spruce battle

For the New Year, my husband bought a Christmas tree in the hypermarket. In fact, it was a seedling of Canadian spruce (Picea glauca Conica). The label on the container did not contain (except for the name) any useful information: how old the seedling is, how many and when it was transplanted.

My husband had an idea to put this mini-Christmas tree in the nursery and decorate it with tiny toys, they specially bought a set of Soviet times on the Hammer. I had to disappoint him, the temperature in the children's room is + 25-28 ° C, the spruce would have dried up there within a week or two. I felt sorry for the unfortunate plant grown in order to decorate the holiday and then die. I decided to save her!

To be honest, at first it didn’t present any particular difficulties: we don’t have radiators in the hallway, so the air temperature there in winter does not exceed 16-18 ° C., and sometimes even lower. There I have a table, indoor plants winter on it, which need such temperatures during the dormant period. All spruce care was reduced to preventing the substrate in which it grew from drying out and crown irrigation. For these purposes, I used exclusively rain and melt water. This photo was taken on February 21st. The spruce gave new shoots, the needles on the whole tree were fresh, green.

Oh, I almost forgot! When I decided to keep and plant the spruce at home, I immediately dug a hole, poured 5-7 cm of mulch on the bottom, made from last year's Christmas tree: needles, 2-3 cm branches cut with pruners, pieces of cones that the children brought from parks. Then she made drainage, mixed the excavated earth with sand and coniferous earth, bought in the same hypermarket. Slightly sprinkled with drainage, left the hole to “ripen” until spring and form a coniferous microflora.

This is where my quiet life ended. With the onset of heat, I began to gradually “harden” my spruce, take it out under a canopy, first for a few minutes, then for half an hour. As long as she was in the shade of the canopy, everything was fine. But, as soon as I took it out into partial shade, the spruce, which had been hardened for 2 weeks, behaved disgustingly - the young shoots dried up literally before our eyes!

Deciding that there was nothing to lose, I moved it into the open ground. We were lucky with her, she grew in this container for at least a year, the earthen ball was dense, well braided with roots, which, when planting, were sprayed by me with root formation stimulants. Not without growth and recovery stimulants for the crown. The trunk circle was covered with home-made spruce mulch 3-4 cm thick. I watered it from a watering can so that the mulch would not wash out, irrigated the crown every morning and evening - all this was exclusively with rainwater. She did not react in any way, and continued to stand with sad, withered shoots. I already mentally said goodbye to her, when suddenly at the beginning of May I saw that she had new buds formed at the tips of the branches!

Let them be negligible, but it was a signal - the spruce survived! After waiting a couple more weeks, I made sure - new shoots are growing! Believe me, my joy knew no bounds, even now I still do not believe in my victory, but the result is obvious! My tree survived! Probably because I really wanted to save her, she did not dare to wither!

I am not a professional, but an amateur, for me every plant is a living being, which is completely dependent on me. And from the fact that I managed to save the life of a tiny Christmas tree, my heart is so warm! It may not look very good now, but a luxurious crown is a matter of time!

My deep conviction is that plants understand us, react to our attitude towards them. What do you think?