The sucker family has many shrubby and tree-like forms of plants. Their homeland is called North America. Some species are common in the Far East: in Russia and China. Silver goof (elaeagnus commutata) belongs to little-known breeds, since there is a difficulty in breeding it by vegetative methods.
Botanical Description
This plant is a low deciduous shrub 1–5 m high. Numerous branchy shoots form a wide sprawling crown of spherical or pyramidal shape. Tree forms are very rare. The bark is grayish-brown, the branches are prickly, covered with tiny silver scales.
The root system of the lochus is powerful and grows far to the sides. Sometimes the roots extend a few meters from the trunks.
A characteristic feature of the bush is beautiful decorative leaves. They are elongated, lanceolate with a wedge-shaped base and pointed tops. Located next on short cuttings. The plate is 8–10 cm long and 2–3 cm wide. The leaves are leathery on the front side, bluish-green in color, rough on the back and covered with tiny silver scales. Thanks to the beautiful metallic sheen, the crown of the plant has an unusual appearance and stands out clearly against the background of other trees and shrubs.
At the end of May, the bush throws fragrant inflorescences similar to small bells. Their petals also have a silvery sheen on the outside, and bright yellow inside. The flowering period lasts 20–25 days. At this time, the fragrant aroma spreads around and attracts pollinating insects.
Hoeberry is a monoecious plant and a good honey plant. The fruits ripen in August or early September. They are round drupes about 1 cm in size with a silver-gray skin, which, when ripe, becomes lingonberry. They hang in small tassels on thin stalks. Outwardly, green sucker berries are similar to olives, due to which the plant is also called wild olive. Inside the fruit there is a thin layer of pulp, sweetish in taste, and a large oblong dark bone. The fruiting age begins in a plant from 6–7 years of life, in cultivated specimens it may be earlier - from 4–5 years. One adult plant can bring a yield of up to 30 kg of berries.
Growing conditions and varieties
Lohovnik loves well-lit areas, is quite unpretentious, undemanding in nutrition and soil composition, tolerates frosts up to -40 ° C and can well be grown in temperate or continental climates, on rocky soils and sandstones. The life span of the bush reaches 25-30 years.
Varieties of silver goofbump are:
- narrow-leaved sucker: a high thick frost-resistant shrub with elongated leaves 1.5–2 cm wide, giving edible fruits;
- goof multiflora (gummi): a short plant about 1.5 m tall with bright green foliage and red fruits, found in China and Japan.
Loofar wood has high technical characteristics. The width of the logs reaches 30 cm. The sapwood is pale yellow, the core is slightly darker. The array is wide-layered; it does not crack or deform upon drying. The density is 670–710 kg / m3.
Plant application
Silver sucker lumber lends itself well to processing and is used in carpentry. Various small parts for furniture and musical instruments are made from it. Gum extracted from waste is used in printing houses and textile industry.
Berries, flowers, and leaves of the loofah have valuable medicinal properties and are used by traditional medicine. The pulp is edible, tastes like cherry, contains carbohydrates, vegetable protein, vitamins, organic acids, phytocyanins, antioxidants. Catechins, tannins, steroids, alkaloids and many other active substances were found in leaves and flowers. From berries you can make compotes, preserves and jams.
Infusions and decoctions of greens and fruits are used as anti-inflammatory, anthelmintic, bactericidal, choleretic and analgesic. They treat skin lesions, gastrointestinal ailments, cardiovascular disorders.
Silver goof honey is considered one of the most useful. It is recommended for patients with pancreatitis and gastric diseases.
Use in landscape design
The shrub itself is great for landscaping the streets, creating ensembles in landscape design. Strong roots expanding in breadth allow the use of silver goof to strengthen the slopes of ravines and cliffs. The plant is able to independently produce nitrogen, which is necessary for further development. Undemanding to nutritious soil, resistance to adverse conditions of the urban atmosphere further increase the value of the plant. Gaseous and dusty air is not afraid of him.
In winter, after dropping the foliage, the lochion does not lose its decorative appearance. Beautifully intertwined scaly shoots give the crown a delicate openwork appearance. In landscape design, a silver shrub looks great next to conifers: spruce, thuja, juniper, shading their green or bluish needles. Decorative compositions with scumpies, red-leaved maples, other shrubs and trees with colored and contrasting crowns look beautiful.
An attempt to create hedges from this plant may be unsuccessful: an adulter releases a lot of basal shoots, which over time violates the boundaries defined for it. If the silver shrub is still planted as a fence of the site, it will be necessary to observe a distance between copies of 70-100 cm to give the necessary freedom to the root system. Subsequently, in the radius of 5 m from the parent plant, new shoots may appear.
The biological cycle of silver sucker fits well with the changing seasons of the temperate climatic zone, which means that the plant fits into it completely. The periods of flowering and ripening of the fruits occur in the warm months and allow you to get a crop.
Landing and care
You can plant a shrub in April or autumn. For him, it is optimal to choose well-lit or slightly shaded areas. It is necessary to take into account possible stagnation of moisture - lowland wetlands with heavy soils will not fit the plant. Dolomite mix or lime will need to be added to acidified soil. Too heavy soils diluted with sand. The earth must be loose and moisture permeable.
Before landing, the site is dug up, the existing garbage is removed. For seedlings, dig holes of 50 × 50 × 50 cm in size. A drainage layer of stones or chipped bricks is laid on the bottom. On top, you can add leaf humus. The roots of the seedlings are placed in holes, sprinkled with soil so that the necks are deepened by 6-8 cm. The trees are immediately watered. Trunk circles are covered with mulch from sawdust, grass, needles, compost. In winter, young plantings are recommended to be additionally covered with spruce branches, agrofibre or straw, as severe frost or icy winds can damage them. Plants older than 4-5 years usually acquire frost resistance.
It’s easy to take care of the sucker. In the warm season, he needs regular hydration. With insufficient rainfall, each bush is watered 10 liters of water twice a week, since the surface root system is not able to draw moisture from the deep layers.
Additional feeding of the goof is not required, but if the bushes grow very poorly, you can periodically add superphosphate or humus to the soil.
The crown of silver goof looks beautiful in its natural form, without cropping, but if desired, it can be given a certain geometric shape, especially when creating hedges. Trim the shoots with a regular garden pruner. Periodically, drying branches are also required.
Breeding
The methods used for propagation of the loofah are cuttings, rooting of layering and germination from seeds. Oddly enough, it is the vegetative methods that give the worst result: no more than ⅓ shoots of the bush take root and grow.
Cuttings are harvested in the winter. They should be 15 cm long and have several leaves. They are pretreated with phytohormones, and sections are sprinkled with charcoal. To root, shoots are placed in boxes with a mixture of peat and sand, left at a temperature of 16–18 ° C, periodically watered. Roots rooted during the winter are transplanted into the ground.
When propagating by layering on the side shoots, make circular cuts and press them to the ground, sprinkling with soil. Layers are disconnected from the adult plant after the roots appear. Otherwise, after a few months, the incised shoot is removed.
The planting of basal children of the cochlea, which are carefully separated from the maternal specimen and transferred to a new place, is more successfully taking root.
Shrub seeds can be sown in late autumn. So they will not lose germination and pass winter stratification. They are placed in loose prepared soil to a depth of 7-10 cm, sprinkled with sawdust or leaves. After the snow melts abundantly watered. You can plant the seeds of plants in the spring, but to ensure germination it is necessary to hold them for several weeks at a temperature of + 8-10 ° C. In the first season, young growth reaches a height of 30–40 cm, in subsequent years, the growth of the bush slows down and amounts to about 15 cm per year.