
Fertilization rates, per 1 m2 of area under a hedge:
humus, compost, rotted manure - 2-4 kg;
peat - 4-6 kg;
ammonium sulfate - 60-80 g;
superphosphate - 60-80 g;
potassium salt - 30-40 g.
Nitrogen fertilizers are applied dry for spring loosening of the soil, phosphorus and potash fertilizers - for autumn digging. Top dressing can also be applied in liquid form, best of all - during the period of intensive growth of shoots (nitrogen) and roots (phosphorus and potassium), the optimal concentration for most tree crops is:
ammonium nitrate - 2 g / l,
superphosphate - 20 g / l,
potassium sulfate - 2 g / l.
It is convenient to use long-term fertilizers in the form of granules, tablets, rods, which are applied once a season in spring.
Top dressing of coniferous hedges has a number of peculiarities: manure cannot be applied under conifers, only mineral fertilizers - every 2-3 weeks from late March to early August, nitrogen-phosphate in an amount of 20-30 mg / m2. For old plants and those mulched with bark or sawdust, this dosage should be increased.
