SPRING FLOWERING SHRUBS

Evening Star, Issue 23379, 23 September 1939, Page 17

SPRING FLOWERING SHRUBS

The principal point 'for amateurs to grasp in connection with spring-flower-ing shrubs is that such make their flowering buds, like fruit trees, the year before the buds bloom. That is to say, the buds of such shrubs as flowered in the spring were made either last summer or autumn, and no such shrub will flower next spring unless they make further flowering buds this year. From this it is clear that to prune such shrubs in the autumn or winter must involve great risk of cutting away next season’s flowers. The right time to prune, therefore, is immediately after flowering; then new growth is made in time to become ripe and produce flower buds before the advent of winter. The plants have the whole summer and autumn in which to make such development. Failure to prune results in a mass of crowded growth, which, while looking healthy and promising, will produce practically no satisfactory blooms. An example of this may bo seen in the common English lilac, which so often proves a shy bloomer. Left to itself the plant quickly forms a dense bush, with masses of suckers, which exhaust the ground for yards around, and so far as flowering is concerned is most disappointing. (Rigid pruning should he practised, not by shortening the branches, but by entirely cutting out the weakest, particularly those in the centre, and also all suckers. Light and air are the influences required for flowering, and the treatment advised will ensure these and in most cases prove effective.