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Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring every year gains popularity not only among landscape designers, but also among lovers of summer cottage farming.
Description of barberry Thunberg Golden Ring
Before proceeding with the description of the Golden Ring barberry, it is worth noting that the shrub is a nominee for the Award of Garden Merit - an award for varieties of garden plants. The Golden Ring barberry nominated was a board of the Royal Society of Horticulturists in 2002 for its decorative appearance and undemanding care and cultivation.
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring was bred by Forest Science students at the University of Toronto in 1950. To carry out scientific breeding work, the barberry tunberg Atropurpurea was taken as a basis, as a mother material. The presence of the main maternal gene is clearly visible in the Golden Ring barberry. Initially, the shrub was used for landscaping the urban landscape, and later gained popularity among lovers of country agriculture.
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring has the appearance of a bush. Only after 10 years from the moment of planting, it will be able to reach a maximum height of 2.5 m.At the same time, the spherical crown will reach a diameter of 3 m.
It is safe to say that the Golden Ring Thunberg barberry is endowed with good growth vigor and can add up to 30 cm in height and width in a calendar year.
In the early stages of development, the crown of the shrub has a funnel-shaped shape, and at later stages it acquires a spreading shape with drooping branches.
In different periods of the growing season, the color range of the bark of the shoots also varies:
- at a young age, there is a bright red tint;
- in adulthood, the Thunberg Golden Ring barberry acquires a darker shade of red.
The bark on the shoots has a ribbed structure with the obligatory presence of single thorns.
The leaf plate is alternately arranged and elliptical in shape with a maximum length of 3-4 cm.
The color of the leaves changes depending on the season:
- in summer - a dark shade of red with a narrow golden or golden green edging around the edge;
- in the fall - uniform coverage with a dark red, orange or purple hue.
It is because of the color scale of the leaf plate that the shrub was named Golden Ring, which literally means "golden ring".
The flower stalks of the Golden Ring barberry have a racemose shape, there are no more than 5 of them in red with a yellow tint. The size of one flower does not exceed 1 cm in diameter and has a rounded shape. You can see flowering shrubs only from 15 to 31 May.
Fruiting occurs by mid-September. Golden Ring barberry has the shape of a red ellipse with a glossy sheen. The fruits are resistant to shedding and are able to stick well to the branches even at negative air temperatures.
Barberry Golden Ring in landscape design
Thanks to its original and bright color, the shrub fits perfectly into any design project for arranging the landscape of a personal plot. The photo shows how organically the Thunberg Golden Ring barberry looks in group (photo 4-7) and single (photo 1, 2) plantings.Also, a good solution would be to use a shrub as a hedge (photo 8, 9) or in the formation of a rock garden (photo 3).
Planting and caring for barberry Thunberg Golden Ring
Even novice gardeners will not have questions related to planting and caring for the Golden Ring barberry. The shrub is absolutely unpretentious to growing conditions, but still there are some subtleties that will be discussed below.
Seedling and planting plot preparation
The site for planting barberry must be prepared in the fall:
- The site of the future landing must be dug to a depth of at least 50 cm.
- Remove all weeds.
- Sow with siderates: mustard, oil radish, phacelia.
- In the spring, before planting, the site must again be dug up with the obligatory embedding of seedlings of green manure herbs into the ground.
- With a low acidity of the soil, liming is necessary - 400 g of slaked lime per 1 seedling.
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring will feel good in sunny areas with light shading. Full shadow will not allow you to see the saturation of the color of the leaf plates and, importantly, the golden edging of the leaves.
When choosing a site for planting barberry, an important condition will be the absence of groundwater close to the soil surface. With prolonged stagnation of water, the root system of the bush will simply rot, and the plant will die.
Landing rules
Before planting seedlings, you need to prepare the holes:
- For a single planting, the hole should have a size of 50x50x50 cm.The distance between the seedlings is at least 2 m.
- When planning to plant a hedge, it is best to prepare a trench with the same width and depth. The length of the trench in this case directly depends on the length of the future hedge. In this case, the barberry must be planted at a distance of 50 cm from one another.
Further steps for preparing holes or trenches are absolutely identical:
- Drainage must be laid out at the bottom of the planting hole. Broken brick, sawdust and crushed stone will help to cope with this issue.
- The soil mixture used for planting should consist of turf, humus and sand, which are mixed in a 2: 2: 2 ratio.
- Fertilizers must be applied to the prepared soil substrate. A bucket of organics will need 200 g of superphosphate and 60 g of potassium salt.
- The finished soil mixture is poured over the drainage.
The planting holes are ready, now you need to prepare the Golden Ring barberry seedlings for planting.
If the seedling was purchased in a pot with a closed root system, then planting occurs by transferring the plant from the container to the hole.
If the root system is open, then the roots must be carefully straightened and the seedling must be planted. Next, the seedling is spilled with water and covered with earth.
When properly planted, the root collar of the shrub should be at ground level. After planting, the soil around the seedling must be slightly compacted.
Further, the seedlings must be shed well, no less than a bucket of water under each bush. After watering, the land under the bush is mulched with peat or sawdust to better retain moisture.
Watering and feeding
In the early stages of development, young seedlings need frequent watering - at least 1 time per week. No additional fertilization is required. The shrub will have enough of those that were made during planting.
Only from the second year of life will the plant need nitrogen fertilizers; urea or ammonium nitrate can be used. For each bush you will need a matchbox of fertilizer diluted in a bucket of water. The dressing is poured strictly under the root of the plant. Subsequent fertilization is carried out every 4-5 years.
The shrub does not require frequent watering, the amount of precipitation will be quite enough to moisturize.If the summer turned out to be very hot and dry, then one root watering per week will be enough for the barberry.
Do not forget about loosening the trunk circle with the removal of all weeds. The loosening depth should be no more than 3 cm. This procedure will also be an excellent solution to the issue of aeration.
Pruning
Pruning is a fairly important stage in the development of a shrub. There are 2 types of trimming:
- Sanitary.
- Formative.
When starting any of the stages, it is important to remember that the shrub has thorns, so you need to be extremely careful when carrying out work related to pruning.
Sanitary pruning of shrubs is carried out in early spring. This work includes the removal of frozen, damaged, dry shoots with the obligatory subsequent processing of the cut sites with garden pitch or copper sulfate.
Two-year-old shoots that are able to bloom and bear fruit are cut in the fall until the very frost.
When using the shrub for decorative purposes, pruning is a must. It is carried out from the next year after planting, cutting off 70% of aerial shoots. Formative pruning is carried out 2 times a year - at the beginning and at the end of the summer period.
Preparing for winter
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring is characterized by increased winter hardiness and does not need shelter for the winter. But it is better to play it safe and cover the seedlings of the first year of vegetation.
Reproduction
Reproduction of barberry Thunberg Golden Ring is carried out:
- seeds;
- cuttings;
- dividing the bush.
For propagation with the help of seeds, it is necessary to prepare the planting material. Seeds need to be collected only from the most ripe fruits, dried and processed by soaking in a pale pink solution of potassium permanganate for 20 minutes.
Seeds can be sown in late autumn directly into the ground. During the winter months, they will undergo natural stratification. When planting in spring, the seeds are deepened into wet sand and placed in the refrigerator for 2 months for artificial stratification. After this time, the sprouts can be cut into open ground. Of all the young shoots in a year, the strongest will need to be selected and transplanted to a permanent place.
For propagation of a shrub using cuttings, it is necessary to collect material from young shoots of the first year of vegetation. A future stalk no more than 10 cm long is cut from the middle of the shoot.
The upper part of the cutting should be cut perfectly horizontally, while the lower part should be cut at an angle of 45 °. Next, the cutting is placed in an aqueous solution with a rooting agent (root, heteroauxin) for a week. Only then can it be planted in the ground under cover. Watering the planted cuttings is carried out as needed, but loosening of the soil should be carried out at least 2 times a week.
By dividing the bush, the Thunberg Golden Ring barberry can be propagated only after it reaches 5 years of age. To do this, the bush must be carefully dug out and the root shoots must be divided into 3 parts, after which the finished seedlings can be planted back into the ground.
Diseases and pests
The shrub of the Thunberg Golden Ring barberry is largely not susceptible to fungal diseases, but sometimes it can be affected by powdery mildew or rust. To solve these problems, solutions of preparations of a fungicidal spectrum of action are used:
- colloidal sulfur;
- foundation;
- fast;
- arcerid;
- Bordeaux mixture.
The main pests that can harm the shrub are the barberry aphid and the moth. To combat them, it is necessary to carry out sheet treatment with preparations of the acaricidal-insecticidal direction:
- Decis Pro;
- Kinmix;
- Karbphos;
- Metaphos;
- Fitoverm.
Conclusion
Barberry Thunberg Golden Ring is able to bring bright colors to the backyard, thanks to its excellent decorative properties. But it will also be useful to mention the possibility of fruiting this ornamental shrub. Minimal follow-up care for the Thunberg Golden Ring barberry should be a decisive factor when purchasing a seedling.
