THE FLORAL WORLD AXD QARDEN GUIDE. 



9' 



tedium of raising seedling stocks, and 

 grafting upon them. 



CULTURE OF THE HOLLY. 



Tlie holly grows slowly, and dies slowly-. 

 Trees moved at an unsuitable season, or 

 in an improper way, will hold their foliage 

 and actually break in spring, as if doing 

 ■well, but by degrees they lose their looks, 

 the young shoots go black and dry up, and 

 by slow degrees it becomes manifest that 

 there is no root-action, and the end is 

 death. Small trees that have been fre- 

 quently lifted in the nursery, and that 

 come up with good balls, may be moved on 

 any day of the year if the ground is in a 

 fit state for working; but if you want to 

 make sure of a plantation, let it be made 

 from the middle of April to the end of May, 

 or from the 1st of August to the 15th of 

 September. The best of all times for re- 

 moving hollies is the 1st of May and the 

 lOtli of August, the worst time during 

 winter. Dull moist weather without rain, 

 or at most only a sprinkle, is the best for 

 the operation; but if the removal takes 

 place during sunny weather, take care that 

 the earth is well washed in about the roots 

 after treading them up, or crumble in some 

 fine stuff round the roots, or tuck in the 

 soil well if the ball is broken under the 

 main fieshy roots, fill in loosely, give a 

 good soaking, and leave them two or three 

 days before treading up, and then tread 

 firm. From the first the}' should be sy- 

 ringed twice a-day till rainy weather sets 

 in, and after that they will take care of 

 themselves, but where extra growth and 

 extra beauty are desired, the syringe will 

 do wonders, if used regularly from the first 

 week in April till the end of June. 



The soil in which the holly delights is 

 a deep rich sandy loam on a dry bottom. 

 Wet is almost death to it, and in boggy 

 soils the only sure way is to plant all the 

 hollies on hillocks as you would araucarias. 

 Evergreen shrubs are too often neglected 

 as objects of culture, but whoever v/ill be- 

 stow upon them an annual surfacing of 

 half-rotted dung, to be dug in between the 

 plants, without injiiry to the roots, and 

 pointed in about the collar where the roots 

 are near the surface, will find their account 

 in the improved beauty and vigour of tha 

 trees, and especially so in the case of hol- 

 lies. It is a general advice in gardening 

 book* never to plant hollies under trees. 

 This advice need not be heeded. It 

 used to set me thinking on the subject 

 when, as a boy, I made observations upon 

 the trees in Hainhault and Wanstead 

 forests, and gathered blackberries and wild 

 flowers under the shade of immense masses 



of the common ilex, which were again 

 shaded by immense oaks and elms and 

 hornbeams. There you will find them still, if 

 the enclosure act has not annihilated them, 

 as handsome masses of green holly as any 

 in the kingdom, and all the masses are in 

 the deep shade of deciduous trees. When 

 1 v/as old enough to plant hollies, I used 

 them for underwood, and experience tells 

 mo that all the popular kinds of green 

 hollies do as well or better under trees 

 then in the open air. Variegates are not 

 so well at home in shadow ; they need full 

 exposure and breezy positions to grow 

 freely and make the most of their beauti- 

 ful characters. 



As a rule, hollies should be allowed to 

 grow as they like ; but though a good rule, 

 there are exceptions to it. Sometimes 

 from the side of a well shaped pyramid a 

 strong branch will shoot up like a pole, 

 to the disfigurement of the specimen. 

 The best way to deal with such an ugly 

 and over vigorous growth is to cut it clean 

 away. But the knife can do little in a 

 general way for hollies, except the case of 

 holly hedges that have got bare at the 

 bottom, when cutting down to one line 

 will cause a production of abundance of 

 furniture near the ground. The proper 

 season for pruning is March . 



SPEC;iES AND VARIETIES. 



Ilex aquifolium is the common holly of 

 Britain. It is a beautiful tree, and a pro- 

 fuse berry-bearer, and grows to great per- 

 fection on rich deep loams under the shade 

 of other trees. Most of the ornamental 

 hollies are varieties of it, and their name 

 is legion. It would be a waste of space 

 were we to enumerate all the kinds that 

 Lave names in catalogues, and we know of 

 many quite as beautiful as the best in 

 general cultivation that have never been 

 catalogued at all. The white-berried, gol- 

 den-berried, and black-berried, the laurel- 

 leaved, thick margined-leaved, spineless, 

 broad-leaved, small hair-fringed leaved, 

 narrow-leaved, and bent-back leaved, are 

 all varieties of it, and among the most 

 interesting. So also are all the variegated 

 kinds in common cultivation for garden 

 purposes. If it is purposed to make a 

 selection of hollies, the best way would be 

 to visit a nursery where they are grown in 

 great variety, and pick and choose ft'om 

 the plants as they stand, for the com- 

 monest are as intrinsically beautiful as 

 those that are rare, and among variegated 

 shrubs there is nothing to surpass the silver 

 and gold varieties of the common holly. It 

 is not often we meet with the stove and 

 greenhouse species in cultivation, and the 



