119 



It is important that the plants should have cool 

 treatment before, and for some time after pruning, so 

 that conditions are made to approximate closely to 

 those prevailing out of doors, say in March, with 

 regard to the outdoor plants. It is only necessary just 

 to exclude frost. A hurried start will mean weak shoots 

 and poor blooms. The first year the plants must be 

 pruned hard back. All sappy, weak and crowded shoots 

 must be removed, and the well ripened ones that remain 

 shortened back to two or three " eyes." In the second 

 year, if the plants have made a sufficient number of 

 well ripened growths from the base, old wood may be 

 removed and these growths shortened to three or four 

 " eyes." In the absence of these new growths from 

 the base the existing shoots should be shortened 

 nearly back to the point of pruning last year. Avoid 

 leaving shoots long, or a straggling and unmanageable 

 plant will be the result, whereas the aim should be to 

 secure a well-balanced and dwarf plant with good shoots 

 as equally distributed round it as possible. To a large 

 extent this will be arranged later, when the thinning out 

 of the growing shoots is done. These instructions apply 

 to the Hybrid Perpetuals, Hybrid Teas, and Teas, and 

 generally the weaker the grower the more severe the 

 pruning may be. 



Varieties in other sections must be dealt with on 

 similar lines to those described in Instructions ii to 37. 



