How to make a garden varnish and apply it on the site. Garden pitch, garden putty - will prolong the life of your trees Making garden pitch at home
Garden pitch: what is it for and how to make it?
Garden varnish is a product that should always be in your garden first aid kit for plants. This is a substance that saves tree cuttings from infection by fungus or bacteria, pests and sap leakage. It is necessary during tree pruning, grafting and any other damage.
Treatment of wounds of green spaces is a multi-stage process; it is necessary to take into account all the biological features of the development of living organisms. Garden varnish is the main assistant in this, since it is prepared from natural ingredients that contribute to the rapid and proper healing of damaged areas of trees. And even severe, deep wounds - formed by hollows - cannot harm the green pets if they are given help in time.
Garden varnish is a means of protecting trees from infection and rotting.
Nowadays in specialized stores there are a large number of products that replace garden varnish. They consist mainly of chemicals. But experienced gardeners prefer to prepare a brew from natural ingredients, especially since the components are accessible and always at hand.
So the basis of the brew is beekeeping products - propolis and wax. Vegetable and animal oils, alcohol, rosin, paraffin, antifreeze, drying oil, etc. can also be used. Garden varieties come in two types: warm-liquid and cold-resistant. Each type has several recipes.
Rules for applying varnish
In all cases, you should adhere to the rule of applying medicinal ointment to trees.
- We process healthy trees, remove all dead and diseased branches;
- We clean the edges and bases, the cuts should be even and smooth;
- When working, we use clean and, if possible, sterile instruments, we wash the wounds with water and an antiseptic;
- It is better if the process takes place in spring or autumn - this makes it easier for the trees to recover - even in dry weather;
- Serious damage, hollows after cleaning are washed with a solution of copper sulfate;
- We do not apply garden varnish immediately after damage, but after some time, after the wound has dried;
- Heat the resin in a water bath or keep it in the sun for a short time, knead it in your hands
- Apply the mixture in a thin (thick one - the wood will suffer more) uniform layer, with a brush or by hand (for large wounds - with a roller or spatula), the main condition is not to leave empty, unsmeared places on the wound.
- If the treatment area is large, then cover it with a rag and tie it;
- We remember that for a complete recovery, the procedure must be repeated several times, since the putty cracks, does not take root and ultimately allows moisture to pass through, which is detrimental to the structure of the tree.
By the way, it is necessary to treat not only damage from working with a knife, teeth from rodents or diseases, but also for small cracks, sunburn, and frost wounds. Healing in the early stages helps trees cope with difficulties, so they will delight with their harvest and appearance for many years.
Of course, garden varnish also has its disadvantages. One of them is that wounds do not heal for a long time, and at the site of damage the trunk or branches begin to rot. In addition, the putty works mainly on warm days. But there are more benefits from the brew, and besides, this is another reason to experiment with mixtures - to choose the one suitable for a certain variety in your climate.
DIY garden varnish
Paraffin based
Take 6 parts of paraffin, melt it, add 3 parts of finely chopped rosin, and boil. Pour in two parts of any vegetable oil and boil for half an hour. Cool the mixture, knead it, and store it in a jar.
Wax based
Melt two parts of beeswax with four parts of rosin, bring to a boil, add one part of interior fat. We also boil, cool and knead.
Warm-liquid garden varieties
Zhukovsky's garden var
Melt equal parts of rosin, wax, animal fat separately in plates, then mix everything. The mixture should cool, then pour it into a container with cold water and wait until it curdles. We take out the substance, knead it in our hands and roll it into a ball. We store this garden varnish in oiled paper. This product is suitable for processing in warm weather, and we cover the area of lubrication so as not to attract insects.
Pashkevich ointment
Melt four parts of wax, gradually introduce the same amount of turpentine (turpentine), two parts of rosin. At the end, pour in one part of the melted fat and stir. The further process is the same as in the previous recipe.
Cold-resistant garden varieties
Var Reshetnikova
Melt 10 parts of fir resin with one part of yellow wax. After a short cooling, pour one part of the heated wine alcohol into the mixture. Var is applied with a brush - thus it covers the entire damaged part. It is viscous, does not allow water to pass through, and does not form cracks. Effective for wounds caused to wood by rodents.
Var Gauga
Heat 400 grams of pine resin and pour 60 milliliters of wine alcohol into it. Dissolve 4 grams of gum arabic (available in hardware stores) and 1 teaspoon of baking soda in water. Mix all the ingredients, cool, and apply to the wounds with a brush.
Var Raevsky
Heat a pound of tree resin with 60 milliliters of wine alcohol, pour in 2 tablespoons of linseed oil. Pour the liquid into a tin container. This kind of varnish does not stick, does not dry out or spread in the heat, and during processing it is well absorbed into the wood, baking on top.
If you follow all the stages of the technology for preparing garden varnish, then the putty for wood will turn out to be a reliable protective film in case of damage. Such resins are stored for a long time, they can be used if necessary. And there is no need to delay treatment, because the health of the garden depends on timely processing, and garden varnish is simply an indispensable aid when pruning and crowning.
Garden varnish is a popular remedy with which many gardeners heal wounds on trees. Such putty can be purchased at a specialized store or prepared yourself; fortunately, there are quite a lot of recipes for garden varnish. If you want to effectively protect your trees from diseases that can develop in damaged areas, we will tell you simple ways to prepare garden varnish with your own hands.
Experienced gardeners are probably familiar with the concept of garden varnish, but for some this term will be new. Below we will describe in detail the main purpose of this composition, consider its advantages and disadvantages. Wounds on trees can form for various reasons, for example, as a result of pruning any fragment of the plant, after grafting, due to damage by rodents or insect pests. If the tree is not protected from negative environmental factors in time, the cut may become infected. In addition, cracks may appear in the damaged area and the plant will begin to hurt. There are several types of wounds on trees, they are classified as follows:
Garden var has its positive and negative qualities. The advantages of this composition include:
Among the negative properties are the following:
To cause as little harm as possible to the tree, you should follow certain rules when pruning:
How to make garden varnish with your own handsComposition of garden varnishMost garden putty recipes use the following substances:
There are two main types of garden varieties:
Popular garden recipesLet's look at ways to prepare warm-liquid brews:
Cold-resistant garden putties include varas Reshetnikov, Gaug and Raevsky. Let us describe in more detail the recipes for their preparation:
A properly prepared cold-resistant brew should have the following characteristics:
Alternative Garden Salve Recipes
Not all gardeners cover wounds on trees with garden varnish; some prefer to use ordinary oil paint for such purposes. Others use drying oil, applying it in several layers to the damaged area. And there are those who consider the use of putties to be simply impractical, since the tree can recover on its own over a certain period of time. However, the question of using garden varnish on your site is up to you to decide. Features of tree treatmentIn order for the plant to quickly recover after pruning and various damages, it is important to follow all the rules for its treatment: Garden var. Video |
You cannot do without garden putties (vars) in the garden. They are needed both for grafting and when trees are damaged by rodents, and if the bark was torn off during processing or large wounds were caused during pruning. Of course, you can buy garden varnish in a store, or you can prepare it yourself, as our readers do.
Garden varnish is the key to longevity
As soon as I retired, my wife and I left our daughter’s city apartment and moved to the dacha, where we live almost all year round. My wife enjoys working in the garden beds, and my pride is the garden. My main concern is the preservation of fruit trees; many of them were planted by my grandfather.
Every year in the fall, before frost sets in, I choose a time when there is no rain for several days and begin treating tree trunks. I use a special metal brush or scraper to clean all the wounds and cover them with the broth, which I prepare myself at home according to my own recipe.
200 g of wax, 250 g of grease and 50 g of pine resin. Separately, I heat all the components until completely dissolved, then mix and pour into a glass jar.
If the composition turns out to be too viscous, I heat it in a water bath and add vegetable oil (leftovers from a bottle with sediment work well). And if suddenly the putty turns out to be too liquid, I thicken it with sifted ash.
I apply the finished mixture to the wound and rub it over the surface. Healing of cracks usually occurs fairly quickly and the tree recovers.
When I need to treat small cuts on trees or treat shrubs, I do not use varnish, but brilliant green or potassium permanganate.
I especially like the green stuff: it’s sold in pharmacies in the form of a pencil - it’s very convenient and, most importantly, effective. So my grandfather trees don’t get sick.
By the way
There are many garden varnishes, but when preparing them, you must take precautions to prevent the mixture from igniting, especially when the varnish contains alcohol.
Treating wounds with rosin
Just recently I bought the magazine “My Beautiful Dacha” at a kiosk and read it from cover to cover. I want to thank everyone so much for so many interesting and useful tips! I also decided to write a letter about how I prepare garden putties for my garden - I have a large one and I have to constantly monitor the condition of the trees, which, you know, take so much time and effort to grow.
I usually use rosin as a base for preparing garden varnish; it gives the composition stickiness, and the wax, which fixes it, prevents the solution from spreading. And then I add other substances to them - from what is currently on hand.
As a rule, I use fat so that the composition is not too thick. I prefer the following proportions: 200 g of rosin, 400 g of beeswax and 200 g of lamb fat.
In separate containers, I melt the wax and rosin over the fire, and then mix them. Then I add the fat and pour it into cold water in a thin stream. I take the frozen pitch out of the water and roll it into a ball. After this, you can use it for any trees. If I do not use the prepared putty immediately, then I put it in a jar with a well-closing lid, otherwise it will harden very quickly.
For those who for some reason cannot purchase rosin, I can recommend resin instead - the result will not be much different.
Advice
Experts advise adding one crushed tablet of heteroauxin (a substance that stimulates plant growth) per 1 kg of mass before hardening a homemade garden pitch, which speeds up the healing process of tree wounds after pruning branches and covering the cuts with pitch.
And when lamb fat disappeared from our stores, I quite calmly replaced it with unsalted lard.
In this case, it is better to take the following proportions: 200 g of rosin, 100 g of beeswax and 50 g of lard.
First I melt the lard, add wax and rosin. After boiling for 20 minutes, I cool this mixture a little, knead it with my hands and, so that it does not dry out, wrap it in oiled paper. In this form it can be stored for more than one month. And my recipes have been tested for years.
When carrying out work in the garden, it is impossible to do without a garden varnish. Gardeners use it for multiple business transactions with fruit trees throughout the year.
It is necessary when: grafting trees when significant damage occurs; pruning; if trees are damaged by rodents; when defects with mutilations are noticed on the bark.
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Naturally, it is more convenient and easier to buy a finished product in a specialized store, where it is sold in different packaging and, as a rule, in sealed packaging. One of the most common and popular garden varieties is petrolatum, is manufactured industrially. It has excellent adhesion to dry areas of tree tissue and is especially in demand due to its ability to effectively heal wood.
However, summer residents have long prepared varnish at home on their own.
Cooking at home
How to make a garden varnish? One of the options when it is done with using grease. You need two hundred and fifty grams of it. You will also need wax (two hundred grams) and pine resin (fifty grams). All components must be heated separately. And only after that they are mixed.
If the mixture turns out to be quite viscous, it can be heated using a water bath. And then add more vegetable oil. If the pitch turns out to be a little runny, this can also be easily corrected by adding sifted ash.
The cut surface is evenly covered with the finished product, it tightens in a short time and the trees do not lose their fertile power.
It is also possible using rosin and wax as a base, prepare garden varnish with your own hands. Rosin is used to make the varnish sticky, and wax fixes all its components. As a supplement, you can take fat, which makes the mixture less dense.
The ratio of ingredients for such a brew: beeswax (four hundred grams), rosin (two hundred grams), lamb fat (two hundred grams). Before mixing, wax and rosin must be thoroughly melted in a separate bowl. Then the fat is added, and then the mixture is carefully poured into cold water.
After cooling, the mixture is removed from the water and formed into balls. If such putty is not completely used up after the main work in the garden, it should be placed in a jar under a tight lid for storage, since it quickly hardens in the open air.
Rosin in garden varnish can be replaced pine resin, and lamb fat - pork lard. But then the proportions change: two hundred grams of resin, one hundred grams of wax and fifty grams of lard will be needed. First of all, lard is heated, and then other components are added to it.
All components are boiled for twenty minutes. The finished composition is cooled and kneaded. After softening, the prepared mixture is packaged in oiled paper. It keeps well in it for months.
Plant growing experts recommend adding homemade varnish to the composition before thickening. heteroauxin tablet(it needs to be crushed). This drug as part of the varnish can not only accelerate the healing of wounds and cuts on trees, but also stimulate plant growth.
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How to replace garden varnish?
The materials at hand, instead of the product we need, can be: wax, paraffin, drying oil or oil paint (in an emergency - clay or fat mixed with mullein). And if the wounds or cuts on the tree are not very large, you can do without varnish, using potassium permanganate or brilliant green.
But experienced gardeners, planning to work in the garden, stock up in advance either a purchased or home-made product, in order to be sure of a successful outcome of the dacha work. And, about a couple of months after such work, they admire the new bark of their trees. It will be thin, but fungal spores will not penetrate inside the wood and there will be no rot.
Garden varnish is necessary for any gardener, but it is not always at hand. There are many recipes that make it easy to prepare this much-needed item yourself.
Why do you need garden varnish and what components are included in it?
Garden pitch, or putty, is an oil-resin composition used to treat wounds on tree trunks. The use of varnish protects damaged areas of the bark from infection.
Despite the abundance of ready-made options for garden varnish, some gardeners prefer to prepare the putty themselves. As a rule, the main components of almost any garden varnish are rosin, turpentine, resin, and fat. Some gardeners believe that clay is suitable instead of pitch.
Clay instead of pitch - video
Recipes for making garden varnish at home
There are a great many recipes for garden putty, many of them are time-tested, as they have been known since the 19th century.
Recipe No. 1
One of the simplest compositions includes lard, rosin and natural wax, taken in a ratio of 1:4:1. Cooking sequence:
- Grind the rosin.
- Melt the lard and add rosin and wax. Boil for 20 minutes.
- Cool the mixture, knead with your hands and wrap in a sheet of oiled paper.
If you follow simple rules, you can quickly get garden putty
Recipe No. 2
You need wax (can be replaced with paraffin), any animal fat, rosin in a ratio of 1:1:1, to which are added linseed oil (one fourth) and a little zinc oxide.
The main components of the brew (recipe No. 2) - photo gallery
The basis of the varnish is rendered lard
Beeswax gives the composition antibacterial properties
Rosin is added to help the brew harden better.
Flaxseed oil promotes rapid wound healing
Zinc oxide has a drying, adsorbing, astringent and antiseptic effect
Preparation procedure:
- Fat and wax are mixed and melted in a water bath, gradually adding rosin and stirring.
- Pour in linseed oil.
- Add 15–25% of the total volume of zinc oxide. Increasing the amount of zinc oxide reduces the plasticity of the var.
- When cooling, the mixture is stirred vigorously and 10% alcohol is added (optional). This will ensure the cold resistance of the brew.
Preparation of garden varnish No. 2 - video
Recipe No. 3
- 1 kg resin,
- 200 g beeswax,
- 50 g linseed oil,
- 100 g charcoal.
Preparation procedure:
- Melt the wax and resin.
- Grind and sift the coal.
- While stirring, add linseed oil and charcoal to the base.
- Bring the mixture to a boil, remove from heat and cool.
- Place the prepared mixture in a jar and close.
Before use, the putty needs to be warmed up a little to soften it.
1 - melt the wax; 2 - add resin; 3 - grind and sift the coal, add to the base; 4 - add linseed oil; 5 - boil the mixture and cool
Recipe No. 4
This recipe is very simple and well suited for treating large wounds. The mixture contains only 2 components - ash and nigrol in a ratio of 3:7. Nigrol should be heated and ash should be added while stirring until the mixture reaches the consistency of thick sour cream.
Ash is mixed into the heated nigrol
Recipe No. 5
This simple composition is called “cold brew”. It contains tree resin (410 g) and linseed oil (2 tablespoons). To prepare the pitch, the resin is melted and the oil is poured in without ceasing to stir. A characteristic feature of the composition is that it always remains semi-liquid and can be used in any weather.
Recipe No. 6
This ancient mixture is known as "waterproof ointment" and is the prototype of the modern var.
Required ingredients:
- 205 g yellow wax,
- 205 g shoemaker's pitch,
- 100 g turpentine (resin),
- 50 g salt.
Preparation procedure:
- Place all ingredients in a cast iron pot and heat over low heat until liquid.
- Collect and remove any dirt floating on top.
- Cool the mixture and roll into medium-diameter sausages with wet palms.
- Wrap the finished product in oiled paper and store.
The advantages of this ointment are that it does not get wet in the rain, withstands winter cold well (does not crack), and can be easily removed during spring warming.
From my own experience, I can say that garden putty can be prepared very quickly and easily from equal parts of resin and liquid mullein. The resin is pre-melted, then the components are thoroughly mixed. The binder can be dog or cat hair, crushed dry leaves or grass. This mixture is prepared in 15 minutes and perfectly replaces store-bought varnish.
Self-made varnish, if all rules are followed, is not inferior in quality to purchased formulations. Using readily available components, you can be guaranteed to protect your trees from diseases.