This beautiful plant looks beautiful in any territory, so to have it in your personal plot is a dream of many. To grow a blue spruce from seeds is a troublesome, but interesting business. Consider all the subtleties of reproduction of blue spruce seed way.

Seed collection and preparation

The seeds of blue spruce are in cones, which are collected in late autumn. If the cones are wet, then they must be dried for 2-3 days. Otherwise, the seeds from the cones will not fall out. After drying, the cones will fluff. You must shake each of them over a blank sheet of paper.

Important! The procedure for extracting seeds from cones is best done with rubber gloves, because the cones secrete tar, and it sticks and is poorly washed from the skin of the hands.

Growth conditions

An important step in growing blue spruce seeds is stratification. This is the process of treating plant seeds with prolonged cold. Seeds are at a temperature of 0 ° C to + 5 ° C for about three months in moist soil. In fact, this process lasts from early December to late February. After the containers with seeds are kept in a room at room temperature. Seedlings of blue spruce are susceptible to disease, like any other seedlings. To prevent the death of seedlings, it is necessary to place them in a well-lit place, moisten the soil moderately and maintain the temperature at about 20 ° C.

Features of soil for spruce

Blue spruce prefers to grow in slightly acidic soil. The ideal choice of the right substrate for it is the soil from the coniferous forest, on the territory of which nature itself has adjusted the desired level of acidity and the population of useful mushrooms. From such soil, the plant better assimilates nutrients.

Important! Blue spruce can grow up to 15 m high, and in diameter — up to 8 m. Take these parameters into account when planting these plants in summer cottages.

You can also use various mixtures for growing:

1. Coconut substrate is mixed in equal parts with sieved peat. Such a mixture has good hygroscopicity, water and air permeability. You can add fertilizer - per 1 bucket of soil 20 g of ammofoski.
2. Ready, "purchased" soil for seedlings in equal parts is mixed with sand.

Some gardeners advise to plant exclusively in the sand. But the germination of seedlings in a mixture of sand and soil is much higher than in pure sand.

Step-by-step instruction for growing in a pot

Seeds are best planted in separate containers.. This will avoid injury to the root system of the plant during transplantation. Under the containers you can adjust the lower third of the plastic bottle. It is also recommended to purchase a plastic cassette with cells for planting seeds or, even better, a foam cassette. The larger the cell volume, the better. The more time a plant grows in a cassette, the greater the likelihood that it will survive.

Did you know? When growing blue spruce from seeds, only 30% of the seedlings will be blue. When grafting, the similarity of the young plant with the mother is 100%.

Let's consider in stages how to grow trees from seeds.

1. Holes are made in the bottom of the pot. They should be placed on the side 1.5 cm above the lowest point. This is necessary so that the soil is constantly moistened, even when the timing of irrigation is accidentally missed.
2. Drainage is laid at the bottom. The plant does not tolerate stagnation of water. For this, you can use broken brick, crushed stone, expanded clay, etc. Such a loose layer will prevent the root system from decaying.
3. Pour soil mixture into the pots.
4. In each container, closer to the center, at a distance of 2 cm from each other, one seed is placed in holes 1-1.5 cm deep (approximately 7-8 pcs in a container from a pet bottle). In the cassette in each cell - 1 seed.
5. The holes are covered with a layer of soil and moistened with warm water using a spray bottle. It is not necessary to plant seeds deeply, otherwise they will sprout for a long time. Watering should not be plentiful, otherwise the seedlings will die. If several sprouts sprout at the same time, it is necessary to leave the strongest, and remove the rest.
6. The next stage of cultivation is stratification. Containers with sown seeds can be kept in the cellar or in the refrigerator, after being placed in plastic bags. Periodically, containers must be removed, ventilated, and moistened.
7. After some time, the containers are moved into the room, and kept at room temperature. Two weeks later, the first shoots appear.

Video: How to grow a blue spruce from a cone

In order to germinate the seeds of blue spruce, use the method of using cotton pads. For this:

1. A cotton pad is placed on a plastic cover for support, pre-soaking it with water.
2. Place seeds on it (approximately 15 pcs per disk) and cover with a second moistened cotton pad on top. All blanks are placed in a plastic bag.
3. Crops are done in early spring, kept on the balcony or in the refrigerator for 1.5–2 months, and then placed on the windowsill, periodically moistening the cotton layers.
4. After seed germination, each sprout is planted in separate pots.

This method is valuable in that it immediately shows which seeds germinated and which did not. You can also visually assess the root system of the plant, and it is less injured during transplantation.

Shoot Care

After germination, they must be thinned out. The distance between plants should be at least 6 cm. Only full plants should be left. Watering is carried out by spraying. The soil must be constantly moist. Drying and overfilling are not allowed. The temperature regime is maintained constant: from 13 ° C to 15 ° C. Capacities made of plastic bottles must be covered with lids - moisture is held in closed containers, temperature is better and a microclimate is created that promotes growth.

Open transplant

Transplanting into open ground of plants is carried out in early spring in the second year after seed germination, before they begin intensive growth. The soil in the pots is abundantly watered in order to seamlessly remove sprouts from the container along with the soil. The root system of plants is very tender, so it is necessary to injure as little as possible and not to overdry.

Before planting, the roots of seedlings can be treated with clay mash and planted in a checkerboard pattern (15 × 25 cm), adding land from coniferous forest to the planting holes. In the third year, young trees are replanted already at a distance of 1 × 1 m from each other. If after three years you have 50% of the seedlings left - this is a good result.

Follow-up care

After the transplant, for two weeks, you need to worry about thorough proper care:

• soil moisture should be constant;
• growth temperature - within 13–15 ° С;
• seedlings must be shaded from the sun.

Did you know? Needles on spruce trees change gradually. Each needle grows about 7 years.

Further care in the open field is not much different from care for other garden trees. Young fir trees need weeding and loosening the soil. Fertilizers are applied once every 4 years. Trees feel good at a distance of at least 2 m from each other. The trunk circle must be covered with a layer of mulch. To do this, use a mixture of compost, peat and sawdust. The thickness of the mulch layer is 7-8 cm. A reinforced tree is trimmed to maintain a symmetrical shape. Pruned young shoots that violate the necessary proportions. In the dry period, trees are watered, otherwise they will stop growing.

Tips & Tricks

When growing blue spruce need to know that:

1. Coniferous plants do not tolerate transplanting, so it is better to cut the container in which the tree grows and plant a plant with an earthen lump in open ground.
2. Blue spruce cannot be fertilized excessively. Otherwise, top dressing will provoke excessive growth of the tree, and its wood does not have time to ripen by winter. Under the influence of frosts, the tree may die.
3. No need to rush to throw out the planted seedlings, if you did not like the color of their needles. Only in the second year of life will they acquire their unusual color.
4. Planting blue spruce plants on a bed after corn, tomato or potato is impractical. Young seedlings grow poorly after such a crop rotation.
5. After 10-15 years, the blue spruce tree ceases to feed from the main root and switches to food from the system of small roots. If the ground part of an adult tree is dead, then the same spruce can grow from the root part.

Did you know? In Sweden, a coniferous tree is growing, which has been updating its ground part for 9.5 thousand years.

Blue spruce is the most popular coniferous tree used in landscape design. To grow such a beauty at home on your own or to purchase in a store is up to you. If you decide to experiment at home - then time, patience, the above tips and tricks must necessarily lead to a positive result.