TRAINING. 



317 



Fig. 264. 



Fig. 265. 



Fig. 266. 



the whole being painted green, or of the colour of bark, according 

 to the taste of the gardener or his employer. Globular, balloon- 

 shaped, half-spherical, flat, round, and 

 square trainers of wire or iron are so 

 common as to need no description. 

 In training slender climbers or twiners, 

 such as Kennedia rubicunda, nails may 

 be driven into the wall near the ground 

 (fig. 266, a), and three or four feet 

 above it (b\ close to which the plant 

 is placed ; strings are drawn from the Wire-rings shown 

 lower nails to those above, and the in fig. 263. 

 stems of the plant twined round them. 



Training Hardy-flowering Shrubs in the Open Ground. 

 Trailing and creeping shrubs seldom require any 

 assistance from art, excepting 

 when they are made to grow 

 upright on posts, trellises, or 

 walls. In general all creepers 

 that are trained upright, and 

 all climbers, whether by 

 twining, tendrils, hooks, root- 

 lets as the ivy, or mere elon- 

 gation as in the Lyciuin and 

 the climbing roses, when they 

 are to form detached objects, 

 should be trained umbrella fashion, see fig. 

 268, next page. Fig. 267 is a portrait of a 

 climbing rose, trained down from a ring 

 which forms the top to an iron rod. This is 

 called the balloon manner of training, and 

 was first applied to apple-trees. When 

 the rod is fixed in the ground, the ring 

 at the top should stand an inch or two 

 higher than the graft at the top of the stock, or than the head formed 

 on the stem of the plant, if it should not have been grafted. Six or 

 eight of the strongest shoots are then to be selected, and tied to the 

 ring with tarred twine ; and if, from their length, they are liable to 

 blow about, their ends are attached to twine, continued from the wire 

 to pegs stuck in the ground, as shown in the figure. When it is desired 

 to cover the stem of a spreading-headed climber with the foliage and 

 flowers of a different plant, the taste of which is questionable, as they 

 never grow so freely in such a situation where they are shaded and the 

 roots of the plants starved, fig. 268 may be used. Climbing roses may 

 also be advantageously displayed on such props, and more slender 

 climbers, as well as standard roses, and other shrubs, trained to single 

 stems, may be tied to stakes of larch, oak, ash, or sweet chestnut, or to 

 cast-iron stakes. When climbers or other flowering plants are trained 

 on arched trellises covering walks, it must be borne in mind that if 



Wire standard 

 for supporting 

 rings, so as to 

 form the frame- 

 work shown in 

 Jig. 2t>3. 



Mode of training herbaceous 

 climbers on a brick wall. 



