132 



THE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



February 17, 1912. 



cold east wiiuls^ by which the young leaves 

 are lia^ble to be dama.ge<l. Ij^-amy soil is 

 suitable for its successful cultivation, and 

 to keep the leading shoot vigorous it is 

 necessary to check strong side branches 



occasionajlly. 



W. D. 



SUBURBAN 



FRUIT PRUNING. 



Attached to the villa and senii-detached 

 residences which collectively go a long way 

 to make up the well-to-do suiburbs found 

 on the outskirts of every largo town, there 

 are gardens, and in most of thest^ gardens 

 there a-re fruit trees, chiefly such things as 

 bush apples and pyramid pears, with here 

 and there a plum, and occasionally a 

 clierry, which looks very beautilul when in 

 bloom in the spring, and now and then it 

 produces a solitary chtM i y ov t wo whicli 

 makes a dainty niors(4 tor the birds. 



In a g<nera' way thrse suburban gar- 

 dens, which h()U>e agents d( scribe as being 

 ^■well stocked with iruit trees/' are ar- 

 ranged veiry much on the same plan, and 

 the age of the fruit trees can be estimated 

 by the time the house lias been built. The 

 trees, by the way, are generally planted by 

 the first tenant or by the owner if he builds 

 the house or purchases it brand new. In 

 cither case, the circumstances are very 

 much the same, and the business or pro- 

 fessiimal man in town^ who has the ambi- 

 tion and the net e>sary means to enable him 

 to live in the suburbs, surveys the plot of 

 ground at the back of his newly-bui't re- 

 sidence—which the speculative builder has 

 been good enough to allot to him under 

 the title of a ''spacious gaiden "^-and he 

 sees a vision of a future day when he can 

 st^p out throxigh iiis French window am! 

 pick his fruit tor dessert direct fnun the 

 trees. In his happy dream he sees him- 

 self picking baskets of apples and luscious 

 peam to send as presents to those le>> for- 

 tunate, who have no ganlen, and lie feels 

 as enthusiastic about it all as an Austra- 

 lian settler when he first begins to clea-r 

 the scrub from his claim. 



The garden is bounded on three sides by 

 the orthodox paled fence, and on thi.s side 

 and that there are gardens just like it. 

 Whether there is anything intectious about 

 the arrangement of them, I do not know, 

 but the g-ardens are all laid out very much 

 the same, which may be due to the fact 

 that the initial work is mostly done by 

 the local expert, who has a sign over his 

 premises which informs the inhabitants of 

 >ul)urhia in general that he is a landscape 

 garden(M-. 



Paral'el with tht^ fenc(^ tluu'e i> ;i walk, 

 and beyond this a border, along which the 

 fruit trees are plantcxl, niostly^ as I mid 

 before, bushes and pyramids, though in 

 some .gardens hori/yontal espaliers skirt the 

 sides of the walks. The ambition of the 

 owner is to see these trees grow about as 

 high as the paled fence, and, iu many 

 cases being a business mait ami not know- 

 ing much about it himself, he places the 

 whole matter in the hands of the individual 

 who fx>mes one or two days a week to ^- do " 

 the garden, and leaves it to him, just as he 

 woukl entrust his personal healtli to the 

 local practitioner if he happemed to get 

 influenza. It is with some pride, however, 

 that our friend watches his tree, growing 

 into bearing, and when tliey pro<ln(i' their 

 first few ap])hs or pears, his <'np of ha]i- 

 piness is full. No hands but his own are 

 privii(\ged to pick those precious fruits, 

 which are placed in positions of honour on 

 the -idcljond. wlu i*'^ {'verv caller is ex- 



pected to admire them, while the fruiterer 

 i-ound the corner provides apples tor the 

 family consumption. When at last, how- 

 ever, these first fruits of the "fruitful" 



garden are beginning to sho\\ 



signs 



of 



(I 



Avear, the owner reluctantly cuts them up, 

 divides them between the members of ]iis 

 family, who in turn protest that they have 

 never tasted sucli apples or pears in their 

 lives, and onr friend feels that he has 

 not lived and planted and grown fruit in 

 va i n . 



So the small trees get bigger, the young 

 speciuums grow oJder^ they are operated on 

 every year by the local expert -already 

 referred to, and you will imagine them 

 no'W as fairly matured specimens, wdth 

 thickened stems and furnished with a fair 

 complement of main branches. There are 

 hundreds of trees of this kind in suburban 

 jardens, and every spring they go through 

 the annual process of amputation, which 

 is called pruning. If you peep into the 

 garden a day or two befo-re the event you 

 will see each tree covered with scores, yea, 

 hundreds, of young shoots, anything from 

 a foot to a yard long, but after r>tie ptrin- 

 ing they present a different appearance. 

 The fixed idea of the local expert is to cut, 

 and he sets about it with the air of a man 

 ^\ ho is entrusted with a task about which 

 his client knows nothing, and it w:)uld be 

 presumption on the pai^t of the ia&ter to 

 offer any suggestions. There is one thing, 

 however, the annual pruning is done sys- 

 tematically. The branches are taken one 

 by one, every young shoot is cut back close 

 to its base : by the time the work is com- 

 ])leted the ground beneath is strewn with 

 twigs that are admirable for flower stakes, 

 and as the pruner gets down from his steps 

 lu^ seems to say to the tree, "There now, 

 I've stopped you; don't grow like that 

 a^ain, or TU treat you more severely the 



next time. 



For a while, the trimmed in, artificial- 

 looking tree present quite a stiff, not to 

 say, neat, appearance; it has been profes- 

 sionally pruned, of coui'se^ and to ask any 

 questions would be presumptions, but when 

 the warm davs come it takes its revenge bv 

 pushing up a forest of young vigorous 

 shoots like willow growtbs, and before the 

 end of the summer the tree is so thick that 

 it is impossible to see through it. In othei' 

 words, the tree is producing its annual cix)p 

 of flower stakes, and hidden away amongst 

 the leaves on the lo^wer parts of the 



> 1 



iic-s man 



branches thtMe are a few fruits, which 

 collectiA'ely are honoured by the name of 

 the crop. 



Sotneiimes the owner nervously suggests 

 sonunhing about the trees being very thick 

 and making a lot of wood, and his profes- 

 sional adviser at once points to the neces- 

 sity of root pruning to counteract the exu- 

 berance, but root pruning means labour, 

 which in turn nie'ins expense, and the busi- 



in Inu IK with his '* fruitful " 

 garden hi the suburbs, concludes that 



there is no help for it; his neighbour, at 

 any rate, is in the isame fix as himself, so 

 he leaves the local expei-t to continue his 

 annual process of amputation. 



If only someone coidd take the man on 

 one side, and advise him to give the local 

 expert a holiday just one season, even if 

 he p:ud him his wages, and then instructed 

 him tti be c:)ut<uit with thinning out super- 

 fluous vhoots, but let the tree grow for a 

 year, he would see the next season fiuib 

 buds form on tlie young wood, tlu^ vigour 

 of (^routli re<hH-efl, and he would <i;et an 



that this 



ocular 



annual 



■drmonsi ration 

 butcheriu'j; whicli so many suiiurhau fruit 

 ti'ees undei'go is exc(*llent it' thi' object of 

 the ap])h* trees is to produce flower stak<\s, 



are wanted to grow- 



but not if tliey 

 fruit. 



Day after day at this season one sees 

 trees that are undergoing their annuiil 

 ■'cropping," just as a sbepherd shears his 

 sheep by a process of rule, all varietitv 

 ti'cated alike; a few^ months hence tliev 

 will be furnished again with a forest of 

 summer shoots, and a year hence the whole 

 routine will be gone through again. I do 

 not hesitate to say that a large proportion 

 of the fruit trees in suburban gardens are 

 growing a superabundance of wood^ but not 

 half the fruit they might through beini: 

 brutally over-pruned. When will the indi- 

 viduals who are iresponsible for this un- 

 natural treatment depart from rule-ot- 

 thumb methods, bring common sense to 

 bear upon the work, and realise that 

 pruning is a multiplication sum : the 

 closer you cut back the stronger the tree 

 will 2row ? H. 



ROSE NOTES. 



The end of Januaa^y and early in Feb- 

 ruary reminded us of the advantage of 

 having some protective material to hand, 

 as recommended in my last notes, and I 

 trust readers were not so unprepared as 

 many undoubtedly were . The severe 

 weaither that was experienced came ou 

 so suddenly, and was all the inoi'e 

 noticeable because of the -soft growth 

 generally, which had felt no appreciable 

 frost previously. 



KSome of our own plants are caught rather 

 severely ; more especially the wichuraianas, 

 wliich had hardly ceased growing all 

 through tbe winter. The heads of tender 

 varieties as standards probably suffered the 

 most ; but, in our case, this appears to have 

 been mostly from the keen frost-laden 

 wind. However, it is much too early yet 

 to talk of how our roses have come through 

 the winter. In due season I may give a 

 few notes upon their condition in this dis- 

 trict. 



satisfactorily 



or 



I 



F 



Roses in pots are movin 

 and coming on apace with the greater suii 

 influence. Naturally, the many insect foes 

 have done likewise, and they should be kept 

 well under. Constant attention, so that 

 they cannot gain a start is much better 

 thRtti neglect to take prompt measures ; for 

 only a couple of days makes a vast differ- 

 ence in tlieir number. I have fotiud 

 changes of liquid manure, given freely but 

 weak, most useful. 



Dwarf stocks for the purpose of budding 

 in ^iUinnier may be planted out by the ena 

 of the month. But I would not be in any 

 hurry 'if the ground does not appear in good 

 condition, and a little soil is not able to run 

 among the roots. Planting dwarfs late is 

 quite distinct from the case of those in- 

 tended for standairds; th- latter having ijo 

 roots to speak of, while the dwaris .shoma 

 have a fair amount. Indeed, I prefer later 

 planting with the dwarfs in the case oi 

 cuttings, because the stems of these ai*^ 

 more soft and tender than the crowns 

 of seedlings. The cuttings having beeu 

 deep in the ground all one summer, ana 

 almost a couple of winters, while the seca- 

 lings have been exposed the whole time 

 their existence. 



Always eartlli up cutting stocks as s<K>n 

 as they -are planted. It he'ps to stay tiieiB 

 against wind, and, with the aid of soil draw" 

 ji gainst them, we can put them m a 

 le.ss deeply ; a great help when the biKW" & 

 teason returns. By removing the 

 summer we can get the rose lind clotse do ^ 

 upon the root, anrl, need!(^^s to s'uy, this 

 a great factor in the jivoidance of sucker . 



