162 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



as soon as the bloom is over, seem to liave fulfilled 

 their use. Such shoots may be treated like the flower- 

 ing shoots of herbaceous plants and cut down as soon 

 as their flowers are all withered, to encourage the pro- 

 duction of new flowering shoots. Other roses make 

 new wood more slowly and their wood is more en- 

 during, bearing several crops of blossom in the same 

 year, or year after year. But in nearly all roses the 

 wood deteriorates in time and should be cut away to 

 encourage new growth; and this operation is best 

 done after the blossom is over. 



There is some difference of opinion about the cut- 

 ting back of herbaceous plants and the extent to which 

 it shoidd be carried. No one, of course, would cut a 

 shrub back hard except in the early spring or late 

 autumn, since the spring is the time at which it makes 

 its new growth, and if it is cut back hard in the sum- 

 mer it may make no new growth and suffer for want 

 of leaves to absorb food from the air. Whatever 

 cutting back is done in the summer must leave enough 

 growth to perform this fimction. This precaution 

 must also be taken to some extent with herbaceous 

 plants. But most of them throw up new growth much 

 more quickly than most shrubs; some, indeed, such 

 as Oriental Poppies, throw it up so quickly that they 

 suffer very little if they are cut back very hard after 

 flowering. Others, however, are slower in growing 

 afresh and are weakened if they are cut down to the 

 ground, especially if all their growth has been thrown 

 into flowering stems, so that few or no leaves remain 



