CHAP. VI PRUNING 85 



natural growth of the Rose. By watching an impruned 

 Rose-tree, either wild or cultivated, it will be found that 

 the first strong shoot flowers well the second season 

 but gets weaker at the extremity in a year or two, and 

 another strong shoot starts considerably lower down or 

 even from the very base of the plant, and this soon 

 absorbs the majority of the sap and will eventually 

 starve the original shoot, and be itself thus starved in 

 succession by another. A Rose in a natural state has 

 thus every year some branches which are becoming 

 weakened by the fresh young shoots growing out below 

 them. This is one of the principal reasons why pruning 

 is necessary. A Rose is not a tree to grow onwards and 

 upwards, but a plant, which in the natural course every 

 year or two forms fresh channels for the majority of the 

 sap, and thus causes the branches and twigs above the 

 new shoots to diminish in vitality. It seems better, 

 therefore, to speak of Rose-plants than of Rose-trees, 

 especially since standards are now less used, and so 

 many new varieties are dwarf in their growth. 



The objects of pruning are : — To maintain the life 

 and strength equally throughout the plants, to mould 

 and preserve their shape, and to give more vigour, 

 colour, and substance to the flowers. Owing to the 

 natural habit of growth before mentioned, a consider- 

 able amount of wood must be taken away annually to 

 prevent the shoots robbing each other, and when nature 

 is interfered with art must go a little further to make 

 and to keep a plant of well-balanced shape. And also, 

 even for ordinary garden purposes, a considerable 

 amount of strength and sap must be reserved for 

 each bloom, or, in the case of the dark H.P.s for 

 instance, they will not show their true colours at all. 



The principal art of pruning — that of forming and 



