Cones on thuja what to do. Thuja cones medicinal properties. The chemical composition of the plant

11.08.2020

Question from: Anonymous

Thuja grows near our house. I always thought it was an ornamental plant. But recently I heard somewhere that there are recipes for papillomas. They use thuja cones: medicinal properties they help with skin diseases. Tell us in more detail, for which diseases and what exactly is used? Are only the buds useful, or are the bark and needles also used?

Answer: Doctor

In recipes traditional medicine use the bark, young shoots and thuja cones, whose medicinal properties help with various diseases. Any part of the tree contains:

essential oils;
polyphenols;
glycosides and their compounds.

Young needles are rich in vitamins and minerals. Thuja has a slight toxic effect, so be sure to follow the prescribed dosages. Remedies from it are not recommended during pregnancy and lactation, as well as for people with nervous disorders.

Collection and storage

Due to the fact that thuja, like most conifers, is very unpretentious, its habitat is extensive. Thuja is often planted in industrial areas and along highways. For therapeutic purposes, trees growing in clean areas are suitable.

Young shoots of thuja are harvested from late spring to early summer (depending on climate zone). Cones ripen in November-December. Dry the blanks out of direct sunlight. Keep raw materials tightly closed. If the tree grows in the yard, then the healing properties of the thuja will be available all year round.

Any tree of the coniferous family has both antimicrobial and therapeutic properties. Volatile phytoncides contained in the foliage and thuja cones have a detrimental effect on most types of viruses, bacteria and fungi. That is why even a simple walk among the trees will improve the general condition and increase immunity. Preparations containing coniferous extract:

help to cope with inflammation of various kinds;
reduce the level of pain;
accelerate the process of skin regeneration.

Alternative Medicine Recipes

For the treatment of prostatitis, tincture of young shoots in alcohol is used. In 200 ml of medical alcohol, it is necessary to fill up 3 tbsp. l. needles and tightly close the lid. Keep the infusion for 2 weeks, shaking daily. The resulting preparation should be stored filtered in the dark. glass bottle. Take 30 drops, dissolving them in 100 g of water, 2 times a day after meals. The course of admission is 7-10 days. You can repeat after a week.

To get rid of papillomas, thuja is also useful - its medicinal properties will help get rid of many skin formations. Proportions of alcohol tincture: 3 tbsp. l. dry chopped pine needles per 150 g of medical alcohol. Insist the composition of 14 days. Lubricate problem areas with them as needed.

For ease of use, the tincture is mixed with petroleum jelly in a ratio of 1 to 1. The resulting mixture is applied to chronic calluses and fixed with a bandage.

Tui rightfully occupy a central place in many suburban areas. High frost resistance and a variety of thuja varieties make these shrubs indispensable in landscape compositions and for creating evergreen hedges. Young dense thuja bushes are especially loved by gardeners, but in grown plants at the age of about 10 years, the crown often looks sparse and sick. In many cases, the cause is the ripening of thuja fruits - small cones. From a distance, such thujas seem to be covered with dried shoots and growths.

Dan Mullen/Flickr.com

5u5/Flickr.com

While the thuja are young and undersized, or there are only 2-3 of them, then you can simply limit yourself to a constant haircut with a pruner, annually cutting off all the extra bumps. But this is easy to do only while the thuja are young and low. Every year in the spring, before the growth of new shoots begins, prune the thuja and cut off no more than a third of the length of last year's growth. In the middle of summer, the trees are pruned again. With a regular haircut, you will get rid of brown cones and form a beautiful dense crown. New branches will constantly grow on the thuja, the plant will be fluffy. In addition, this will allow you to quickly change the crown, give it the shape of a cone, column, spiral.

F. D. Richards / Flickr.com

During periods of drought, water the plants more abundantly. Thuja loves regular evening or morning spraying with water along the crown, actively growing new green branches. Spray plants weakened by haircuts from May to August with anti-stress preparations "Epin-extra" or "Zircon". Processing can be carried out up to three times during the summer, taking breaks up to two weeks.

They will help to grow green sprigs of top dressing with special mineral fertilizers for conifers with magnesium. They provide intensive growth and bright healthy coloring of needles, reduce darkening in winter period. From organic, only rotted compost and biohumus can be used. Top dressing is carried out twice, once in early spring and then in summer. In mid-August, the plants stop feeding, so as not to stimulate the growth of new shoots and the laying of flower buds.

S. Rae / Flickr.com

Choose thuja varieties that are slightly prone to seed formation. For example, for the columnar variety “Smaragd” of the western thuja, the formation of cones is not very typical. It retains emerald green needles regardless of the season. But in the fast-growing variety "Brabant", cones are formed in large quantities. As a result, its crown looks more loose. This variety is also prone to seasonal browning.

A complex of agricultural practices and the correct selection of varieties will help reduce the formation of cones on thujas and improve the appearance of your plantings.

Thuja, a genus of evergreens coniferous trees and shrubs (cypress family). 5 species grow in East Asia and North America, often on cold marshy soils. It was brought to Europe in the first half of the 16th century from North America(about 1554). One of the everyday names of thuja - "tree of life", was given by the king of France. In Russia, thuja appeared relatively recently and soon became common for gardens and parks on Black Sea coast caucasus, south coast Crimea, in Azerbaijan. On the territory of Ukraine it is cultivated as an ornamental plant. Trees 30 to 60 meters high (rarely 75). It grows slowly, especially in the first half of life. It is one of the most common ornamental park trees, rarely shrubs. It is quite durable, lives up to 100 years (under artificial conditions up to 150 years), winter-hardy, shade-tolerant, not very demanding on soil fertility and tolerates shearing. Widely and everywhere bred in gardens and parks.

In Russia, western thuja and giant thuja - pyramidal are common in culture. The homeland of the western thuja is the east of North America, where it is known under the names "American tree of life" and "northern white cedar". Coniferous evergreen tree up to 25 m high with a conical crown. Trunk up to 1 m in diameter with light reddish-brown thin bark. In young plants, the crown is narrow, pyramidal, but with age it in most cases becomes ovoid. Western arborvitae has rot-resistant, soft and easily processed wood with yellowish sapwood and a light brown heartwood, very durable, without resin passages. It has long been used by the Indians to build canoes. The bark is thin, smooth, reddish-brown, exfoliating in the form of narrow ribbons with age. It tolerates heat, drought and air pollution with smoke, gases and dust. Grows slowly. Most often, this plant is used to create alleys and hedges, as well as in single landings. It withstands molding well, so it is an ideal material for creating any architectural forms. The crown is compact, narrowly pyramidal in youth and ovoid in adulthood often sinking to the ground. At natural growth the crown is broadly oval and branches in a horizontal plane. Under the conditions of culture, you can find trees with the most diverse crown shape, artificially obtained with the help of garden shears. Depending on the type of crown, there are varieties of thuja: juvenile, columnar, spherical, pyramidal, weeping - dwarf form.

Young shoots are flat, bright green in the third year, becoming round, red-brown. The upper side of the shoots is dark green and shiny, the lower side is dull and light. The plant is monoecious. The needles are scaly, flat, small, 5-7 mm long with a resin gland on the back, rounded at the top, dark yellowish green, located oppositely on the shoots and tightly pressed against them, imbricate scales lean on each other. The needles live for 2-3 years and fall off together with small twigs (vetkopad). Cones ovate - oblong, small, 7-15 mm long, bent down, small, green at first, and when ripe brown woody, consist of 3-6 pairs, bearing 2 seeds each, leathery, lignified crosswise located opposite scales of light brown color , formed at the ends of the shoots, ripen in autumn in the year of flowering. Seeds flattened, with two narrow straw-yellow wings. Seeds ripen and spill out of the cones in autumn in the year of pollination.

The use of western thuja in medicine

It is known that thuja wood contains up to 0.12% yellow essential oil. Essential oil (from the leaves) has a bactericidal effect, is used in medicine, perfumery.

AT medicinal purposes used - as a cytostatic, choleretic, expectorant, diaphoretic, hemostatic agent.

Tui preparations exhibit anti-inflammatory, anthelmintic, anti-allergic, antibacterial effects. Thuja is especially widely used in dermatology - both externally and internally - in the form of decoctions, tinctures. In particular, with lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, viral diseases (herpes), a tincture of thuja shoots in 70% alcohol is used - 10-15 drops three times a day. When applied externally, a positive effect is observed in the treatment of inflammation of the hair follicles of the skin (dousing with infusions), lupus erythematosus and herpes, acne vulgaris and rosacea (lubricating with tincture).

Thuja is a very popular remedy for removing warts. For the treatment of warts, a tincture of fresh thuja western leaves is used, which is prepared in a ratio of 1:5. Warts are treated with the prepared tincture twice a day in three doses with an interval of two to three minutes for 2-3 weeks. Some doctors inject an alcohol tincture into the middle of a callus or wart (injection). Other authors suggest mixing the tincture (up to 10-15%) with petroleum jelly or lard and lubricating warts, sometimes warts or corns are sprinkled with dried plant powder.

Thuja is used in the form of tinctures, decoctions, poultices, ointments, both alone and in combination with others. medicinal plants depending on the diagnosis. Since this plant is poisonous, it must be used carefully, not exceeding the allowable doses.

Thuja in Karagay

First of all, in order to find answers to my questions, I decided to take a closer look at this tree, and after the lessons I went to the thuja. She is very fluffy and beautiful. This year, a lot of cones have grown on the thuja, like on other conifers that I saw in the forest during a walk. Walking through the forest, on a day off with my mother, we have never seen such coniferous trees as thuja in our forests.

This means that this tree is not from our area, perhaps it is foreign and brought from somewhere.

At school, I asked Irina Nikolaevna: “Who planted this tree near the school?” After asking the teachers of our school, Irina Nikolaevna and I learned that this tree was brought to us from another area by the biology teacher Lidia Stepanovna Ponosova and planted here more than thirty years ago. The teachers of our school said that when the thuja was planted, all the teachers and students began to take care of this tree. Once they even wanted to dig it up, put it in a tub and put it in the school so that it would not freeze in winter. But when they began to dig, they saw that its roots went very deep into the ground, and the tree had to be left in place. In childhood, thuja, when she was still small, was made of straw and coniferous twigs for the winter, so that the thuja would not freeze in winter. When the thuja grew up, they began to pay less attention to it, and then they completely forgot about it. Many students who are now studying at our school do not know anything about this tree, even about what it is called. Some students treated Tuya badly. They broke off the branches of the tree, as far as their hands grabbed, and from this the trunk of the thuja was not protected from frost and wind. In winter, in severe frosts, the bark of the tree cracked, and therefore a large wound formed on the trunk of the arborvitae.

During the walk, Irina Nikolaevna and I measured the tree trunk with a string, and then in the class we measured the length with a ruler. The girth of the trunk turned out to be 41cm. We counted the whorls, by which we can say that our thuja is more than 30 years old.

Knowing about my research work, our friends told me that in Karagay they saw a tree along Michurin Street, similar to a thuja. I walked along this street more than once, but did not notice this beautiful tree, thinking that it was a Christmas tree. Then on the day off, my mother and I went to this street to look at that tree. Indeed, another thuja tree grows near house number 5 along Michurin Street. The thuja along Michurin Street is different from the one that grows near the school. It is more fluffy, sprawling, its trunk is divided into several branches. Perhaps this is a different kind of thuja. This thuja is also many years old, but we could not find out who planted it, since the family living in this house does not know about it. When they bought the house, this tree was already big. I picked a few small twigs with buds from the tree to do my research, since I already had twigs from the arborvitae that grows near the school. When comparing the branches, I found that the needles on the branches, which are larger from the thuja along Michurin Street, there are more cones on one branch and they are longer in size than on our thuja.

The length of the scales of the cone

The cone of thuja looks like a rose or tulip bud. It is cinnamon in color, made of coarse scales, inside of which lies a small seed. When examining the cones, I did not immediately discover that some of them have seeds. I mistook them for cone scales. Tui seeds are very small, despite this, huge trees grow from them. The seeds are wrapped on both sides with a light film, in the form of wings, inside of which lies a small seed. The seeds are so light that when they breathe they scatter in different directions. It became interesting to me whether the seeds differ in size from different thujas, taking a ruler, I began to measure the length of the seeds.

TUI seed length

Yes, my assumptions were correct. Thuja seeds along Michurin Street are slightly larger than the school thuja. The photo clearly shows which wings the seeds have, and that their size is very small compared to one penny.

Or . We can talk about the advantages of a hedge for a long time: it is attractive, perfectly complements, giving it additional attractiveness and naturalness, protects from dust and snow, and much more.

It looks like a hedge from Tui

And the thuja hedge remains very popular today. Why do thousands of people around the world prefer thuja, and not some other plant out of dozens of possible ones? In such an interesting question it would be useful to understand in more detail.

Thuja is an evergreen tree or shrub (depending on the variety) of an attractive round-pyramidal shape. It perfectly tolerates frequent haircuts, remaining thick and maintaining a pleasant color. Therefore, you can give it almost any architectural form.

With proper care, the plant can easily live for many decades, delighting its owners with a beautiful appearance. Grows best in full sun, but can grow well in shade if needed. True, in the latter case, many varieties retain their decorative effect. Thuja is not too demanding both on the composition of the soil and on moisture. Most cultivars tolerate low temperatures air.

Many owners of thuja hedges like that the air in the area where a large number of these plants grow is fresh and fragrant. This is not surprising: the plant is able to ionize the air and, importantly, the leaves contain essential oil, thanks to which a faint, subtle, but very pleasant aroma always hovers in the air.

No less important is the fact that a healthy thuja retains a luxurious crown both in summer and in winter - like most other conifers. If many coniferous plants have certain preferences for climate, then thuja can grow well both in the southern and northern regions of our country, easily and quickly adapting to the climate.

Thuja also tolerates transplanting much more easily than most other conifers. That is why thuja hedge length is one of the best and most common options.

However, before you start creating a living fence, it will be useful to learn about some varieties of arborvitae. Of course, in general, varieties are quite numerous. Therefore, in order to finally decide on the choice of a suitable variety, it is worth learning at least about the most common and popular varieties.

What is interesting thuja variety Brabant

Among the many varieties of western thuja, thuja Brabant is one of the most sought after. One of its main advantages is its rapid growth and large size.

In a warm climate, this thuja can reach a height of 20 meters, and the diameter of the crown of such a tree is 4 meters!

However, in the middle lane, thuja rarely reaches a height of 4-6 meters.

However, for most people who decide to get a thuja hedge, this is more than enough. With regular watering, soil sufficiently rich in microelements and the absence of diseases, thuja can add up to 40 centimeters in height in a year. During the same period, its crown can add up to 15 centimeters in diameter.

Tui seedlings ready for planting in the ground

The shape of the crown is very pretty - a pronounced cone. At the same time, even a neglected crown is very compact: thick branches descend to the very soil, but practically do not stick out to the sides. The brown or reddish-brown bark would give a special elegance to the plant, but it is almost invisible due to the extremely dense crown.

The shade of the needles can vary significantly (from dark green to light green). In some cases, golden tips can also be seen. First of all, it depends on the type of soil and its moisture content. Many experts highly appreciate the thuja Brabant for its peculiarity: in winter, it retains its color. For most varieties of thuja, this is extremely uncharacteristic: they turn yellow for the winter. But not Brabant!

Thuja begins to bloom in mid-April (plus or minus a couple of weeks - depending on the climate in the area). Small brown cones with a diameter of about 1 centimeter are ovoid or oblong in shape.

What you should know about thuja Smaragd

Almost as popular as the variety Brabant and thuja Smaragd. This plant is widely used in modern gardening of land. Outwardly, the Smaragd variety is similar to Brabant. The same large bush with a crown of almost regular cone. The popularity of this variety is due to the accuracy of the crown shape and dense, tightly adjacent branches.

At good conditions this thuja variety quite quickly reaches 4-6 meters, after which the growth, which is not too fast, further slows down. The crown diameter at the base usually reaches 1-1.5 meters.

It looks like Tuya Smaragd

The Smaragd variety grows much more slowly than Brabant - in one year, at best, the growth is 10-12 centimeters. Therefore, the thuja reaches a height sufficient for the formation of a hedge (2-2.5 meters) only at the age of 10-12 years.

Like Smaragd, this variety retains a rich green crown color both in the warm season and in the cold.

The crown of most other thuja varieties, as mentioned above, turns yellow or turns brown.

If you decide to arrange a hedge of Smaragd thuja on your site, you should know that it not only grows rather slowly, but is also very picky about the moisture content and composition of the soil. It grows slowly, often gets sick, and sometimes dies if the soil does not contain all the necessary nutrients. nutrients. Therefore, the soil must be regularly fertilized and constantly moistened. However, excess moisture can also be detrimental to the plant. Therefore, if the level of groundwater is quite high, it is necessary to take care of high-quality drainage.

Installation diagram of the drainage system

When planting, it is best to place the bushes at a distance of 50-60 centimeters from each other. It grows well not only in well-lit areas, but also in the shade. If in the landing area are often observed strong winds, it is worth providing the plant with appropriate protection. Otherwise, the plant may be uprooted, or many branches will simply be broken.

In the first two years after planting a thuja of this variety, it is necessary to carry out shallow loosening of the soil near the trunk once a month. This will provide an easy passage of fresh air to the roots, providing excellent well-being and the fastest engraftment in a new place. From time to time, mulching can be carried out by introducing a small amount of peat, mixing it with the soil.

In the spring, it is necessary to eliminate dry shoots so that they do not spoil appearance plants and at the same time did not interfere with the growth of young branches. When it comes time to cut the thuja, you can give its crown almost any shape. But it is better not to cut the branches too much - one third of the maximum length.

In general, the Smaragd variety was bred for growth in northern countries with a harsh climate. Therefore, it perfectly withstands low temperatures (excluding extreme ones, up to -35 degrees and below). But still, in the first year after planting, the plant can be covered with burlap to prevent freezing. This must be done very carefully if you do not want to break young branches.

Of course, thuja varieties for hedges are much more numerous than those given here. But to tell about all varieties is simply impossible.