All the Spireas Worth Growing— By John Dunbar, 



Rchester. 

 N. Y. 



ARTICLE VII. IN THE "LITTLE MONOGRAPHS" SERIES, A PROTEST AGAINST THAT TIME-HONORED 

 FRAUD THE "ALPHABETIC ARTICLE" WHICH MAKES A BRAVE SHOW OF LEARNING BUT IS OF NO USE 



THERE are fifty species of Spiraea in cul- 

 tivation in this country, but there are 

 probably only fourteen whose horticultural 

 merits can be set forth in the English lan- 

 guage with sufficient vividness and attrac- 

 tiveness to induce anyone to grow them. 

 These are the subject of the present article. 

 If anyone can show that any other species is 

 better than any of these, or can give some 

 clear-cut reason that justifies its addition to 

 this list, the pages of this magazine are open 

 to him, and he is invited to furnish a picture 

 to prove his point. 



The fifty species in cultivation are class- 

 ified in the "Cyclopedia of American Hor- 

 ticulture" according to a scheme that the 

 ordinary person can never grasp, for no one 

 buys a plant because its leaves are entire or 

 serrate, and only the botanist understands 

 the distinctions between umbels, panicles, 

 racemes and corymbs. 



To go straight to the heart of the matter, 

 the fourteen species worth cultivating belong 

 to two great natural groups; the early 

 bloomers, which are white-flowered ; and the 

 late bloomers, which are some shade of pink, 

 with only two exceptions. The first group 

 needs to be pruned in June; the second in 

 winter. 



THE FIVE TYPES OF FLOWERS 



There are five styles of flower cluster in 

 spirea that any man can see at once ; if bo- 

 tanical dust has not been thrown into his 

 eyes ; 



i. Small flat clusters 



2. Large flat clusters 



3. Ropes of bloom 



4. Dense narrow cones 



5. Loose feathery pyramids 



Exactly what these words mean is shown by 

 the five pictures on page 207. 



The early-blooming kinds have mostly 

 branches and branchlets diffused into a fine 

 spray, and the main stems arching and 

 spreading. The late-blooming kinds have no 

 spray, and their usually upright or erect stems 

 give them a somewhat stiff appearance, but 

 their showy flowers are very useful in the 

 shrubbery in midsummer, for we have few 

 good shrubs in flower after June. 



THEIR CULTURE — SIMPLICITY ITSELF 



Any of the spireas* can be planted success- 

 fully in either spring or fall, but my own ex- 

 perience is that in the more northern parts of 

 the country results are more certain from 

 fall planting, because the plants start into 

 growth so early in the spring that they be- 

 come established before the summer drought. 



*When used as an English word it is proper to write 

 spirea, following the analogy of peony, but when used in 

 scientific language it should be spelled Spiraea. 



The very soul of beauty in the early-blooming spireas is in these long ropes of bloom and therefore these branches ought never to be cut bach, But the 

 ignorant laborer will do it every time, the only beauty he sees is a compact, round bush. All that is necessary is to cut out the old wood, (Soiraea Thunberig) 



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