The Pine family includes different types of conifers, one of them is solid fir. In 1839, it was first discovered in California by traveler William Lobb. Now the fir of this species is growing around the world. It fits the California, Arizona, Mexican climate. The scientific name for the species is Abies Concolor. They called it that because of the needles that have a single-color gray-green color from above and below. Translated from Latin concolor means "monochrome".

Botanical Description

Trees of the species Abies Concolor grow up to six meters in height and with a crown almost two meters in diameter, which is young in conical shape, with a sharp spike-like apex, dense. In aging trees, it thins significantly, branches fall, and the top becomes flattened.

Important! Thanks to its root system, which penetrates deeply into the soil, Conkolor fir tolerates drought and withstands gusts of strong wind.

Branches cover flat, often curved in the form of a sickle, needles of green or bluish-green color. The needles are fluffy, it smells of lemon. Cones of fir concolor oval-cylindrical, large, 7 to 12 centimeters long, olive-green at the beginning of ripening. They appear only in the sixty-sixty-fifth year of life.

Popular varieties

There are several varieties of this plant, of which designers make up compositions of varying complexity.

The most popular varieties:

1. Compact (Compacta).
2. Violacea.
3. Archer's Dwarf
4. Candicans

Varieties for planting on the site are selected based on the following criteria: external characteristics, basic soil requirements, daylight illumination.

Compacta

Dwarf species, trees mostly 80 centimeters high, sometimes there are specimens one and a half meters. The width of the crown is 60 centimeters. Every year, the tree grows on average by 3-5 centimeters. The needles are blue, the length of the needle is up to 40 millimeters. The plant is winter-hardy, loves light, so it is best to plant it in well-lit areas, but you can also slightly darken.

Compacta fir does not like too dense and moist soils; it prefers sandy loam and loam more. Due to its small growth, it causes great interest among landscape designers.

Violacea

Violacea fir is a decorative tree reaching a height of up to eight, and sometimes up to twelve meters. The width of the crown is from 4.5 to 7.5 meters. The plant is fast-growing; on average it adds 35–40 centimeters in growth per year. By ten years, it can reach one and a half meters in height and have a crown width of seventy centimeters.

Did you know? The fir branches contain useful oils from which various medicines are made. In needles - vitamin C, and in the bark - tannins.

The needles of bluish-white color, curved up, exude a lemon smell. The crown shape of young individuals is similar to a pointed cone, with age it becomes wide-pyramidal. The bark is gray, the branches grow at an acute angle to the trunk. The buds of Violacea fir are resinous, yellow-green, bloom late, so she is not afraid of spring frosts.

Cones are ovoid-cylindrical in shape, light brown or slightly reddish in color, up to fifteen centimeters long. A tree of this variety loves sunlight, but can grow in shaded places. Violacea is not afraid of frost, drought, smoke, takes root in urban conditions, but is afraid of cold winter winds.

Archer's dwarf

Archers Dwarf is a beautiful dwarf tree with a dense conical crown. Long upward pointing needles are smoky. A ten-year-old tree reaches a height of 1 m and a crown width of 60 cm. Cones of cylindrical shape, up to 14 cm long, of olive-green or purple color in an immature state, at the moment of maturation they are painted a light brown color.

Of all the available varieties, Archers Dwarf is the most photophilous. The advantage of this variety is that it is more resilient to adverse environmental factors, tolerates urban conditions and transplanting well.

Candicans

This is a tall grade of plain fir. An adult tree reaches 12 meters in height with a crown width of 3.5 meters. The plant is rapidly growing, adding 10 centimeters per year. Dense symmetrical crown, branches are dense, located in relation to the trunk almost at right angles.

Needles about 6 cm long, sickle-curved, ash blue. Photophilous and winter-hardy variety, prefers nutritious, moderately moist, drained soils. Suitable for planting on the lawn, in winter it can be used as a Christmas tree.

Other varieties

Other varieties of plain fir are equally in demand, which are also suitable for planting on a personal plot.

Conifers such as:

• Glauca
• Konica (Conica);
• Winter Gold (Winter Gold);
• Extra.

Each of them has its own specific features. Glauka is a tall variety (the height of an adult tree is about fifteen meters) with a cone-shaped crown and thick 2-cm needles. He loves moisture and sunlight, but is afraid of frost.

Variety Konika - low-growing trees with a height of not more than 2.5 meters with a crown in the form of a cone. Needles about 4 centimeters long each are painted in bluish-green. The plant is winter-hardy, shade-loving, but can grow in ambient light.

Winter Gold fir trees grow up to twenty meters. The variety got its name thanks to the golden-green color of the needles. Translated from English, Winter Gold means "winter gold." Winter Gold loves loamy soil with a lot of humus, but does not tolerate strong moisture and stagnation of water.

Extra - heat-loving, tall variety. The height of an adult tree is 15 meters, the crown width is 5 meters. Needles of blue color. The plant loves sandy loam soil, which contains a lot of minerals.

Landing

For planting in the soil, seedlings of fir of a single color must reach four years of age. You can plant them in spring or autumn. Spring planting occurs in April, and autumn planting in September. This is best done when the street is cloudy or raining. The best option for planting fir seedlings would be loamy, moderately moist, drained soil. The place must be chosen well-lit and spacious.

Planting seedlings is done according to the following rules:

• dig a hole of the right size;
• two buckets of water are poured into it, and wait until it is absorbed, then a 6-centimeter layer of crushed stone is poured;
• after that, half of the hole is covered with soil enriched with organic substances (humus, peat, sand, clay), sawdust and mineral fertilizer Nitrofoska, consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, are added. Fertilizer proportions are calculated depending on the composition of the main soil on the site;
• they wait about two weeks until the soil settles, then a sapling is planted in the hole without knocking down the ground where it grew from, leaving a zone of transition from the root to the stem above the ground;
• after that, the hole is filled with the rest of the soil, compacting it, and watered.

In one row, seedlings are planted at a distance of five meters from each other. This is an important condition, since the crown of fir grows widely in diameter.

Fir Care

Despite the unpretentiousness of fir to the habitat, it nevertheless requires proper care, which consists in watering, feeding, loosening, mulching, pruning, and the fight against possible diseases and pests.

Important! The first top dressing is done three years after the planting of seedlings of plain fir.

Watering and feeding

Solid fir seedlings are watered once every two weeks. This is best done with sprinkling. In the future, when they take root, watering is carried out exclusively in the period of drought.

Fir prefers soils, which contain a large amount of nutrients. Therefore, every spring around the trunk, 100 grams of Kemira complex mineral fertilizer is poured and poured with water. Top dressing is carried out at least once a year. In autumn, it can be fertilized repeatedly with mineral fertilizers (humus, compost, dolomite flour, potassium humate).

Loosening and mulching

The earth in the area around the tree must be loosened as often as possible to a depth of 12 cm and weeds should be removed. Loosening after each watering is especially recommended. Young seedlings also mulch, pouring dry sawdust, peat or bark of trees 5-6 centimeters thick around the trunk in order to avoid abundant evaporation of moisture and the appearance of a cracked crust on the ground.

Pruning

The beautiful, correctly modeled crown of fir for the first ten years does not need to be cut at all. The plant as a whole does not like pruning, but in the spring you can remove dry and spoiled branches, as well as prune young shoots by a third to give the tree a neat appearance. Sanitary pruning should be done before the sap flow begins.

Possible diseases and pests

Proper maintenance of the fir reduces the likelihood of pests and diseases appearing on it. The most common disease affecting conifers is rust caused by a rust fungus. Most often, it appears on too densely planted young trees. The fight against rust is carried out by removing damaged areas, which are then burned. Then the crown is treated with Bordeaux liquid.

Not only diseases are enemies of fir, it is also attacked by pests. The most common of them are fir-fir brown hermes and fir moth. Cope with them can insecticides, such as Rogor and Antio. Spraying with drugs is carried out in the spring at the time of budding and is repeated with an interval of 10-12 days. A mixture for processing trees is prepared in a ratio of 4: 1 (400 grams of the drug per 1 liter of water).

Tree propagation

In nature, young fir trees grow from seeds sown by the wind, or by layering (the lower branches reach the ground and take root, forming a seedling). Self-cultivation is carried out by two methods: seeds and cuttings. Seeds are collected from cones and planted in one hole of ten pieces. In spring, no more than half of them emerge. Up to four years old seedlings do not transplant.

Harvesting seeds is a difficult process. Cones grow high and, when ripe, the seeds immediately carry the wind. To simplify the collection of seeds, cones are ripened immature and dried. Store fir seeds before planting in the refrigerator or cellar.

Ornamental plant species are grown from cuttings. The processes not older than one year, which have one bud at the top, are cut strictly from the north side of the tree and in wet weather. Cuttings are cut with a length of about eight centimeters, then soaked for some time in water, after adding several preliminary crystals of potassium permanganate there to make a light solution.

Then they are planted in specially prepared soil containing equal parts of sand, peat and humus. Containers with cuttings are covered with a film and aired daily. After a year, roots appear on them. When the root system is sufficiently developed, the grown seedlings are transferred to the ground, where they will grow further.

Video: propagation of conifers by cuttings

The use of wood in landscape design

A luxurious crown of the correct form, with blue needles painted in blue, cones resembling candles on a Christmas tree, cannot remain without the attention of designers. Fir is planted around the site to get a beautiful evergreen fence. The only drawback of the hedge is its price, since one fir tree is not cheap. In landscape design, already grown trees are mainly used, since growing seedlings is a troublesome and lengthy process.

Did you know? Fir branches contain so many phytoncides that they are able to destroy microbes in the room. Birch brooms are made from fir branches.

Forest beauty gets along well on a site next to other trees. In the vicinity of it, spruce, pine, larch and other plants can grow. In one area next to the fir, birch, barberry tunberg are purple-leafed, maple with red leaves, and sugar maple look good. Dwarf plant varieties are combined with juniper and arborvitae, they are decorated with small stone slides.

Tall trees are planted along the alleys, they decorate the lawn or the territory near the house. If the area allows, then on the plot you can grow a small coniferous forest and then a pleasant smell of pine needles will hover around.

Monochrome fir loves light, it is the most sun-loving look, which also tolerates the smoke of the air, thanks to which it takes root in an urban environment. Trees of this species live up to 350 years. The main advantage of fir over other conifers is that the needles do not fall even on a cut and drying tree. Because of this property, I often use it as a Christmas tree.