THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



129 



Hydrangea Paniculata Grandiflora Growing on a Florist s Lawn at Jamestown, N. Y. 



Hydrangea paniculata. The more hard 

 back this class of shrubs is pruned the 

 larger and better the flowers. 



To revert once more to planting. 

 Many of our hardy shrubs will exist 

 in any soil, but a quick and thrifty 

 growth is what our customers want and 

 expect, and when planting a group or 

 bed of shrubs the soil should be dug a 

 foot deep, not making small holes for 

 each plant, but the whole space dug 

 deeply, and to it add plenty of animal 

 manure. Don t believe for a moment 

 that shrubs don t like manure. It is 

 just what will make them jump and 

 grow. 



When singly on the lawn, let it be 

 either a shrub, tree or any of the ever 

 greens; it is not depth that is needed. 

 The hole to receive the shrub or tree 

 need be only sufficient to let the plant 

 down to the same depth it stood in the 

 nursery; an inch or so lower won t 

 hurt many of the shrubs, but with the 

 trees and the evergreens this is very 

 particular. When the ground is set 

 tled round them let it be just about as 

 high on the stem as it was before 

 moving. 



It is width of hole you want, and if 

 a stiff clay, not only should width of 

 excavation be large enough to enable 

 you to spread the roots out without 

 any bending or crowding, but every 

 foot in diameter you go beyond this 

 and fill in with good soil will much as 

 sist the growth and thriftiness of your 

 tree. 



It matters not whether it is fall or 

 spring, there is only one way to plant 

 a shrub or tree, and that is to give its 

 roots plenty of room in width, putting 

 on sufficient soil to cover the roots, 



and by shaking the tree or shrub see 

 that the soil is well distributed among 

 the roots. Firm the soil with your 

 feet and then give it a thorough soak 

 ing. After the water has soaked in, 

 wetting root and fiber, fill in with 

 more soil to the grade of your bed or 

 border. This first watering is worth ten 

 on the surface. If planting has been 

 done in the spring and we have a very 

 dry summer, the shrub will need a soak 

 ing every week, and if the surface is 

 covered with a mulch of two inches of 

 stable manure, it will add tenfold to 

 the benefits of the watering. 



As I cannot afford a separate chapter 

 on our evergreens, so-called, or more 

 properly our coniferous trees, I would 

 say that the time of transplanting them 

 differs much from the deciduous shrubs 

 and trees. 



Evergreen conifers, such as the 

 pines and spruces, and all of them, 

 are best moved in the spring just as 

 the young growths start, which is 

 often the middle or end of May. This 

 is a month later than the shrub plant 

 ing- time. The next best time is the 

 last week in August or first week in 

 September. After the middle of Septem 

 ber don t attempt to move evergreens. 



There is often a great disappoint 

 ment in planting spruce, pines, etc. It 

 is not the fault of the plants, although 

 in some cases it is often too crudely 

 done. It is in most cases the fault of 

 the nurseryman. Our American nur- 

 serymen plant Norway spruces or Aus 

 tralian pines from six to ten inches 

 high and without even transplanting 

 let some of them grow to four, five or 

 six feet, and then sell them. 



Whether they expect them to grow I 



don t know. They sell them and thus 

 their chief object is attained. I saw 

 this summer, every few days, several 

 hundred nice, symmetrical Australian 

 pines, three to four feet. They looked 

 well when planted this spring, but our 

 summer has killed ninety per cent. 

 These fine little trees had never been 

 transplanted in the nursery since they 

 were ten inches high. And how many 

 of their working roots had been saved 

 when dug and sold, think you? 

 Scarcely any. 



There is, I am glad to say, a school 

 of young nurserymen coming to the 

 front who are alive to this crude and 

 almost dishonest way of growing ever 

 greens, and soon in every part of the 

 land you will be able to buy a pine 

 or thuya or abies or spruce and plant 

 it with the same confidence that we 

 plant the geranium in the beds, be 

 cause every two years they have had a 

 move in the nursery. 



A local &quot; Farmer-fruit-grower-nursery - 

 man, &quot; a long title but a correct one, 

 said the public would not pay 25 cents 

 for a transplanted Norway spruce 

 when they could get one that looked as 

 good for 10 cents. He is entirely 

 wrong. We are all looking for the 

 transplanted tree that won t disappoint 

 us and our customers. I find the men 

 of wealth, or even moderate means, 

 anxious to pay for the best. It is quite 

 different from their canna or geranium 

 beds, which they know are for one short 

 season. Their trees and shrubs are for 

 the permanent improvement of their 

 grounds. 



The evergreens like good rotten ani 

 mal manure just as much as the decidu 

 ous shrubs, but unless well rotted don t 



