Ornamental and medicinal plants on the site. What is goji berry - planting, growing and care
Want to grow something special on your site? For example, an exotic, but completely unpretentious shrub with beautiful flowers and leaves, an easily formed crown and the same beautiful and very useful berries? Then, meet: goji bush!
Content
- What is a goji bush? video
- Goji: ornamental and medicinal plant in ideo
- Goji cultivation and care video video
What is a goji bush?
Tibetan barberry, Chinese barberry, common dereza, Chinese dereza, Ningxian dereza (Nngxi gǒuqǐ) or, as it has become fashionable to call this plant goji (gǒuqǐ), which, in fact, is translated from Chinese as dereza So many names, but it turns out that we are talking about the same plant!
Which name is correct?
Everything is correct, in its own way, because they call plants of different species, and there are up to 40 of them (and only 2 of them are medicinal growing in China and Tibet: dereza (goji) Chinese and Tibetan) of the same genus Dereza, the nightshade family (besides the family also includes potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant).
In general, dereza is a perennial shrub plant reaching 3.5 m in height, with fairly thin and flexible branches, small leaves and thin spines. Goji flowers are small, but very pretty, from light pink to dark purple. This plant blooms and bears fruit from May to October, depending on the region, these periods can fluctuate, somewhat decreasing. Productivity is quite high: up to 13 crops per season. From a one-year-old plant, up to 1 kg can be collected per season. Berries, and from older to 10 kg! The fruits are noteworthy: bright red scarlet, oval in shape, similar to both barberry and sea buckthorn, at the same time, with numerous small seeds. Fruits are usually dried and used as food or as medicine.
But, this is more and more general information from those countries where goji is grown on an industrial scale.
But what is a goji bush in the conditions of our garden-garden on a summer cottage, what is a goji berry, how to grow this miracle?
We'll figure out!
Goji: ornamental and medicinal plant
What is primary in the desire to plant a goji bush in its summer cottage:
- its beauty, unpretentiousness: grows quickly, the crown can be formed, getting beautiful dense plants. Moreover, it is possible to make from a shrub both a pretty ball-bush and a completely original tree, with a pronounced crown, pretty flowers and beautiful coral-colored beads and berries. A sight for sore eyes!
That is why the goji bush can be used not only as a solo artist when decorating an alpine hill in the garden, but also as a hedge on a summer cottage. Despite the fact that planting goji does not require specific knowledge and skills, it is enough to be an ordinary amateur gardener.
By the way, if you have bees, then for them the goji bush is a great help, because it blooms, as it bears fruit, practically, the entire warm (spring-summer-autumn) period.
- its medicinal valueso widely publicized lately. Two medicinal goji species have the most valuable properties of their fruits:
minerals, amino acids, antioxidant vitamins make this berry truly wonderful in the treatment of many chronic diseases, as well as cancer. Plus, goji berry has become especially popular in nutrition.
But, you need to understand that these super beneficial properties are most pronounced in berries grown in the territory of their historical homeland: China and Tibet.
A the summer version of goji is more of a decoration of the garden with an additional side effect in the form of tasty and yet healthy berries.
Goji cultivation and care
So how will goji grow in his infield?
Simple enough!
Goji berry planting and care for which are quite common, grows quickly, bears fruit, almost immediately, is not afraid of pests.
Initially, you can buy a goji bush in the form of seedlings in markets and nurseries,
but it’s better, nevertheless, to get seedlings on their own from the seeds. Only the quality of dried goji berries, which contain up to 10 small seeds, is worth choosing carefully and better, too, ordering and buying them in trusted nurseries.
When the seeds are already with you, we prepare the soil: loam + peat, in equal proportions and sow the seeds to a depth of 1-2 cm, no more. Watering is regular, moderate. Until the seeds sprout, you can cover them with cellophane or a plastic container and put in a warm cool place (+7, +10 C0). Seeds germinate after 2 weeks.
After emergence, we expose them to a well-lit, without drafts and already warmer window. Goji should be planted when the 3rd leaf appears in the plants.
Sowing and planting of napkins occur, naturally, in the spring, sowing March-April, landing, in the open ground the end of spring, depending on the climate.
Goji care for which, indeed, is quite simple, starts from the moment the plants are planted on the street. And, basically, it is what kind of end goal we pursue by planting goji.
If we need a strong fruit plant, then we select a 2 by 2 m area, well-lit. We plant a goji bush in the center of this site, covering the soil around a shrub, still small, with black film or straw, and erect this kind of fencing from a mesh, plastic mesh or make support frames.
All so that the rapidly growing shoots do not lie on the ground, do not take root, uncontrollably, taking away the strength of the main plant,
and the fruits that appear, in the summer cottage variant, not earlier than the 2nd year of growth of the goji bush, did not lie on the ground, were dry and clean. Which, subsequently facilitate their collection and storage.
If you already have one goji bush for 3-4 years, then you can, quite successfully and without prejudice to the plant and the crop, get a few more strong bushes using layering: in July we select strong branches, they are flexible in goji, we press them to the ground and we drop it or we drop it right away, in a prepared container. Before frost, we cut off the already rooted plant from the mother. All new adult bush is ready!
Thus, it is possible to quickly and costlessly propagate the nails for using this plant as a hedge.
And, if you need a bush of gajdi, basically, only for these purposes (although there will be fruits anyway), we plant a plant in a line, allocating an area of \u200b\u200bno more than 1 m1 m for each bush, and as we grow, form a crown in all directions.
But, with any method of growing goji: for the sake of fruits or for beauty, plant nutrition is carried out regularly.
And the result, even when leaving, without fanaticism is always excellent:
