shoots. Never allow any of the shoots to hang away from the wall, as this checks 

 ^ their growth, and tends to throw them into a fruiting condition. The next season 

 cut back all the trained shoots about a third of their length, and in the following 

 S^ season they will quite fill up the spaces between them with their side-growths, and 

 make a vigorous upward growth from the top buds left at the former pruning. 

 #f From this time forward cut back all the growth to a regular line with the help of 

 ^- a straight-edge, and remove all superfluous surface growth, so as to retain on the 

 wall only one layer of stems. Our common English ivy is unsurpassed for beauty 

 _^ when treated in this way, and one plant is enough for a breadth of twenty feet of 

 ^ ' wall, which may thus be kept covered with a felt of vegetation consisting of close- 

 embracing stems and elegantly-veined leaves. It has been sufficiently explained 

 that, when the plant can no longer ascend, it forms fruiting instead of climbing 

 stems. This peculiarity of its habit renders it essential to keep ivy closely trained 6 

 so long as it is required to run ; for, if the growth of this year is allowed to 

 fall away from its support, or is torn from the wall by wind, the next season 

 it will begin to form flowering shoots and a bushy head. Sometimes the growth 

 of years is torn from walls by the immense weight of the flowering bosses 

 at the summit; but this destruction of a noble object is easily prevented by 

 means of a rough frame of woodwork fixed under the projecting growth parallel ft 

 to the top of the wall, to lessen the strain and the rocking of the mass during / 

 high winds. 



STANDARD IVIES. The vigorous habited green-leaved kinds make fine 

 standards for the lawn or terrace garden. Cuttings should be struck in pots 

 in July or August, and kept in a frame or pit all the winter. In April select 

 only those that have plump straight leaders, and plant them out in soil con- 

 sisting of at least one-half rotten manure, and the other half good loam, well 

 broken up to a depth of two feet. Keep them carefully trained to upright 

 stakes all the season, and give them abundance of water until the end of July, 

 and pinch in all side- shoots to two or three leaves from the base. The next 

 April cut them back to the height of the intended standards ; allow all side- 

 growths to push, but continually pinch the side-shoots in, to prevent any 

 of them acquiring a preponderance. At the same time train out the shoots of 

 the head their full length, to keep the vigour of the tree in the head. Cut / 

 back again the next April to within two or three buds of the base all the * 

 ^^ side-shoots and shoots of the head. At the end of five years they will be . 

 ( * handsome trees, and may be planted where they are to remain for ornament. 

 After that time the side-shoots may be removed from the stem a few at a ^* 



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