OP PRUNING, ETC. 28 



FEBRUARY. 



WHEN the borders and various compartments were dug in 

 the autumn, and compost, or a thin coating of well-decora 

 posed manure given, the advantage will now, in part, be ex- 

 perienced. If the weather is open about the end of the 

 month, the pruning should be done with the utmost des- 

 patch, that all may be prepared for a general dressing next 

 month, and let nothing be delayed which can now properly 

 be accomplished, under the idea that there is time enough. 



OF PRUNING, ETC. 



Generally, about the end of the month, the very severe 

 frosts are over, and when none need be apprehended that 

 would materially injure hardy shrubs, they may be freely 

 pruned, and the points cut of such shoots as may have been 

 damaged by the winter. Most of shrubs require nothing 

 more than to be thinned of straggling, irregular, and injured 

 branches, or of suckers, that rise round the root, observing 

 that they do not intermingle with each other. Never trim 

 them up in a formal manner ; regular shearing of shrubs, 

 and topiary work, have been expelled as unworthy a taste 

 the least improved by reflections on beauty, simplicity, and 

 grandeur of nature. 



In fact, the pruning of deciduous, hardy shrubs should be 

 done in such a manner as not to be observable when the 

 plants are covered with verdure. It may frequently be ob- 

 served in flower-gardens, that roses and shrubs of every de- 

 scription are indiscriminately cut with the shears, the Amo.r- 

 phas, Viburnums, and Altheas sharing the same fate. 



Robinias, Coluteas, Cytisus, Rhus, Genistas, with several 

 of the Viburnums, and many others, bear their flowers on 

 the wood of last year, and, when thus sheared, afford no 

 gratification in flowering. And those shrubs that thus flower 

 on the shoots of last year are perhaps worse to keep in regu- 

 lar order than those to which the knife can be freely applied ; 

 but good management, while young, will insure handsome, 

 free, flowering plants. 



