Shrubs 173 



shrubs every winter until they are as flat-topped as a hedge is so 

 common a fault of gardeners that special caution needs to be spoken 

 as often as the pruning season comes around. And when is that ? 

 Shrubs that set buds in the fall should be trimmed immediately 

 after flowering, or, better still, while they are in bloom, as a justi- 

 fication for robbing them of the long sprays that so adorn a house. 

 If for no other purpose, one wishes an abundance of shrubs to supply 

 the home with its most decorative cut flowers. A jar filled with 

 forsythia sprays, although set in a north room, brightens it like 

 sunshine. Vases of bridal wreath and long whips of blossoming 

 almond give an air of festivity to a simple living-room that no 

 florist's bouquet can out-do. Happily florists themselves are 

 recognising the decorative value of shrubs and now offer in mid- 

 winter branches of lilacs that have been forced to bloom with ether, 

 azaleas, spireas, snowballs, pussy willows and other darlings of the 

 spring. Shrubs that bloom on the new wood made in spring or 

 summer the hardy hydrangea, for example should be pruned 

 in winter. One keen gardener, who is a law unto herself, does all 

 pruning between December and March, for the reason that her 

 bushes, which are benefited by the surgery, supply her at that lean 

 season with flowers for the house and table. The best of the 

 cuttings she places in pails of water in the sunny windows of an 

 unused upper room, and carries downstairs triumphantly from 

 time to time sprigs of forsythia, yellow jasmine, bush honeysuckle, 

 the starry magnolia and cherry blossoms, which most quickly 

 repay her, apple, peach and quince blossoms, deutzia, dogwood, 

 almond and scarlet maple. 



Whoever spends the winter in the country will choose many 

 shrubs besides the barberry, cotoneaster, snowberry, dogwood, 

 bush cranberry and euonymus, if only for the bright cheer of their 



