LATE SHOWERS & EARLY FLOWERS 



of showers. Let them set-to at their soil with a will, April 

 deepen it, manure it, and push on their pruning, planting, 

 and sowing with real gusto. Hours wasted in the earlier 

 months may be made up sometimes, but in April lost 

 moments are never found again. 



APRIL— First and Second Weeks April 



Flowers 



Planting and Pruning Roses. — Early April is the latest 

 period of the spring when it is safe to transplant Roses. 

 Even now it will be well to syringe 

 them after planting if there is no 

 rain, in order to check evapora- 

 tion from the leaves that will 

 probably be forming. Indeed, 

 the amateur will be wise to go 

 further, and cut the plants back 

 to dormant buds near the base of 

 the stems. Some good varieties 

 were described in Chapter III. 



The pruning of established Roses "' 



... 1 1 i. J 1 • Fig. 3S.— Planting Roses. 



ought to be completed early m " , . . 



o ^ ■' c. The roots spread out in 



April. I have already said that the hole ready for 



growers who are not familiar 



with the varieties will do well to prune hard, but 

 as to this I should like to take the opportunity of 

 speaking more fully ; dealing first with dwarfs and 

 standards. The old-time rosarian, who grew mainly for 

 exhibition, was a notorious hard pruner. He cut his 

 plants practically away, reducing the shoots to mere 

 stumps of three or four inches long every spring. The 

 modern grower has revolted against this, and the ten- 

 dency nowadays is to prune lightly, especially in the case 

 169 



