60 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



bushy, is not required. It may be advisable, for the sake of 

 balance, to remove here and there straggling branches ; still, 

 in a general way, Rhododendrons look best when they are 

 allowed to grow to their natural forms. Indian Azaleas 

 and some of the greenhouse Rhododendrons are some- 

 times trained and pruned to a standard or pyramidal shape, 

 and recently the Belgian growers have trained them to a 

 screen or fan shape. For this the use of stakes and ties, 

 as well as pinching and pruning, must be resorted to. The 

 standard Azaleas and Rhododendrons are not difficult to 

 make ; nor are the flat-topped, table-like specimens, be- 

 loved of the Belgians, the branches of Azaleas generally 

 having a tendency to grow horizontally or in tiers, a habit 

 that makes the production of pyramids a slow and tedious 

 process. At the great exhibitions of thirty or forty years 

 ago there were pyramid Azaleas 8 feet high, and painfully 

 trained, formal objects they were. Such plants are not 

 seen now, but the Belgian growers have revived the art 

 of training pyramid Azaleas, and they are likely to become 

 fashionable again. In every type of Rhododendron, in- 

 cluding the tender and hardy species and hybrids, it is 

 a very great gain to the plants if the faded flowers are 

 removed before the seed-pods develop. If a plant flowers 

 abundantly one season and is afterwards permitted to pro- 

 duce seeds, it rarely flowers satisfactorily in the following 

 year. 



SEEDS 



Rhododendrons, cultivated as well as wild, seed more 

 or less freely. The woody, many-celled capsule contains a 

 very large number of small, flattened seeds, the ends pointed 

 or tailed. They ripen in about three months, and if gathered 



