Among gardeners, the term eye is a common synonym for budding species on woody plants. The term sleeping eye causes frowns among those new to hobby gardening. This guide brings light into the darkness with an understandable definition and plausible explanations.
Sleeping eyes are barely recognizable buds
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Show all- Sleeping eye - definition of terms for home gardeners
- How is a sleeping eye brought to life?
Sleeping eye - definition of terms for home gardeners
When gardeners speak of an eye, they mean the growing point of a plant, which botanists call a bud. This is the embryonic formation of a shoot, a leaf or a flower. Which part of the plant an eye actually turns into can usually only be recognized during the course of the growth period. Accordingly, the term sleeping eye is a synonym for sleeping bud and leads to the following definition:
Sleeping eye denotes one dormant bud plant, which establishes a young woody plant at the same time as active buds. Sleeping eyes are mostly located under the bark and are not or hardly recognizable.
The special quality of sleeping eyes is that they can remain viable for many years. Their only function is to restore lost or dead organs, such as branches, twigs or even an entire main trunk. To put it bluntly, sleeping eyes are the iron reserve of shrubs and trees.
How is a sleeping eye brought to life?
A sleeping eye is tiny because it doesn't benefit from the flow of sap within a plant. As the growth law of top promotion conveys to us, the nutrients strive primarily in the direction of the top buds of a shoot. Active buds located below the top buds are provided with a smaller proportion of reserve substances and sprout accordingly more reluctantly. Nutrients are available for dormant buds when parts of the plant above them fall away.
A sleeping eye will not activate until the sap pressure at that spot increases. If you cut off a shoot just above a dormant bud, the plant will busily sprout. It is thanks to this process that most trees and shrubs do not stop growing even after a radical type of pruning, such as a regeneration pruning.
In order for an apple tree to develop a round crown in juice scales, remove all shoots except for the central shoot with three main branches. Shorten the leading branches so that their top buds are at the same height. Overall, the scaffolding branches should form an angle of 90-120°.