After the spring cleaning in the garden in early spring, gardeners begin to mass whitewash trunks of all trees. Is this procedure mandatory? What for in the spring are the trunks of trees bleached? Aesthetics or hope for a good harvest? Let's try to understand.
Pros and cons of whitewashing
Some gardeners are sure that whitewashing of trees in the spring is not an agro-practice, but only the establishment of beauty on the site or in the garden. And even more: solutions for whitening penetrate into the bark, poisoning the tree and clogging the pores. Opponents, on the other hand, are sure that if they follow all the rules about how and how to properly blanch trees, the garden will only benefit. First, the substances that make up the whitewash for trees have a detrimental effect on the parasites that live in the bark. Secondly, white color better reflects the sun's rays, protecting the tree from moisture loss. And thirdly, this ritual is a symbol of the coming of spring.
And what happens in reality? However, as always, in the middle. If the gardener observes all the rules (when and what to whitewash the garden trees in the spring), then the protection of the garden from pests and sun is guaranteed. And it's not that pests are afraid of lime or another substance. There are diseases that "cling" only to trees with affected bark. If you treat these areas with a solution for whitening, then the disease will not have the opportunity to attack the plant. We will talk about these rules in more detail.
Whitewash rules
If you no longer doubt whether you need to whiten trees, you should know the timing in which it is best to do it. Focus on the weather. The sky must be clear, the land unfrozen, but still not warmed, so that the larvae and spores that winter in the bark do not have time to activate. The last days of March - the first days of April - the best time.
As for the process itself, it is very simple. First you have to examine the trunks of trees, clean them from the growths of moss and lichen, remove the old bark. After that, it is necessary to cover all the damaged sections of the trunk with a special putty or garden wax. And only after that you can already start directly to the processing of trees with a solution. As a tool, a spray gun or a conventional large brush is often used. Begin to apply the solution from above, from the forks of branches, sinking down.
A solution for whitewashing trees is not necessarily traditional lime. Today, the shops offer special ready-made powders, which are simply diluted with water. No hours soaking, swelling, defending. I added the powder in a bucket of water, mixed it - and it's ready! But if you do not want to experiment, spend the whitewashing of the trees with lime, in the old-fashioned way. The recipe of the solution is simple: a bucket of water, 2500 grams of lime, 500 milliliters of copper sulfate, 200 grams of carpentry glue.
There are also clay compositions for whitewashing, acrylic paints. The latter are the most durable. They keep on the trunk for more than a year. But lime and clay are natural and ecological materials.
Gardener for a note
No need for whitewashing, and those trees, on the trunks of which last year's whitewashed. Even the partial presence of a whitewash layer is already good protection.
In addition, in the spring, treatment of trees from pests and spraying of plants is carried out.