The last spring month for the Ukrainian capital is not just 31 pages of the calendar and a harbinger of summer. It is in May that Kiev begins to decorate, turning into a huge greenhouse filled with magnolia, lilacs and, of course, the unofficial symbol of the city with chestnuts. Chestnuts begin to bloom in early May. However, in addition to the "planned" spring flowering, there is one more, in September. And not everyone is happy with him.
The same age as the Decembrists
In 2025, the famous Kiev chestnuts will be 200 years old. As, for example, the uprising raised on Senate Square by the Decembrists. However, these events are hardly connected by anything other than the date. After all, the chestnuts came to Kiev not from St. Petersburg, but from the southeastern part of the European continent, quite by accident. At first, they were planted only in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. And already from it, good townspeople, taking advantage of the fact that young trees grow very quickly, begin to bloom in their youth, are unpretentious to soil and weather, spread the seedlings to houses and streets, quickly turning Kiev into a kingdom of chestnuts.
Heat, heat, roasted chestnuts
Chestnuts are quite frost-resistant. But, like many southerners, they are not only susceptible to heat, but also adore the free heavenly solarium. So they begin to bloom actively as soon as a warm spring comes to the Ukrainian capital. According to various sources, the start of the process of the appearance of flowers on chestnut trees is given either from May 1 to May 4, or a week later. And soon the branches sag under the huge bunches of fruits. Landscapers estimate that about a million trees grow in the city, yielding about 30 thousand tons of fruits. And in parallel, lilacs are blooming, which creates an indescribable beauty in Kiev at this time of the year.
By the way, it is not recommended to eat the fruits of street chestnuts, because an edible species of the beech family blooms in Kiev. With its colors, residents and guests are mainly pleased with the common horse, related to the horse-chestnut and used mostly in pharmacology, as well as nude and meat-red. Such flowering lasts, maximum, until the end of May. And he showered the streets with white flowers goodbye, passing on a kind of flower baton to another Ukrainian native with leaves - acacia. Thus, unwittingly referring to the times of the Civil War and the romance about fragrant bunches of white acacia from the film "Days of the Turbins". The cessation of the flowering of chestnuts and lilacs means the beginning of the summer heat for the people of Kiev.
Autumn. Is it time?
All the beauty of the Kiev chestnut, or rather, its green part, finally disappears in mid-August, dying at a chronically high summer temperature. Thunderstorms, especially in May, and the street moth, which has long considered the chestnut home, pose a serious threat to trees and flowers. Do not forget about the ecology, because of which more than one Ukrainian capital suffers, and not only chestnuts perish. Although just their weak leaves turn to dust first.
The same harmful moth, as well as the heat and bad ecology, provoke the horse chestnut into a not very normal, according to botanists, action - flowering number two. It occurs already in September, when the climate becomes temperate, and flowers appear on the trees, which have decided that spring has come after the summer. However, already without fresh fruits. As scientists say again, only trees sick in summer can bloom for the second time. In such a strange way, from the point of view of science, they seem to say goodbye to life …
