House and Garden 
and Washington and points South a little earlier. 
There is, however, lots of work that should be attend¬ 
ed to before the frost is actually out of the ground. 
In the flower garden, perhaps the roses should be 
first to receive attention. The first few warm days 
will make the buds look plump and ready to burst. 
This is the time to prune them, as all danger of the 
wood of the more tender varieties killing back is 
past. 
To many the art of pruning is a mystery; to 
others it merely consists in taking a pair of shears 
and cutting back to nowhere in particular. To 
prune properly the nature of the subject must be 
understood: with the rose bush it is a very simple 
matter and anyone with a little attention can readily 
learn the rules governing it. With the hands pro¬ 
tected by a pair of leather gloves to keep the thorns 
from tearing them and a pair of shears, or sharp 
pruning knife, first cut out all the dead wood; there 
will be no difficultv in distinguishing the dead from 
the living. The next step is to cut out all the weak 
and twiggy growth, reserving the strongest wood 
that was made last year. These strong shoots 
should be shortened back more or less according 
to the strength and variety of the bush. 
The point to keep in mind is that the bud next 
below where the cut is made will develop into a 
shoot that bears the best flowers. Opinions differ 
as to how severely roses should be pruned, but for 
the amateur it is always a safe rule to leave five or six 
buds on each shoot of last year’s growth when short¬ 
ening them back. 
After pruning clean up and fork the ground over 
around the bushes, turning under some well 
rotted manure, that 
from the cow-stables 
preferred, if it is pro¬ 
curable. 
fhe pruning of climb- 
ing roses is a little 
different, the object be¬ 
ing to obtain height to 
the plant. The rules 
are the same about 
the weak and twiggy 
growth. The object 
should be to encourage 
strong new growth. 
Some roses, like the 
Crimson Rambler, 
throw up strong canes 
from the ground; when 
the roses are on their 
own roots these should 
be encouraged as they 
will bear the flowers. 
If the roses are budded 
or grafted they will 
occasionally throw up suckers or shoots from the 
stock which should be removed. It will be easy 
to distinguish them with a little observation. 
The herbaceous borders are not the least inter¬ 
esting features of a garden in the early spring, and 
to bring out the interest they should have early at¬ 
tention so that the various forms of growth of the 
different plants may be seen at their best. 
The winter aconite, Erantbis hyemalis, is perhaps 
the very first to bloom, this will soon be followed 
by the red shoots of the peonies, the various shades 
of green of the shoots of the phlox, columbines, 
hollyhocks, German iris, delphinium, bleeding 
heart, and many others. If there is any transplant¬ 
ing to be done, the sooner it is attended to the better. 
All hardy plants may be moved with safety now, 
and if they are dug up without shaking too much 
of the soil from the roots they will not know they 
have been moved so that it will not affect their flow¬ 
ering qualities at all. Overgrown clumps should 
be dug up, divided and replanted. Any faults noted 
the previous summer in the arrangement of the 
plants should now be corrected. If it were not 
attended to in the fall, the dead tops should be re¬ 
moved and the ground carefully forked overmatch¬ 
ing out for those plants that have not yet put in their 
appearance above ground so as not to injure them. 
This will leave the borders in a nice, fresh looking 
condition and prevent the first crop of weeds de¬ 
tracting from their general appearance at this inter¬ 
esting time. Well rotted manure may be turned 
under freely. 1 
I he same general cleaning up of the shrubbery 
borders is in order, and if these were not pruned 
during the winter it should be attended to without 
delay. Do not, how¬ 
ever, ruin your shrubs 
by cropping them over 
with a pair of shears, 
or prune them all re¬ 
gardless of kind in the 
manner advised for 
roses, or you will cut 
off the majority of the 
flowering wood. Take 
for instance the golden 
bell, spiraea, lilacs, 
Deutzias, in fact nearly 
all the early flowering 
shrubs bloom on the 
wood that was made 
the previous summer, 
so that to cut it off 
must necessarily result 
in the loss of flowers. 
Leave the long branches 
of these untouched and 
you will be rewarded deutzia pruned 
148 
