280 TREES AND SHRUBS 



SPIRAEAS. Another beautiful and interesting class 

 for effect either in summer or winter, when suffi- 

 ciently large plantations are made and properly 

 treated. The whole of these should be planted at 

 a distance of 2 feet apart, on deeply-trenched and 

 well-manured ground. The North-West American 

 Spiraea Douglasi, though one of the most common, 

 is unsurpassed for its distinct and beautiful wood 

 during autumn and winter, but the only way to see 

 it at its best is to cut it clean to the ground every 

 year during the last week in March. It will then 

 produce young strong growths from 4 to 5 feet 

 in height, each of which will furnish fine heads of 

 deep-pink flowers during summer, and its beautiful, 

 warm-looking, nut-brown wood in winter is among 

 the most richly toned of all the barks which are 

 used to produce effect, and yet when grown in the 

 ordinary way, and partially pruned down, as we in 

 nearly all cases see it, it produces miserable flowers, 

 and the wood is uninteresting. About every third or 

 fourth year after pruning give a surface dressing of 

 half-decayed manure and loam in equal proportions. 

 The prunings should be tied up and saved for staking 

 purposes ; I know of nothing to equal them for all 

 kinds of slender-growing plants. S. callosa also makes 

 a fine bed, and is very effective during late summer ; 

 its large heads of deep-pink flowers render it most 

 conspicuous ; they are produced when the others are 

 past their best. It should be cut to the ground 

 every third year. S. prunifolia flore-pleno is a very 

 beautiful form, flowers freely in March and April, 



