Tui in landscape design

Tuya came to Europe long ago from North America and settled there. Now, for the inhabitants of Europe, it is as familiar as a tree or pine. In gardening and landscape design, thuja is in great demand. The main reason for this was her unpretentiousness. Inexperienced gardeners can not cope with the cultivation of many conifers, but they can cultivate thuja.

What plants can be combined with thuja

The frequent use of thuja in landscape design is easy to explain. Thuja is very decorative and goes well with many other plants, and is also unpretentious in care, like all conifers.

Of course, the best neighbor for a thuja is a thuja of a different kind. In many cases, it does not matter at all which species will grow side by side, they all get along well together. The main thing is that there is enough free space between the bushes and they have enough sunlight. This combination will delight you with a bright green color even in winter.

Thuja occidentalis is most often used in design. She tolerates shade well, is not afraid of frost, haircuts, she has beautiful, bright needles. In design, it looks great in the company of related plants. Such a combination as thuja with other conifers is used quite often, it can be found everywhere. The big advantage of this combination is that regardless of the change of seasons, it does not lose its beauty. When choosing plants, you need to focus on the soil, or rather on its acidity, which should be suitable for all crops. It is necessary to choose plants that grow in approximately the same conditions, otherwise a very high or, on the contrary, too low acidity of the soil will negatively affect them, their development will be poor.

The juniper is perfect as a neighbor for thuja. It is advisable to choose its low varieties, contrasting in color with thuja. In addition to juniper, thuja are planted next to spruce and fir.

Thuja looks no less impressive in composition with deciduous plants, which emphasize the decorativeness of thuja. Such compositions look richer and give designers more room for imagination. But you need to be careful when combining conifers and deciduous plants. It is very easy to make mistakes when choosing colors and styles. Do not forget that not every plant gets along with thuja. Therefore, before choosing a culture, you need to carefully study all its biological features, the nuances of growing, and, having learned whether it will be a good neighbor for a thuja, plant it.

How can thuja be used in landscape design

There are practically no such design solutions that thuja would not organically fit into. Designers use it to create a wide variety of compositions. Thuja can be the central element of the composition, and can serve as a background for it.

With the help of thuja, you can create an original design for the entrance area, you can make it in the form of an alley. Such an original design will be appropriate in any area, even if it is small. Thuja varieties with a pyramidal crown that grow tall are most suitable for this. Such varieties are Brabant, Columna, Pyramidalis, Aurescens and others. Brabant is a fast growing thuja variety that can grow to a height of 20 meters. The needles of this variety are dark green. Aurescens can also boast of fast growth, but the height of this variety is much smaller. It is only 2.5 meters long.The color of the needles of this variety is golden green.

Thuja is used not only in the design of residential areas, it is also often used in urban development. It is usually used to decorate pedestrian paths, planting it around the edges. The area near non-residential buildings is also often ennobled by planting thuja. She decorates the territory of educational institutions, cafes, shops, offices.

Many people prefer to divide the territory into functional zones or designate the territory of their site using hedge... Thuja is ideal for its creation. A hedge can be created not only from low-growing varieties of thuja. Higher grades are also suitable for this. The choice of plants depends on what goal the designer wants to achieve. Among the low-growing varieties, Hovea, Danika are popular, among the taller ones Kristata, Wagneri.

In order to visually highlight the outlines of garden paths, you can create a thuja border. For this purpose, small thuja with a ball-shaped crown are best suited. These varieties are Danica and Teddy Reingold. The borders from them are neat and beautiful.

Thuja looks great in a company with ornamental shrubs, perennial flowers, different trees. Such compositions are capable of arousing admiration and great interest. In order to compose them, you need to have excellent taste and know the features of many plants in order to correctly combine them with each other.

Thuja and hydrangea

The best neighbor of thuja in landscape design is hydrangea. Hydrangea is a perennial shrub or tree. The most popular varieties of hydrangea are panicle hydrangea and tree hydrangea. The height of the hydrangea varies from one and a half to ten meters. Many gardeners delight hydrangea with a large number of huge, incredibly beautiful flowers. Huge hydrangea inflorescences attract the attention of even people completely indifferent to floriculture. Hydrangea is incredibly beautiful.

Hydrangea has a long flowering period, which lasts from the last days of spring until late autumn. Panicle hydrangea goes especially well with thuja. Its large inflorescences of white, blue, greenish, pink color will bring a bright note to the composition with thuja. The combination of brightly colored hydrangeas with tall, columnar thujas allows you to be transported to a Mediterranean garden. Hydrangeas look great against the background of dark green thujas. This neighborhood is beneficial to the plants. Tui emit phytoncides into the environment, which can protect hydrangeas from many diseases. Also, when a thuja grows nearby, pests are less likely to attack the hydrangea. When planting hydrangeas next to thuja, it is important that the hydrangea has enough room for growth and development. She needs approximately 2-2.5 meters of space.

In order not to wait for the hydrangea to grow and begin to bloom, you need to buy seedlings that are at least 3 years old.

Thuja with trees and shrubs

Thuja goes well with many shrubs. Good neighbors for her will be: hibiscus, bubbly, weigela, barberry, magnolia, Kuril tea (cinquefoil), euonymus.

When choosing them, the main thing is to take into account the peculiarities of the root system. Thuja has a shallow root system, which means that its neighbors must have roots that go deep into the ground. If you plant another shrub with a shallow root system near the thuja, they will begin to compete for nutrients. As a result, either both plants will develop poorly and slowly, or one of them will drown out the other.

It will look great next to the thuja boxwood... Just like thuja, it perceives pruning well, so their crowns can be shaped in different ways. The combination of these plants with formed crowns looks very impressive.

The areas between the thuja can be planted with small shrubs and ground cover plants. For this, thyme, erica, saxifrage are suitable.

Do not plant thuja next to birches or bird cherry trees.Thuja will negatively affect their development. Fruit trees will also not be happy with such a neighborhood, the phytoncides secreted by thuja are destructive for them. If you plant thuja in the same area with fruit trees, then the distance between them should be at least 6 meters.

A composition of thuja and roses will look great. Thuja with a spherical crown and thuja of compact sizes are most suitable for such compositions. At first glance, it may seem that these plants are not the best companions, but you can plant them together. The main thing is to keep a sufficient distance between thujas and roses. It should be about 1.5-2 meters. If this distance is respected, the plants will not take nutrients from each other.

Thuja with perennial flowers

Thuja's companions can also be annual and perennial flowers. You can plant lavender, hosta, alissum, lobelia, viola, irises, petunias, delphinium, periwinkle next to it. Bulbous plants get along well next to thuja, such a neighborhood does not affect them in any way, so you can safely plant lilies and tulips next to thuja.

Do not plant peonies, dahlias or asters next to thuja. They are not the most suitable companions for thuja. Also, do not choose flowers that quickly finish blooming and inconspicuous, inexpressive plants as companions for thuja, such a combination will look untidy.

Next to the thuja, you need to plant decorative, bright, long-blooming plants. They should either stand out as a bright spot against the background of tall thuja or set off small, neat thuja bushes. If thuja is planted in front of perennials, then you need to choose perennials that will not get lost next to it and will not lose their decorative effect after the end of flowering. It can be volzhanka, delphinium. If the thuja is in the background, then periwinkle, armeria, arabis can be planted in front of it.

You can plant semi-wild cereals nearby. It can be feather grass, bunting, bristly pinnate.

The nuances of using thuja in landscape design

The combinations described above with thuja are used not only in the design of the urban landscape, they are also applicable on personal plots. The main thing is that the gardener has a rich imagination and a good sense of color. But it is worth knowing that there are features of composing compositions with thuja.

There is no need to be afraid of experiments and new solutions. Thuja perfectly combines and gets along with many types of plants: shrubs, trees, herbaceous plants; with plants of different heights, both high and low.

If the land plot is small, then you should not plant many high thujas on it. Tall thujas need a lot of space, they will interfere with the development of other plants, shading them. If thuja are not used as a hedge, then they should be planted at a distance from each other. The composition can be supplemented with other coniferous or deciduous plants.

Almost all thujas take pruning well. If you start to deal with it from the very first days of a plant's life, then you can get an intricate living decoration for your site.

The decorativeness of thuja will help to emphasize stones of different colors and ground cover plants. It is desirable that the stones differ not only in color, but also in size.

With the help of thuja, you can beautifully decorate not only a summer cottage. Small, neat trees in pots will be a wonderful decoration for a terrace or loggia. Thuja can grow not only outdoors. Thuja in large tubs, standing near the entrance doors, will look majestic and graceful.

As the thuja grows, it oxidizes the soil, so plants that love slightly acidic soils will feel good next to it.

What compositions will thuja fit into

Arrangements with thuja are very beautiful and varied. They are not limited to hedges, thuja itself is very decorative, it is often used as the centerpiece of compositions.

Also, with thuja, you can create spectacular group compositions from conifers. You can plant several conifers of different shades. It's not bad even to use thuja of different varieties, diluting them with junipers and Christmas trees.

Such coniferous groups can be scattered in several places of the site, then the whole space will look one.

You can plant trees and shrubs in rows in height, the tallest in the background, the lower in front. Such a microborder should contain 30-50% of conifers. It is desirable that not only the height of the plants vary, but also their color, the shape of the crown.

Thuja can be a great decoration for a flower bed or flower garden. For a flower garden or flower bed, you need to choose small-sized thuja varieties. Thuja looks good on alpine hills, in the middle of the lawn.

If thuja is planted in a flower bed, then you can add decorativeness to the composition with the help of stones. The gaps between decorative elements can be filled with bark.

Thuja care

With proper care, thuja retains its attractive appearance for a long time. Tuyu can be called unassuming to care for.

Thuja needs watering once or twice a week. 10 liters of water is enough for one plant. While the seedlings are young, they are watered a little more often. Fertilizers need to be applied to the soil a couple of times a year. Young thuja who are only 2-3 years old need to be covered for the winter. A non-woven fabric is suitable for this purpose.

For thuja, pruning is very important. Twice a year it is worth carrying out sanitary pruning of thuja. During sanitary pruning, all dry branches are removed, as well as branches with reddened needles. If the thuja has a too dense crown, parasites can settle in it, so it needs to be slightly thinned out. If there is a desire, a decorative haircut is carried out, during each session of which the branches are shortened by a third. The shape of the crown can be left in a natural shape, or you can give it an unusual silhouette. Decorative pruning is done a couple of times a year.

Conclusion

Thuja is a plant with good decorative characteristics, it goes well with many other plants, therefore it is often used in landscape design to create different compositions. Thuja allows the gardener to show imagination and bring many ideas to life. Thanks to the thuja, you can decorate your site in an original, unique style.