68 
ON SUPPORTING PLANTS BY STAKES. 
The season having arrived v^hen plants of every description that cannot support 
themselves are beginning to require artificial assistance, and the manner in which 
this aid is furnished being mostly very objectionable, some hints which will serve 
as guides to both gardener and amateur, wherever they may be called upon to apply 
stakes to plants, will probably not be deemed misplaced. 
Primary importance must be attached to the time at which support of any kind 
is to be afforded. The principal evils to be corrected in the methods at present 
pursued, are staking plants at too late a period, and doing it with unsuitable 
materials, or in a slovenly way. If a specimen be not early staked, however neatly 
this operation may be afterwards performed, it will ever betray the neglect from 
which it has suffered, and can very rarely be brought into the required position. 
Beyond this, there is the danger of being broken or injured from wind and other 
causes, to which it is exposed prior to staking, and the fact that it is not necessary 
for stakes, when timeously applied, to be so strong ; when, by consequence, they 
are not rendered so prominent or perceptible. Let a plant be staked while it is 
small or young, and its appearance will remain as natural as if it had not been 
staked at all ; but wait till it has begun to straggle, and no subsequent care will 
suffice to relieve it of the constrained unnatural aspect it must then be made 
to wear. 
Whatever material be employed for supporting plants, the chief object should 
be to conceal the stakes ; and hence they ought to be as straight and free from 
projecting parts as possible, and as short and slender as comports with the purpose 
for which they are designed. Crooked stakes, those which have irregular and 
broken branches, such as are unnecessarily stout or tall, and stakes made of a soft 
pliable wood, or having too rugged an exterior, are exceedingly unfit for ornamental 
uses in the case of erect-growing species. The most proper are those which are 
smooth, straight, free from irregularities, just strong enough to effect their object, 
and so long as to reach only within a few inches of the top of the specimen, or as 
high as support may be needed. 
To the ordinary modes of applying stakes, or fastening plants to them, there 
are likewise many objections. It is wrong to place the stake between the plant 
and the path from which it is looked at ; for the object that ought to be hidden 
is thus made most conspicuous. It is improper to thrust the stake into the earth 
near the stem of the plant, particularly if it be a tuberous-rooted or bulbous species ; 
since much damage may be done to the specimen, and probably some of its main 
roots and sources of sustenance be cut off thereby. For the same reason, it is 
equally erroneous to use a stick that is not prepared with a long smooth tapering 
point, or has any considerable asperities on the portion that is to enter the ground. 
