VI PRUNING 107 
pruning will cause buds to push at once from the 
old wood: and among the weaker varieties, whose 
blooms are best on maiden plants, such buds should 
be encouraged; but in the case of the stronger 
growers, the blooms will probably be best from last 
year’s wood. Some sorts have particularly robust 
and ample foliage ; in this case the shoots should be 
left longer in the pruning, and the top buds, or those 
that are as far apart as possible, alone retained. Thus 
Madame Gabriel Luizet is strong enough to support 
from four to six, or even perhaps more first-class 
blooms upon each plant ; but as the foliage is large 
and full, the shoots should be left at the pruning four 
or five inches long, and the top outlooking bud alone 
retained on each, all others being removed as fast as 
they appear. Varieties apt to come coarse and too 
full should also be left a little longer in the pruning, 
and have more shoots retained; but it is most 
important that the special idiosyncrasies of the 
varieties, as shown in Chap. XII, should be carefully 
studied, or the results may be disastrous. Thus 
some, aS La France and Marie Rady, will show the 
perfect blooms only on comparatively weak shoots: 
some, like Madame Eugéne Verdier, will canker and 
die if pruned too hard : and several others, like J. B. 
Clark and Duke of Edinburgh, will make too much 
wood and have but poor blooms after all unless the 
shoots are left a fair length. 
For ordinary and decorative purposes, Tea Roses 
in the open, if well fed and spared by the frost, 
might be pruned but little ; still they should not be 
allowed to become leggy and scraggy, and a fair 
amount of pruning on the same lines as recom- 
mended for the H.P.s will tend to keep the plants 
