Juniper is a beautiful coniferous plant, which is valued not only for its appearance, but also for its medicinal properties.
Today there are many types of this shrub, which allows everyone to choose the variety that will appeal to them. Colonoid juniper - one of the most ancient shrubs, surprising beauty and unpretentiousness in the care.
Juniper colonic: description and varieties
The juniper colonic has several varieties - Chinese, ordinary, virgin and rock juniper. They differ in appearance, country of origin and habitat, but are similar in their columnar shape and tall. All of them belong to the cypress family, grow well in temperate climates. This culture has bactericidal properties. Juniper essential oils help in the fight against respiratory diseases.
In landscape design use other types of juniper: horizontal, Chinese, Siberian.
The leaves of young shrubs have the appearance of needles, and over time they change to scale-like ones. Young needles have a bluish-green color, sharp needles. The fruits of the juniper colonic are blue or gray bumps. Because of the density of the scales, the cones cannot open completely.
Important! Transplanting the plant, you should be aware of the core root system of the shrub. After all, if the root is damaged, the juniper will grow unstable and weak.
Landing features
Preparing for planting juniper, you need to choose the right place and time, as well as find a suitable soil.
Soil requirements
Common juniper is kolonovidny refers to shrubs, undemanding to the soil. It is suitable for almost any soil - from sour to alkaline. Best of all, the plant survives on loamy and sandy soils; it can grow on stony ground.
It should be noted that the shrub does not like too wet areas, so you should not plant it in the lowlands. It is recommended to add drainage from large pebbles, crushed bricks and sand to the landing well. The thickness of the drainage layer should be about 20-25 cm.
Place to grow
Juniper likes a sunny, well-ventilated, open space. Only a small degree of shading is allowed; it is better that the sun shines throughout the day. It depends on this density of needles, branches and decorative plants. 
The best time to plant a juniper is early spring. At the same time, it is not necessary to wait for warm weather; you can plant a bush immediately after the snow melts. A plant planted in the fall may not have time to acclimatize and settle down on the site before the winter cold.
How to plant a shrub: tips and tricks
Planting plants on the site, you need to respect the distance between them at 1.5-2 meters. Before placing them in the ground, the root system must be soaked with water.
The depth of the pit for planting will primarily depend on the size of the clod of the earth and the roots of the plant. It is recommended to dig a hole that will be 2-3 times larger than an earthen coma. The depth should be about 70 cm for large bushes.
Did you know? One hectare of juniper is able to evaporate up to 30 kg of phytoncids, which can clean the atmosphere of the kitchen garden from harmful, painful organisms. Where the juniper grows, the air is always cleaner.At the bottom of the hole, a drainage layer is necessarily laid, the root system is filled with a mixture of peat, sand and sod land. If the plant is large, the root neck should protrude approximately 5-10 cm from the hole. In younger shrubs, it can be at ground level.
Peculiarities of care
Choosing for planting juniper colonic, it is important to pay sufficient attention to caring for them. Despite the fact that the plant is unpretentious, watering and fertilizer should still be present in the process of growing.
Cypress, mountain pine, fir, spruce are also considered unpretentious in care.
How to water
Watering juniper is enough 2-3 times per season, if the summer is hot and dry. One adult shrub needs about 10-30 liters of water. You can also spray the plant from a spray bottle, but only in the evening. 
Fertilizer and dressing
In spring, the soil under the juniper can be fertilized with nitroammophos - one square meter will need 45 g of the substance. In the summer, if the tree grows slowly, it is fed with organic matter and mineral fertilizers about once a month, no more.
Important! In no case can the coniferous species be fertilized with cow's humus and bird droppings, since they can burn the root system of the tree and the plant will die.
How to propagate the plant correctly
Juniper can be propagated both by seed and by vegetative means.
Seeds
You can collect shrub seeds from the second year of his life. This is done at a stage when the berries begin to darken. Collected planting material must be stratified. To this end, the wooden box is filled with a moistened substrate of sand, peat and moss, and the seeds are laid out on top. 
All winter the boxes should be on the street, remaining under the snow during the entire cold season - about 120-150 days. Such manipulations are needed to speed up the germination process. If you do not carry out this procedure, the seeds will ascend only a year after sowing them into the soil.
Then in May, the stratified seeds are removed from the box and sown in the prepared soil. From now on, it is necessary to take care of the plant in the standard mode: water, remove weeds, loosen the aisles. When the seedlings grow to the desired size, they can be transplanted to a permanent place.
Vegetative methods
A more simple and effective method of breeding juniper colonic is considered to be grafting. In the spring, you need to choose a suitable tree and carefully cut off a young shoot from it, capturing a fragment of the mother plant. The handle should be about 10 cm long.
The sprout is removed from the needles and placed for a day in a mixture that stimulates rooting. After that, the stalk is put into a mixture of peat and sand, moistened with water and covered with plastic wrap. The container in which the peat mixture and cuttings, should stand in partial shade, and not under the scorching sun. 
Periodically, the film should be removed so that the plant is saturated with oxygen. The soil also needs to be moistened from time to time, preventing it from drying out. After 1-2 months, the sprout will take root, after which it can be planted in a permanent place.
Did you know? The inhabitants of Ancient Russia made dishes from juniper bark. She was distinguished by the fact that even on the hottest day milk did not turn sour in her.
Diseases and pests
Diseases and pests can adversely affect the juniper colonic. Let us consider in more detail some of them.
- Mushroom Schutte. If at the beginning of the new season, the old needles turn brown or orange and do not crumble, it means that the tree is affected by the Shutte mushroom. Over time, small round growths of black color will become noticeable on the shrub. The reason may lie in the excess moisture that this mushroom loves. It is necessary in the shortest possible time to remove the affected branches and burn them, and the plant itself should be sprayed with preparations that include sulfur and copper.
- Fungal diseases. They are evidenced by various kinds of growths on the tree, usually they are red, or longitudinal ulcers on the trunk. To prevent the problem, you need to use drugs that are composed of copper.
- Aphid. She loves young bushes most of all, which still have delicate needles. If there are many insects, it can greatly weaken the plant and stop its growth. To get rid of parasites, you need to drive out ants in time, which become the cause of aphids. Juniper itself should be sprayed with insecticides "Aktara", "Deciss", "Fufanon".
- Shchitovka. Brown round bumps on young shoots and needles is a shield. Because of them, young shoots are bent, the bark dies off. If there are a small number of parasites, they can be removed manually, if the mass damage is applied, it should be applied by Aktara, Aktellik or other insecticides.
- Spider mite A sign of the presence of such a pest is a thin cobweb, which slowly and gradually covers the entire bush. Directly ticks with the naked eye can not be seen. As a preventive measure, you can periodically wash the wood with a cold shower, because these mites do not tolerate moisture. If they have already settled on a tree, then you can get rid of them with the help of acaricides: "Fufanona", "Fitoverma", "Vermitek".
