448 



ON TREES AND SHRUBS NEWLY PLANTED. 



to the tan, acting as a protection to the 

 young fibres and roots, being protected 

 against the intense heat of the sun, and 

 preserving the border in an equable state 

 of moisture all the time, encouraging the 

 rootlets to the surface, so that they had the 

 benefit of atmospheric influence, without 

 sustaining the least injury: [in this we 

 quite agree. — Ed.] I will give you the 

 routine of my practice in the cold vinery, 

 should you deem it worthy of a place in the 



Horticulturist, the first opportunity. I re- 

 main yours truly, James Stewart. 



[Mr. Stewart's materials for composing 

 the border are good, and we agree with 

 him respecting the size of the border, when 

 inside the house, for forcing. But we be- 

 lieve the mass of experience will be found 

 against him in this country, as regards 

 small outside borders for cold vineries. 

 Perhaps our correspondents will have a 

 word to say on this subject. Ed.] 



ii oi i 



ON TREES AND SHRUBS NEWLY PLANTED. 

 BY D. BEATON.* 



Now [last of Feb., Ed.,] is a good time to 

 look over the flower garden and shrubberies 

 to see what can be done for young trees 

 and shrubs, that have not thriven since they 

 were planted, and for older ones that once 

 promised to reward us for our careful at- 

 tention, but which from some cause or other 

 are not looking so well as they ought to do. 

 There need be little fear about such plants 

 as were removed late last spring, being yet 

 in no very promising mood, as few seasons 

 within my memory have been so ill suited 

 for young things newly planted. They ex- 

 perienced extremes of cold and dry heat 

 before their roots could take much hold of 

 the soil, so that many of them lost their 

 leaves, and are still looking far from being 

 healthy; their roots, however, must have 

 made great progress since last August, for 

 we never had a better autumn, and, I was 

 going to say, or a longer, one for planting 

 and for lately planted things ; so that, with 

 judicious pruning this winter, we may rea- 

 sonably calculate on a fine vigorous growth 

 next season. All plants that are much 

 stunted from a recent transplanting ought 

 to be pruned very close before they begin 

 to grow next spring, for of all the hopeless 

 things in this world to expect that a free 

 circulation of sap can run through a stunted 

 hide-bound shoot is the most hopeless, and 

 we have no means of remedying this bat by 



* From the Cottage Gardener, London. 



close pruning, and in future to be wiser, 

 and get our pruning and planting finished 

 before the winter sets in, so that the roots 

 may be in action in the spring as early as. 

 the leaves. It is not too much to say, that 

 in our climate every tree and bush, every 

 climber and twiner, with all trailers and 

 creepers, and the whole race of evergreens, 

 ought to be planted at the end of the au- 

 tumn ; and not only that, but all the pruning 

 that is necessary, to bring the head of the 

 plant within a compass corresponding to 

 the strength of the mutilated roots, should 

 be effected a full month previously to the 

 removal of the plant, and not at -planting 

 time, as is generally done; unless indeed 

 you are planting from a nursery, when of 

 course the plants will not be pruned till you 

 get them home. If I made up my mind to 

 plant a certain evergreen tree or bush on 

 the 20th of September, I would cut ofT all 

 the branches, or part of the branches, that 

 I thought necessary to be removed, as early 

 as the middle of August ; and if, during 

 the interval, some of those branches that 

 were headed made a fresh attempt at 

 making another growth, I should like it all 

 the better, as showing that the whole plant 

 was so full of blood that the sap must either 

 break the bark, or find a vent in an unsea- 

 sonable growth at the tops of the main 

 branches ; and before this could take place, 

 every bud on the tree, and every cell that 



