220 Tree- Weigelias. 



TREE-WEIGELIAS. 



By Francis Parkman, Jamaica Plain, Mass. 



A WEiGELiA grown as a bush takes up a great deal of room, and costs 

 a great deal of trouble to keep it within bounds. This is especially the 

 case with the new improved varieties, which are very strong growers, mak- 

 ing shoots of four or six feet long in a season. Now, we have experi- 

 mented for some years past, with the object of reducing them within rea- 

 sonable limits, so as to prevent their engrossing too much space, and to 

 make them available for small flower-beds as well as for the lawn. This 

 can be accomplished by making standards of them ; in which form they will 

 produce such a prodigious number of flowers, that last June we had several 

 with heads twice as large as a bushel basket, and so densely covered with 

 bloom that the leaves were hidden in the mass of color. These heads 

 were round in form, and borne on a stem from four to five feet higii, so 

 strong as to require no support. 



These tree-weigelias can be made in the following manner : Strike cuttings 

 of the young wood at the middle or end of summer. They will root very 

 easily in a frame or under a bell-glass on the shady side of a hedge or 

 fence. In the spring, plant them in rich, deep soil, and a warm, sunny situ- 

 tion. Before winter, they will form a vigorous little bush. In the follow- 

 ing spring, manure the ground, unless it is extremely rich ; and cut down 

 the bush to within an inch of the surface. It will at once begin to throw 

 up a number of strong succulent shoots from the crown of the root. When 

 these are two or three inches long, slip off the smallest and weakest of 

 them ; then choose out the strongest and most upright shoot, and pinch 

 off the tops of all the rest. If they were all removed at once, the supply of 

 leaves would be insufficient to meet the demands of the root, and the vigor 

 of the plant would be diminished ; but as the chosen shoot grows, and de- 

 velops its leaves, the rest should be pinched back, and finally removed 

 entirely, though not all at once. 



The chosen shoot is now left alone, drawing all the nourishment of the 

 root, and nourishing it an turn by the broad, healthy, deep-green leaves 

 with which it is furnished from top to bottom. It will throw out side-shoots; 



