CHAPTER XVIII 



WHEN AND HOW TO PRUNE 



THE art of pruning rose-trees is not one that can be acquired 

 in a day, and the amateur gardener may be forgiven if, 

 as he contemplates the volume of conflicting advice that 

 is showered upon him each year during the lengthening days of 

 March, he pauses bewildered before the task that confronts him. 

 He will be told, for example, by one expert to prune early, and 

 by another to wait until all danger of severe frost is over ; by a 

 third to prune hard, and by a fourth to prune lightly ; by others 

 that it docs not matter very greatly whether he use the secateurs 

 or the pruning knife, and by still another rosarian that it is 

 disaster to use the first and salvation to stick firmly to the knife. 



Now the wonderful thing about this medley of advice is that all 

 these experts may be perfectly right, though they speak with 

 many voices and with varying emphasis. But to the inexperienced 

 amateur it brings nothing but distraction as he turns inquiringly 

 from guide-book to guide-book in his search for enlightenment. 

 And yet he knows only too well that the pruning of his rose-trees 

 is by far the most important operation that needs to be performed 

 during the course of the rosarian year; that upon its proper 

 accomplishment depends not only the future welfare of his 

 favourite bushes, standards, and climbers, but that even the 

 immediate results in the shape of the coming summer's bloom may 

 fall short of his desires and expectations if he fail to use the 

 pruning-knife at the right time and in the right way. 



May I suggest that the beginner in the science of rose-growing 



should, as a preliminary, get firmly fixed in his mind the first 



principles of pruning; why it is necessary, and what are its 



effects. And as an aid in this direction let us first of all consider 



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