Schisandra CHINESE (photo) cultivation, planting and care
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CULTIVATION OF A CHINESE LEMONICE, CARE AND BENEFITS
People have always sought to return to that happy time when physical beauty, health and the joy of feeling life do not know the beginning and last without end. In the Far East, many generations of taiga hunters were looking for an elixir of vitality, youth, health and longevity - ginseng - in deep forests.
In the rugged taiga, they accidentally discovered a magic plant, the fruits of which made it possible to forget about fatigue, filled the body with energy, muscles with strength, and the spirit with will and vigor. Vines with bright red bunches of berries simply could not fail to attract the attention of travelers. The Chinese name for this berry is translated as "fruit of five tastes."
Indeed, Schisandra chinensis has a complex flavor, with fruity notes of lemon peel, piney freshness, distant mint aroma, sugar, slight acidity, and slight salinity. The berry has a pleasant, but somewhat piquant taste, so this is not a dessert, but an easy help in a traveler's snack. After trying, you usually want to eat quite a bit of a beautiful berry, but this is enough to feel its amazing properties.
Usually, a lemongrass bush is a beautiful solid green "wall" that braids the support, so there are a lot of berries on the plant. Having matured, they are able to hang on the branches for a long time, keeping freshness. The berries can be eaten straight from the vine, but they are also good for processing. Jam, liqueur, liqueur, compote, fruit drink, dry tea, and homemade wine are made from schisandra berries. Lemongrass processed products are very useful. The berries and seeds contain biologically active substances (Shizandrin and Shizandrol), many macro- and microelements, various vitamins, fruit acids, antioxidants, sugars, essential oils, substances with a tonic effect. The fruits and all parts of the plant can be valuable raw materials for the medical industry. Berries and processed products of Schisandra are recommended for fatigue associated with intense mental activity, high physical activity, depression, chronic fatigue.
See also: Growing schisandra chinensis: propagation by seeds and shoots
The use of these products prevents aging, improves immunity, stimulates the central nervous system, cardiac activity, promotes the expansion of peripheral vessels of the circulatory system, increases visual acuity, concentration of attention, increases potency in men, activates mental activity, lowers blood sugar, stimulates hematopoiesis, increases hemoglobin, reduces irritability, normalizes the liver, kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract. Berry tincture is used for the prevention and treatment of acute respiratory infections, influenza and as a remedy after severe illnesses. Chinese lemongrass is often called the second ginseng, but its consumption requires caution, as it has contraindications for certain diseases.
In our country, Schisandra Chinensis is found in the forests of part of the Khabarovsk Territory, the Amur Region, Primorye, on the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Since this vine in the north of its natural range is capable of withstanding temperatures down to minus 40 ° with a relatively short growing season, it should be able to grow and bear fruit in other regions of Russia.
However, it must be admitted that Chinese magnolia vine is rarely found in the gardens of amateur gardeners. Sometimes, despite the gardener's efforts, attempts to grow this plant in their garden fail, although those people in whose areas it has been growing for a long time say that Chinese lemongrass is absolutely unpretentious.
Indeed, it does not require many agricultural techniques that are mandatory for other cultures. It simply pleases the eye for decades, filling garden tapestry forms in the form of walls, arches, gazebos and gives a valuable harvest. But for this, it is necessary to initially create comfortable conditions for the plant, close to those natural in which it occurs in places of its natural range.
Lianas often do not want to develop and bear fruit in the “best areas” of the garden designated for planting. The reason is not the negligence of the owner, but the lack of knowledge regarding the requirements for the growth and fruiting of this particular culture.
Reference by topic: Chinese schisandra (photo): 4 reasons for planting
1. CONDITION OF AIR AND SOIL.
Lemongrass is a vine that grows in a sparse forest. Like many lianas who came to the north from the subtropics, he loves the humidity of the air and soil, but does not tolerate flooding. He has a superficial root system, so he gets water from the top layer of the soil, which should be moist, but loose enough, while containing plenty of nutrients. Drainage is necessary on waterlogged soils. Since the roots of the plant are superficial, for optimal moisture, the soil under the bush must be kept under the mulch, excluding its drying out and digging. In terms of composition, the soil can be sandy loam, sandy loam with a share of loam and organic matter, or loamy, with a slightly acidic reaction of the soil solution.
2. LIGHTING.
Since lemongrass naturally grows in open woodlands or on the edges of forests, it is picky about light. It can tolerate slight shading and ambient light, but grows poorly in full shade. It is optimal when the plant is in full sun for about half of the daylight hours, falling in the second half in partial shade or under diffused light. It has been noticed that the plant feels depressed not only when it is completely shaded, but develops with restraint even when it is fully illuminated throughout the day. The foliage of plants with disturbed light and water regimes loses a rich green color, looks pale, sometimes the leaf has edges burnt in the sun.
SUPPORT PRESENCE.
Schizandra liana seeks to gain support. She always climbs objects vertically rising above the terrain (shrubs, trees, natural and artificial elevations), rising to a zone of better lighting. Only in the presence of a support, the vine develops to its inherent length (5-8 m), forming developed lateral branches with many overgrown branches. Such a vine quickly assimilates the support provided to it, forming a cordon of branching vines - a wall of solid dark malachite greenery. If a plant is forced to grow without support, then it begins to bush, forming many thin short vines, does not enter fruiting for a long time or cannot at all reach flowering and fruiting.
FROST RESISTANCE OF CHINESE LEMONICE.
The plant is frost-resistant in places of its natural habitat, where it tolerates winters with frosts up to 40 °. This property determines the resistance of the vine to frost in other regions, if it develops in favorable conditions. The vine does not require removal from the trellis or shelter for the winter, special pruning, like many other trellis plants. This vine grows without aging and bears fruit in one place for many decades, moving along with the garden from fathers to children, and from children to grandchildren. Lemongrass itself is regenerated (rejuvenated) by root shoots, preserving its natural properties. Birds can nest in dense branches - the growing vine gives shelter and shelter to small birds without any harm to themselves. On the contrary, it is a unique symbiosis in which birds find a home and pay for hospitality with soil fertilization.
Reference by topic: Chinese Schisandra - planting and care: questions and answers
POLLINATION AND FRUIT.
Usually Schisandra plants are monoecious. That is, one plant is enough for pollination and fruiting. Most lemongrass plants have both male and female flowers on one vine, which allows the plant to pollinate normally and give a full harvest. However, in natural populations of Schisandra chinensis, plants are rarely found that have either only functionally female flowers, or, conversely, functionally male flowers, as well as plants with a bisexual flower (as in other monoecious plants). It is clear that plants with a functionally female flower require an outside pollinator for fruiting (any other plant, excluding plants with functionally female flowers), and individuals with a functionally male flower do not bear fruit.
Biologists have discovered another surprising property in Schizandra: Plants with a functionally female or functionally male flower can change sex throughout their life. Depending on the external conditions, unisexual plants may bloom with male flowers in some years, and with female flowers in others. All these extremely rare cases of dioeciousness and gender reassignment are best left to scientists for study. In ordinary horticultural practice, it is enough to remember that Chinese magnolia vine, when sown with seeds in central Russia, transfers its useful commercial properties to seedlings well, and the vast majority of seedlings, entering the fruiting season, turn out to be monoecious plants (they do not require outside pollinators). Such plants bloom and bear fruit every year. In order to insure against the rarest accidents and to have a guaranteed yield in the garden from the bushes obtained by seed reproduction, you need to plant several bushes of Schisandra chinensis. Practice shows that such plantings (from several seedling plants) always bear fruit.
The first fruiting usually begins in the 4-6th year of the plant's life. To fill a small trellis usually requires 2-4 bushes. Distances between adjacent plants on the trellis can be maintained at 0,5-1 m. Over time, neighboring vines will grow together into a solid wall. It is worth noting that plants with a functionally female flower are more productive than monoecious plants. Therefore, for use in industry, the breeder can set the task of obtaining just such more productive varieties, of course, combining such plants with pollinators in the developed industrial planting schemes. It is undesirable for an amateur to plant them: you will have to solve an extra problem with pollination.
REPRODUCTION OF LEMONICE CHINESE.
Chinese schisandra, as already mentioned, can give root shoots, but it does not behave aggressively (does not capture the site) and does not cause inconvenience. The root shoots are used by the plant as a reserve, for its own recovery (to replace old or damaged shoots). She also appears after natural disasters associated with the unexpected death of bushes (after a fire). Such growth is rarely used for reproduction, although it retains the properties of the mother plant.
Schisandra can also be propagated by cuttings, layering, micropropagation (in the laboratory), sowing seeds, but more than 99% of the plants on the seedling market are still seedlings. Sowing forms of Chinese magnolia vine are usually similar to each other, and the range of phenotypic and taste characteristics of fruits is small. The berries are red to pomegranate in color. Berries, collected in fruit clusters (similar to red currant clusters), are rounded or somewhat flattened, with a variation in the weight of one berry from 0,4 g to 0,7 g (in different forms). There are certain varieties in culture with a berry weighing up to 1 g, but since the berry does not really matter as a dessert product (it does not go to retail trade), but is used mainly for processing and is consumed for medicinal purposes, the proverb: “A big spoon pleases the mouth "- it just doesn't work.
In practice, mass production of seedlings by cuttings or propagation in a laboratory for subsequent implementation is currently economically meaningless. Unfortunately, large industrial plantings of lemongrass in our country are not being established, just as there is no clear massive request from the owners of household plots (due to the lack of information about the culture). The Chinese are engaged in the industrial cultivation of lemongrass, and in Russia, despite the positive results of domestic studies of the composition and properties of the berry, and attempts at selection, it has remained a crop that is in demand among individual amateur gardeners.
It was the gardeners who turned out to be the main connoisseurs of the exclusive properties of the berry, the unpretentiousness and beauty of this plant. Schisandra chinensis will not take a scarce sunny spot on your site. He is able to fill that shady corner of the garden with meaning and harmony, which is difficult to use for most of your other garden plants.
Lemongrass - LANDING AND CARE, ADVICE AND REVIEWS ON BENEFITS
LEMONGRASS - BERRY IN FOUR FLAVORS
Why not grow something not only useful, but also beautiful on your site? Clusters of red berries will catch the eye of your guests and delight with bright colors on cloudy days. Jam from them will energize you and boost your immunity. Guess what plant we are talking about?
After reading an article about lemongrass, I decided to write about my own, which is already over 30 years old.
In the fall, I planted the seeds in the garden and in its usual place. In the spring of the first year, only a few plants sprouted in the garden and two at the permanent planting site, i.e. Not all seeds were stratified. The next year, the seedlings were very thick, had to be thinned out. In the third year, I was already selling seedlings to everyone at a symbolic price: if you just give them away, they can throw them away, and the purchased plants will definitely be planted. In those days, lemongrass was considered exotic, not everyone had heard of it and did not know what it was.
Many years later. Liana began to wrap around the wall, berries appeared in the fall, although in the spring I did not notice the flowers. The next year, she looked closely and, finally, noticing a flower, she was surprised: where did the tassel of berries come from? There is only one flower. Over time, I examined and realized that a brush grows from the center of the flower, and berries on it.
Now it is a powerful liana, intertwined several times up and down, and on the final growths there are flowers and berries. I only recently learned about male and female bushes. Little berries grow - a three-liter jar from two bushes. Of these, I make jam in a cold way: I crush fresh berries, add more sugar, stir - and in jars. And the rest of the crop I dry in the attic.
The berry has four tastes: bitter stone and sweet and sour, slightly salty amniotic pulp.
You can use the fruits with low blood pressure and with physical fatigue. Leaves and branches also have useful properties.
The bush has grown, it has a lot of root shoots, filiform in shape. Seeds can be purchased at a pharmacy, they are also used as a remedy. In the photo, jam and dried berries.
© Author: Rauza TETERINA Irkutsk
REPRODUCTION OF LEMONGRASS SEEDS
Can lemongrass be propagated from seeds? Tell me how to do it.
I. Kariko Far East
Take the largest fruits for reproduction. Put them in cheesecloth, squeeze out the juice, put the cake in a saucepan and rinse. Then dry by spreading on fabrics. Now it is easy to remove the husk and clean the seeds. It is not worth storing seeds for longer than 6 months, they lose their germination. It is better to lay down for stratification immediately or in the near future.
Fill a container (for example, a wooden box) with a mixture of humus and fertile soil (2: 1), press lightly on top. Spill with a solution of potassium permanganate. With a pencil, make furrows 0,5 cm deep at a distance of 2,5 cm from one another. Place the seeds in the grooves at a distance of 2 cm and cover with soil. Moisten the crops with a spray bottle so as not to erode the soil, and cover with foil.
Now the seeds must undergo a long stratification. Optimal - 7-8 months. In this case, 60-70% of the seeds germinate, and this is a good germination.
Stratification takes place in a cold place. Best in the garden. Just find a place higher so that the meltwater does not flood. Dig a hole, put a box in it and bury it. Make sure that the snow is always above the box.
In the spring, at the end of March, during the snowmelt period, move the box to the terrace or to the basement and let it thaw. Remove the film.
Now, if there is no frost, you can take the box outside. During frosts, bring back to the basement. In April, expose the crops to the sun, sometimes water with barely warm water and wait for the shoots.
With the advent of 3-4 true leaves, spread the seedlings into a bed according to the 10 × 10 cm pattern. It is best if it is located in partial shade. Mulch with manure. Make sure the soil is constantly moist. Lemongrass seedlings do not tolerate drought. Schisandra will winter in the open ground under the snow.
Install a small trellis next summer. And a year later, young plants can be planted in a permanent place. Dig a trench 45 cm deep and 30 cm wide. Sprinkle sand with a layer of 3-4 cm and pebbles with a layer of 4-5 cm. Next is a layer of fertile soil.
The roots of lemongrass are thin, tender, so you can do this. Mix the soil with clay and humus in equal proportions and fill it with a weak solution of potassium permanganate. Lower the root system of seedlings into this talker and only then plant it in a permanent place.
And immediately install the trellis.
WHERE TO "SPECIFY" LEMONNIK?
Tell me about lemongrass, please. I have heard a few times that this is just a miracle plant. But we did not find his seedlings in the nearest nursery. Sellers say that in our area it will not grow. Is it true? And where then it can be "registered"? Elena, Bryansk
If you still find seedlings, then in your region you can try to grow lemongrass. I will tell you the basic rules for its cultivation.
Schisandra from the beginning of the XXI century. has firmly become fashionable, and its plantings are only growing every year. This is due primarily to its medicinal properties - it is clear that such a valuable plant always wants to be kept at hand.
However, given that the birthplace of lemongrass is the Far East, it will not grow everywhere. Let's say south. There it will develop sluggishly, but it will not be possible to wait for normal, full-fledged fruiting from it in southern conditions. This is mainly due to the very high temperature and rather dry air.
Sometimes lemongrass completely refuses to develop normally even in the middle lane, and sometimes in cooler regions. Most often, it does not grow, not only due to the fault of the “not such” climate, but also due to the lack of normal agricultural technology.
BTW
So what's good about lemongrass? Its berries are akin to energy, they stimulate the entire body, increasing efficiency, reducing fatigue, increasing mental abilities. In addition, lemongrass is good after a long work, prolonged illness or stress, it normalizes the entire body.
Try to choose an open place for lemongrass, but you shouldn’t choose exclusively the south side: under the direct rays of the sun, lemongrass often suffers from burns, but this does not mean at all that it needs to be “shoved” into the shade, not at all, it is most likely there will not bear fruit at all.
The ideal option is to plant the plant in a rare shade, creating it by installing a shading net on the supports. At the same time, you should not choose a grid that is too dense, 60% shading is enough.
On clay soil, lemongrass can turn into a bush and not grow in the form of a vine, as expected. In addition, the soil must be chosen one that has a neutral reaction, in extreme cases, slightly acidic, but not acidic or alkaline.
Chernozem soils are quite suitable for lemongrass, but if there is nothing but clay, then dig a large hole, fill it with nutrient soil and plant a plant in this soil.
As for frost, lemongrass is not afraid of them, but it is afraid of return frosts; they will not destroy the plant itself, but the flowers will cripple, and you will be left either without a crop at all, or without most of it.
Lemongrass can be planted both in spring and autumn. You should not rush with autumn planting, the best time is the first decade of November, otherwise if it is warm, then the kidneys may wake up.
Try to plant exactly two-year-olds, since one-year-olds are very weak, and three-year-olds do not take root very well. Even a two- or three-year-old seedling sometimes does not exceed a height of one and a half tens of centimeters.
Do not forget that, like actinidia, lemongrass can have only male or only female plants. There are also bisexual, but such seedlings are usually rare. Therefore, when buying, be sure to check with the seller which seedling he is selling. Of course, the ideal option is to buy a plant that will have both male and female flowers, then the place
save, and the pollination issue will be resolved.
Lemongrass is planted as standard - in a planting hole a little larger than a root ball, sprinkled with soil, compacted the soil and watered it. Next, care begins, where moisture is often at the forefront. Lemongrass loves water, so the soil should not be allowed to dry out, but you should not make a swamp at its base either.
After the November planting, you can pour a couple of buckets of water under the lemongrass, preventing the roots from eroding, and then mulch the surface with humus or compost with a layer of a couple of centimeters, this will save the roots if frost hits the soil that is not yet covered with snow.
See also: Chinese Schisandra - growing and beneficial properties, tincture of Schisandra
GROWING A LEMONICE OF CHINESE - VIDEO
© Author: V. YAKIMOV, an experienced gardener in Samara
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Schisandra slimming
Pour 50 g of peeled ginger into boiling water (about 2 l), turn off the heat, add 5-50 ml of lemongrass juice, honey to taste and mix. Insist 60-10 min. and drink hot, like tea, or chilled.
Dried berries and lemongrass leaves can be mixed with ordinary black tea in a ratio of 1:2 and brewed with honey. This tea also helps in weight loss.
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In late summer and early autumn, lemongrass is decorated with bunches of scarlet berries. It's nice to collect them for making invigorating fruit drinks and other useful goodies!
I grew this liana from a cut, which in September my friend separated from the mother plant along with a piece of rhizome. And immediately I planted it in a place protected from the wind, where periodically there is either sun or partial shade from tall bushes. A handful of ash was poured into the bottom of the hole, then a couple of glasses of leaf humus, mixed with the removed soil, and planted lemongrass there.
In order for the seedling to take root faster, she regularly watered it, and for the winter she mulched it with fallen leaves. In the spring, she slightly loosened the soil around the stem, removed early weeds, fed urea (1 tablespoon per bush). To prevent diseases, she additionally dusted the root zone with ash. In the heat, she regularly watered. Two more years later, lemongrass not only braided part of the fence well, but also began to bear fruit.
Note
I pick the berries at the end of September, when they turn dark red, rinse in boiled water. I squeeze the juice (through cheesecloth) or mix it with sugar (1: 1) and store it in the fridge when it is grated (jelly). You can add to boiled water - prepare a sour tonic fruit drink or just eat 1 tbsp. l. jelly when tired. It is good to dry the fruits (in the oven at 60 degrees), and in the fall or winter add 5-6 pieces to the teapot with purchased tea. An excellent invigorating drink that adds strength! You can't just drink it for insomnia.