Mai/,] THE FLOWER GARDEN. 899 



SO weak that the flowers, though numerous, would be good 

 for nothing. 



TRAINING AND SUPPORTING PLANTS. 



•Climbing-plants and shrubs should be regularly and neatly 

 nailed or tied to the walls, pales, or supports upon which they 

 are to be trained ; and all herbaceous and annual plants should 

 also be supported where they require it. Nothing looks so 

 slovenly as to see plants rambling into confusion, or blown 

 about and broken by high winds or heavy rains. The pruning- 

 knife should be freely used in the arrangement or disposal of 

 them, and such branches as may be broken or injured, as well 

 as a portion of them where they grow too thick, should be 

 removed. In supporting plants in the flower borders, much 

 ingenuity may be displayed by selecting supports suited to the 

 habits of the plants. The rambling growing kinds may be 

 judiciously supported by using branches of trees with many 

 twigs upon them ; and the more crooked and rustic branches 

 of oak, or other rugged growing trees, either with the bark left 

 on or taken off, will form excellent conductors for siveet peaSy 

 convolvuluses y and such like rapid growing plants, and to such 

 the plants will naturally affix themselves sooner, and more 

 firmly, than to bare poles or finely-painted sticks, which have 

 little of that natural appearance which should harmonize in 

 all parts of the flower garden. Whatever conductors or sup- 

 ports are used, care should be taken to hide them as much as 

 possible ; and in tying them to their supports, it should be 

 done so as to leave the plant in its natural form as much as 

 possible. This cannot ever be well done, if the plants be once 

 allowed to attain too great a size or age. The supports should 

 be placed to them before they really want them, and as the 

 plants advance in growth be neatly and securely trained to 

 them. From the want of sufficient attention being paid to the 

 proper management of flower-garden plants, as far as respects 

 training and supporting, arises that want of order and neat- 

 ness which we always see when this is not scrupulously at- 

 tended to ; and if that attention be not paid at an early pe- 

 riod of the season, it cannot be afterwards corrected. 



