T7'ee - Weigelias. 221 



but these should be slipped off as fast as they appear, as well as all shoots 

 from its base. It will thus grow from the top alone, and, by the end of the 

 season, will form a straight stem six feet or more high. This is the trunk 

 of your tree, the top of which is formed during the next season in the 

 following manner : Rub off all the buds that begin to grow along the stem 

 to within a foot or more of the top. Here many buds will rapidly develop, 

 and push out on all sides into succulent shoots. When these are about 

 six inches long, pinch off the tips with the thumb and finger. This will 

 cause them to branch ; and the branches, being treated in the same man- 

 ner, will branch again. Thus, before the season is over, you will obtain a 

 compact head, round, or of any shape you please to make it ; for, by this 

 system of pruning with the finger and thumb, you can completely control 

 the growth. Your tree is now complete, and, the next summer, will aston- 

 ish you by its mass of bloom. It will continue, however, to develop for 

 several years ; being kept in shape by finger-pruning, and all side-shoots 

 from the stem being rubbed off. 



Such a tree requires three years from the planting of the cutting for its 

 formation; but a smaller tree may be made by the end of the second year. 

 To do this, pinch off the top of the young stem when it is from three to 

 four feet high and in full growth. This should be about the end of July. 

 It will soon begin to throw out branches at the top, which should be pinched 

 back as before directed. In October it will have formed a head from a 

 foot to a foot and a half in diameter, which will bloom abundantly in the 

 next summer. Thus you obtain a tree some four feet high instead of six 

 or seven feet. A row of such trees planted at intervals along a garden- 

 walk would be a very attractive object, and they would not interfere much 

 with the flowers below. 



The old Weigelia rosea is not suited to this use. We have found the best 

 varieties for trees to be W. splendens and W. Desboisii. W. Isoline also 

 answers pretty well, though it does not make so straight and clean a stem. 

 Probably the large, strong-growing W. arborea would do extremely well ; 

 though we cannot answer from experience. All these are robust in growth, 

 with a tendency to form straight, upright stems. Other species and varie- 

 ties, such as W. multi/Iora, W. hortensis titvca, and the variegated-leaved 

 sorts, might be grafted on them as stocks. 



