8 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 2, 1 90 
thus early, it allows others the means of arranging their dates in 
accordance. Portsmouth has chosen November 6th, Gth, and 7th ; 
N.C.S. and Kingston, the 11th and 12th ; while Birmingham is fixed for 
the 12th and 13th, one week earlier than usual, and I have no doubt of 
the wisdom of the step. When an early season like recent ones is ex¬ 
perienced, it is wonderful what the delay of a week will do towards 
damaging the prospects of an exhibition. On the same dates as those 
chosen for the noted midland counties Exhibition will be held the 
Bournemouth and Croydon Shows. But how can the same date be 
equally good for the blooms in such widely separated districts 1 Surely 
they are a week earlier in the south than in the midlands. Already 
healthy signs of activity appear in the western and south-western 
counties for the coming November. Torquay, Taunton, and Exeter are 
planning their arrangements for dates early in the month of November— 
a commendable arrangement, evidently, when the warm nature of these 
localities is taken into consideration.—E. Molyneux. 
NOTES ON PLANTING. 
We often gain as useful instruction from the results of bad practice 
as from details of the most perfect operations or the most scientific bear¬ 
ing of a question relating to the operations of the gardener. Indeed, 
were we candid enough to avow our errors and record them, I am not 
sure if that would not be, at times, the best portions of our instructions. 
At any rate I shall here record, in the first place, how I was first taught 
to plant a tree. A hole being made large enough to hoM the roots, and 
as deep as would allow of the tree being planted as far in the ground as 
it formerly stood, the roots were spread evenly on the bottom, and then 
a few spadefuls of soil thrown over them; the tree or bush was now 
shaken up and down and, may be, sideways, in order that the soil should 
crumble down among the roots ; a few more spadefuls thrown in, and 
another shake or two, and so on till the hole was kept full ; then two or 
three stamps with the foot were given, to steady the plant, and this bar¬ 
barous work or mischief—which you will—was finished. Let us now 
analyse this process from beginning to end, and see what we can make 
of it. In the first place, the hole was large enough to hold the roots 
without cramping or twisting them round it; so far so good, but it ought 
to have been larger—even if it had been in a piece of garden ground 
that had been dug and trenched times out of mind—in order to allow the 
new formed roots to pass on in straight lines, instead of having to grope 
about for a free passage, which probably they would soon find in this 
garden ground. But let us suppose the planting to be done in a new 
piece of ground that had not been disturbed for years, and the case is 
very different. How the young roots are to escape from a confined space 
ill such hard soil is more than what many planters can tell, or even 
guess at; and yet this is not the worst part of the tale. The roots were 
spread out regularly, that is, not one of them crossing another, but 
drawn out from the stem like lines—nothing could be done better ; 
then a little mould was thrown over them—all right and proper too ; 
but now we are ordered to shake the tree, to let the soil fill in 
among the roots. Yon pull it up gently, it is true ; shake it two or 
three times, and then let it down in its place again, and the mischief is 
accomplished. How ? You can’t see it. Of course you cannot—it is 
below the surface ; hut can you not perceive that, when you pulled up 
the plant to shake it, all the roots followed, and, on a moderate calcu¬ 
lation, were thus displaced full 6 inches ; that is, the points are 6 inches 
nearer the centre of the hole than they were when we laid them down 1 
Every one of them must have been doubled up into loops, as they could 
not be pushed forward into their former position through the soil, unless 
they were made of cast iron, or something else that would not yield ; 
or, if they are brittle, as many roots are, they would snap like glass 
sooner than they could be pushed back through the soil into their former 
places ; and thus many an honest man laid the foundation of bad diseases 
in his best shrubbery plants—rendering them liable to the attacks of 
insects—to be covered with moss and lichens, and all other casualties 
to which sickly or stunted plants are liable. I could instance a lot of 
young Thorns that had been planted twelve years since after this 
fashion, that have not yet made 6 inches of young wood, and, to this 
day, they look the pictures of misery and bad management. But I 
have said enough to warn the young planter against this way of plant¬ 
ing, and now let us see how the thing should be done. 
If the soil is at all dry at the bottom, no matter how poor it may be, 
it should be stirred or trenched 3 feet deep for garden planting—that 
is, for ornamental trees and shrubs, and for hedges. In the case of 
single plants, where a pit or hole is only required, the narrowest 
diameter ought to be 4 feet, and if the bottom soil is poor it should be 
removed and some added instead ; but loose soil of this description will 
subside in time, and if the plants are tied to stakes, as many need be to 
keep them firm the first year or two, the sinking of the soil from under 
the roots may cause them to strain, or otherwise inj are them by cracking 
and letting in the dry winds to them. Another evil is that when trees 
thus planted sink down gradually additional soil is placed over the roots 
to make the surface level, and this is equivalent to planting too deep in 
the first instance, and deep planting is always to be avoided. There¬ 
fore the loose or new soil beneath the roots ought to be gently pressed 
down, and the pit filled up to near the surface of the ground, or say to 
within 3 or 4 inches of it, so that when the tree or bush is planted the 
surface of the pit will appear a little mound several inches above the 
surrounding surface. Some good planters make mounds much higher 
to allow for settling, but I prefer pressing the bottom soil in the first 
instance. One might say of this. Why loosen it at all if you press it 
down again? The reason is to have a perfect drainage under the roots, 
and to encourage the strongest of them to run deep in the ground, which 
will give the plant greater vigour. We plant fruit trees shallow and on 
hard bottoms to prevent their getting too luxuriant, but in gardening 
for ornamental trees the more healthy and vigorous we can grow them 
the more ornamental they will be, unless, indeed, they are rather tender 
for our climate, in that case shallow planting on a solid or unloosed 
bottom suits them best, as they cannot grow so strong, and will therefore 
ripen better. 
All this being understood and settled, let us plant a moderate sized 
bush to begin with—say a Portugal Laurel, for instance ; it has been 
well taken up, has some long bare roots and a host of small fibres, with 
a considerable ball of soil attached close up to the bole or bottom of the 
plant; this ball we place in the middle of the prepared pit, and we find 
that the ball is so thick that those strong roots cannot lie down level on 
the surface, but “ ride” or hang loose some inches above it. What is to 
be done with them 1 Hook them down to the surface, or lower the 
bottom of the hole ? No, that would be bad planting again. We must 
fill in the loose soil under them, that they may lie in their natural 
position, and in doing that the small fibres are pressed down too much 
perhaps ; if so, loosen them back again, and fill in any cavities under 
the bole or main roots. We shall now suppose that the whole under¬ 
surface of the ball is resting on the soil, and also all the roots, great and 
small, and each of them branching out in straight lines, or as regular as 
they can be placed. Some of the lower ones will be out of sight, but the 
majority are still in view. If we had a little better soil from a compost 
this would be the proper time to throw it over the roots ; not at random, 
however, for fear of displacing the fibres. Take a spadeful, and throw 
it past the stem of the plant on the roots on the opposite side to you, so 
that the soil runs along in the same direction as the roots. _ If you 
throw it on the roots next to you it will run against their direction and 
turn back their small points, which would be nearly as bad as the old 
way of shaking the plant up and down at this stage. When all the 
roots are covered an inch or two the watering pot must come, with a 
large rose to it, and you must water all over the surface heartily, even if 
it is a rainy day. This watering is to do the business of the old shaking-— 
settle the finer particles of the soil about the roots ; the rest of the soil, 
to the depth of 4 or 5 inches, may be thrown on anyhow, if the lumps 
are broken small, so that the surface is pretty smooth, and formed into a 
shallow basin to hold the future waterings. A stout stake, or stakes, 
according to the size of the plant, should be driven down before the 
earth is put over the roots to tie the plant to. 
All that occurs to me farther on the subject is that when large bushy 
evergreens are to be removed their branches must be tied up towards 
the stem by passing a rope or strong cord round them before com¬ 
mencing the roots. When you come to a very large Portugal Laurel or 
a common Laurel, or indeed any very large shrub that has overgrown 
the space allotted to ic, and it is so far encroaching on other things that 
it must be removed in some shape or other, what is to be done with it if 
it is too big to remove 1 A plant 60 yards round is no joke to trans¬ 
plant, and I know one as large. Cutting back the longest branches will 
keep it in check for many years ; but that is not the point, but that this 
very large plant must either be cut down and grubbed up for the wood- 
yard or be transplanted. 
All gardeners have met with such cases, and no doubt disposed of 
them easily enough, but I have a new method of dealing with such 
as cannot be transplanted, which I have adopted for some time, and 
which promises to be the best hit I have made for many years. It is to 
cut them down to within a couple of feet of the ground. I have tried 
spring cutting, but it does not answer half so well for the purpose. 
When the stumps begin to shoot next April they are cut close to the 
ground, and soon a host of strong suckers will spring up as close 
together as those of a Baspberry bush. After a while, when they are 
strong enough to bear handling, you begin to cut out the weak ones, till 
the whole have room enough to grow away freely, which they will now 
do in earnest, and as straight as fishing-rods or gun-barrels. I have 
seen strong shoots from a common Laurel stool of this kind reach up to 
10 feet in one season, and they often attain from 6 to 8 feet. Now, 
what I propose to do with these strong suckers is this—to make clean 
stemmed trees or standards of them. Many attempts have been made 
to obtain fine standards with clean smooth stems to them of our more 
common bushes with various degrees of success. The Portugal Laurel 
treated thus is a good imitation of the fine standard Orange and Lemon 
trees of Italy, and the common Laurel is not much behind it. Any of 
the varieties of the common Phillyrea may thus be made to imitate the 
narrow-leaved Myrtle of the south of Europe, while the common 
Alaternus might be mistaken at a few yards’ distance for the broad¬ 
leaved Myrtle, if reared up on a 6-feet standard with a close circular 
head, and to imitate the Olive as a close-headed standard take an over¬ 
grown old Privet plant, cut it as above, and you will soon have a dozen 
of them. I have seen for this purpose whole Portugal Laurels stripped 
of their side branches up to 6 or 6 feet high, and the tops formed into 
circular heads, but the wounds and scars left on the stem—unavoidably, 
it is true—where the great side branches were lopped off were most 
hideous to my eyes, and so ungardening-like that I would as soon live in 
a desert as be surrounded with such ugly and haggard-looking objects. 
But to return to our suckers, from which these very handsome 
imitation plants are expected. As soon as they are from 5 to 7 feet high 
nip oil the points to stop them, and the next half dozen buds below will 
start into side branches, which are to form the foundation of the future 
standard, therefore see that they are at proper distances from each 
