Today, a low-growing garden is not a fantasy, but quite an ordinary reality. The growing popularity of dwarf trees is due to a number of benefits, including an aesthetic and decorative garden that yields bountiful harvests.
What fruit trees are called dwarf trees
Trees obtained by grafting the desired variety onto a special rootstock are called dwarf trees, but it is more correct to say: trees on a dwarf rootstock.
The selected rootstock must be one or two years old. Vaccination is carried out by budding with a dormant or germinating eye. Some gardeners prefer to side-graft the cutting over the bark in the spring.
Dwarf trees can also be made from vigorous trees when the plants are still young. American authors Gertman and Koestler in their book say that such an operation is possible if a strip of bark is cut from a young tree and turned over. But in our country, such experiments have not yet been done, so there is no need to talk about the reliability of the information.
Key features
Dwarfthe garden in our latitudes does not yet have a ubiquitous scale, but many gardeners in the world have already been able to appreciate the advantages of such options. Noted:
- Shortened start of fruiting. Everyone knows the fact that traditional vigorous trees begin to bear fruit only 5-7 years after planting.
- Easy care. Dwarf trees do not grow above two meters. Strong growth of the crown is not characteristic of them. All the necessary care procedures can be done right from the ground.
- Relatively small food area. Where a single tree grows in a traditional garden (which has a feeding area of up to 45 m²), 5 dwarf plants can be planted with a feeding area of 8 m².
- High yield. Breeders around the world, as well as horticulturalists and agronomists, note higher yields in dwarf fruit trees, and not in their traditional counterparts.
And they need another 7-10 years to stabilize the crop. Dwarf fruit trees enter their fruitful age already 3-4 years after planting. A full-fledged harvest can be enjoyed already on average after 7 years. The time savings are significant, isn't it?
Imperfections in dwarf plantings
Despite a significant list of advantages, dwarf fruit trees and orchards have a number of disadvantages that must be taken into account. Namely:
- The high initial outlay required to set up a dwarf plantation may put some gardeners off the hook.
- Some varieties are adapted exclusively to warm climatic conditions, which means they simply cannot survive our winters.
- Short lifespan.
- Dwarf fruit trees due to illiterate planting tend to change the quality of the variety.
- Additional costs associated with the installation of supports. In some cases, this is simply a necessity, since dwarf plants have a shallow root system. And the supports allow you to avoid damage to the tree, breaking off branches under the weight of the crop, washing away the soil.
- Frequent and careful pruning is a must for these trees. Otherwise, deterioration in the quality, size and presentation of the fruit will be immediately noticeable.
- Despite the fact that the care of a dwarf garden is simple, it must be done often. Otherwise, nature will make its negative corrections.
Basic varieties for low growing garden
Despite the relative ease of creation, not every variety of fruit tree can be obtained from its dwarf counterpart.
Good dwarf fruit trees come from peaches, nectarines, apples, pears, plums, because they can even be grown in pots.
But when buying a rootstock, one should not forget about the compatibility of the grafted plant and the crop to which you will graft.
The most popular dwarf trees are:
- Apple tree, which is easiest to make a rootstock. Today, thanks to the hard and painstaking work of breeders, there are many dwarf apple trees that delight with abundantyields and disease resistance.
- Pears, which in dwarf form are quite hardy, resistant to changeable weather conditions and productive.
- Sweet Cap fig peach, which at maturity has a height of 1.8 meters. The dwarf trees on this stock are prolific. They have a sweet, with a barely noticeable sourness, white flesh. Among the advantages it is worth noting frost resistance, resistance to drought.
- UFO fig peach, which will delight you with fleshy fruits with yellowish flesh and a sugary-sweet taste.
- Blue Free dwarf plum, which is resistant to disease, drought, frost.
- Plum President on a dwarf rootstock. This is one of the most winter-hardy varieties, giving abundant harvests and quickly filling the garden area.
- Late Chachak plum with a harvest in late September. Dwarf plants on this rootstock are resistant to chlorosis, cancer of the root system. Saplings of dwarf trees of the Chachaksky variety are resistant to both frost and summer drought.
Growing dwarf seedlings
Growing dwarf seedlings of fruit trees occurs mainly through winter grafting. When choosing a variety to which the cuttings of the clone stock will be grafted, it should be remembered that the grafted cuttings significantly reduce the winter hardiness of the first plant. Therefore, the best scion will be a zoned winter-hardy variety. Clone insert can only be a stalk of a dwarf winter-hardy stock.
The insert must be no longer than18 centimeters. A shorter length will not give the necessary weakening of the growth of the grafted variety. Seedlings of fruit dwarf trees, or rather, their inserts with a long length, greatly inhibit growth when planting in the garden, which slows down the yield and spoils the quality of the fruit.
Rules for planting dwarf trees
An aesthetically beautiful and fruitful garden of dwarf trees can be formed if you follow a number of rules put forward for planting trees on a dwarf rootstock.
- Should be planted in early spring in a wide deep hole, where the roots of the plant will freely fit.
- The earth from the pit must be mixed with green compost.
- When examining the roots of the seedling, damaged or diseased tips should be removed, and the roots should be dipped in the root mixture before planting.
- To raise the tree, line the bottom of the hole with a little compost fertilizer.
- We lower the seedling into the pit, sprinkle it with earth, distribute the soil between the roots with our hands.
- Then the pit is half-filled, the soil is well compacted.
- The rest of the earth is also covered and compacted.
Don't plant a tree too deep. This can lead to spoilage, deterioration in yield and quality of the variety. Do not forget about tying the plant to a support, which is necessary for dwarf trees. To do this, you can use a strip of rubber, which, while supporting the tree, will not injure its thin bark.
How to properly cultivate these plants
Proper cultivation- this is the key to a bountiful harvest on a he althy and strong tree. How to properly care for dwarf fruit trees?
- The area around the tree trunk must be kept clean, i.e. all weeds must be removed.
- It is not recommended to allow the formation of a crust on the ground. To avoid this, the soil must be loosened and nutrient mulching used. The best mulch for dwarf plants is semi-decomposed compost.
- Mulch should not be near the tree trunk. The optimal distance is half a meter or more. The outer border should match the crown circumference of the plant.
- Mulching should be avoided during the wet season and when the soil is very heavy.
- Hay bedding is a must in dry regions with rapidly drying soil.
Feeding bonsai
New shoots and branches on the tree are formed in parallel with new root shoots that go into the soil. Experienced gardeners use composted manure, decomposed compost mixes, and combinations of both to stimulate growth.
Feeding is placed in a ring in the soil. It should not touch the trunk of the tree, as this can damage the plant's nourishing roots. It is allowed to arrange compost in the same way as mulching.
Winter Care
As already mentioned, the root system of dwarf plants is shallow, so winter shelter is vital for them. For protection for the winter, the soil of the trunk circle is mulched. For this you can takesawdust, peat, multilayer paper. An 8-10 cm layer is quite capable of protecting the roots in a snowless winter.
Mulching is best after the first frost, so as not to prevent soil moisture from autumn rains.
If it snows, then mulching can be abandoned. During winter, it is advisable to add snow to the trees, but from those places that will not expose the ground on the tree trunks.
Dwarf trees, photos of which today often adorn garden publications, are capable of outdoing any traditional vigorous tree with proper care in terms of yield.
