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77*6 Hortmdturvii and Journal 



Prnning Evergreens. 



BY JOHN T. BLOIS. 



I WILL suppose, for example, you have a 

 dozen evergreens, two of a kind. Some 

 you wish to grow in form of pinnacles and 

 you select the Norway spruce, because it is a 

 strong-growing variety, and let the leader run 

 up as it chooses, only heading in the side 

 limbs to thicken it up and do away with its 

 shaggy appearance. If you wanted an oblate 

 dwarf, say at a scale of six feet wide to 

 twelve inches high in the center, you would 

 take the weak-growing Balsam at a foot high, 

 cut out its leader and, year after year, do 

 likewise. Let it rise only about two inches 

 in the year and not head in the side limbs, 

 and you would have what you wished. 



So, if you wanted an Arbor vitte dwarfed, 

 with round head at six feet high, or an Aus- 

 trian, or other pine, hemispherical at eight 

 feet, you would act accordingly by cutting 

 out the top leader at the height you want, 

 and the center leader to the side limbs, etc., 

 according to judgment. There is a continued 

 effort of the evergreens to make height and, 

 if a top leader of a Balsam or Norway, for ex- 

 ample is broken off this year, one of the side 

 top limbs will rise up next year and take the 

 lead. In short, whatever you fancy can be 

 accomplished by taking the tree in early time ; 

 for, whenever you shorten a leader or side 

 limb, the sap is immediately diverted into 

 buds that grow and multiply limbs and foliage. 

 You can make your tree a hemisphere, semi- 

 ovoid, semi-oblate-spheroid, paraboloid, high 

 or low cone, conoid, semi-oblate-conoid or a 

 pinnacle. « 



The Balsam can be made a pinnacle, but 

 the danger is that its lower limbs will thin 

 out their foliage and die, and. then the tree, 

 as an ornament, is ended. 



All ornamental pruning of an evergreen 

 top is done by a judicious shortening in pro- 

 cess, and should always, if possible, be done 



in early spring before the sap has started, but 

 should not be commenced on an evergreen 

 the year it is transplanted, nor until it is 

 thoroughly established. In heading in a 

 limb, always cut _^ust above, say one-third of 

 an inch above a bud, so that the bud may 

 develop into a new limb (this rule does not 

 apply to the pines however). 



Another method to insure regularity : — 

 Measure out from the bottom of the tree equal 

 distances and drive a peg. Make a circle 

 through the pegs — the tree as a center. 

 From the pegs extend lines to the top of the 

 tree and head in, in a circle, to these lines as 

 a guide, either with the pruning shears or a 

 long, sharp butcher's knife, with which you 

 can cut off, by the eye, a limb at every stroke. 

 The Arbor vitae can have a rounded head, a 

 paraboloid, and being furnished with numer- 

 ous incipient buds will thicken up exceedingly 

 by constant spring pruning. As I have re- 

 marked, early spring, before the sap flows, is 

 the best time ; and it is said to be fatal to a 

 red cedar hedge to prune in midsummer. 



The red cedar is capable of being made a 

 very beautiful ornament. Being at an ama- 

 teur neighbor's of mine several years ago, I 

 observed a red cedar about four feet high, a 

 straggling one-sided growth with three lobes 

 of foliage two feet from the ground, with as 

 large vacancies between — a very ungainly 

 but thrifty looking tree. I remarked to my 

 friend as we passed it, that that tree was 

 capable of being made a beauty. " How so ? " 

 said he. *'By heading in," said I. "How 

 is that?" I told him to measure at the 

 lowest limbs, an equal distance from the tree 

 and around, and cut off all the leading limbs 

 with his knife at that distance, and do the 

 same all the way, tapering to the top, making 

 the outlines of the tree cone-shaped, and keep 

 doing so whenever he saw a limb shoot over 

 the line. He offered me a knife and I 

 showed him. He followed instructions when- 

 ever he passed the tree and saw a limb 

 shooting out over the mark. In three years 

 afterward, the tree had thickened up into a 

 perfect cone. Even the open places had 

 ■ foliage, so close that a sparrow could not get 



