General Notices. 181 



Pruning Heaths. — Before the heath-grower has recourse to the ^nife, he 

 must determine which of two objects he intends to effect, — to improve the 

 natural habit of his plant, or to induce a perfectly artificial one. By the 

 former, he procures the greatest amount of fine blooming branches, and, at 

 the same time, preserves the natural characteristics of the plants ; by the 

 latter, a beautifully symmetrical plant, with its natural charecter destroyed, 

 is obtained, and with what would have been noble masses of bloom broken 

 into a host of small spikelets. The prevailing practice of tying and clip- 

 ping a plant into a perfect pyramid is, I conceive, at variance with good 

 taste, sacrificing, as it does in many instances, noble bearing, graceful and 

 picturesque outline, at the shrine of unmeaning formality. Gardeners who 

 profess to take Nature as their preceptress would better illustrate her pre- 

 cepts by improving than by creating. 



There are many heaths which never require the knife. Their natural 

 disposition of growth is such that its application would mar instead of im- 

 prove them. Of such may be instanced tricolor, Banksiana, aristata, its 

 varieties and allies. These are only instanced at random to illustrate the 

 method of growth alluded to. They are naturally bushy and symmetrical, 

 but without artificial formality. 'J'he vestitas are disposed to grow naked ; 

 they can be improved by the judicious application of the knife, but to tie 

 and cramp them into pyramids is to destroy the noble appearance they would 

 otherwise assume. Again, pyramidalis, trossula, persoluta, Willmorei, 

 Pattersoniana, admit of an extensive use of the knife. Some, as cerin- 

 thoides and its varieties, with costata superba, exhibit peculiarities of growth 

 unperceived in any others. The former is continually throwing out young 

 shoots from its collar ; stem, it cannot lay claim to any. The latter throws 

 up blooming shoots twelve or eighteen inches in height, bearing whorls of 

 bloom at intervals of four or five inches. Cerinthoides can, at any time, be 

 induced to form a bushy plant by cutting it down to the Cycas-like protu- 

 berance at the collar. With aristata superba little can be done besides cut- 

 ting off the blooming stalks immediately after flowering, as its disposition of 

 growth does not admit of the use of the knife in its adult state. 



There are two periods of heath -pruning. In each, a different object be- 

 ing in view, the principle of pruning must, of course, be varied. In the one 

 case, the object is to form the plant ; in the other, to induce it to produce 

 bloom. The foundation of the future plant can, in the majority of cases, be 

 formed in one season, if pruning is necessary. If the species be of the kind 

 not admitting the knife, it will form itself; but of these we have nothing to 

 do at present. Presuming a plant is well formed and full of promise for 

 future excellence, it now arises, how can it be induced to retain the charac- 

 ter and reward us by a rich display of bloom. When a heath has produced 

 its bloom for the season, it immediately commences producing wood for the 

 next period of blooming. And as the heath, in common with many genera 

 to which it is allied, increases its growth in the main by the simple elonga- 

 tion of the growing points, or by laterals near those extremities, and as the 

 foliage is permanently cast from the wood of more than two seasons' growth^ 

 it follows that, if shoots of eight or ten inches in length are left from year to 



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