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    Pruning Made Easy - How to Prune Rose Trees, Fruit Trees and Ornamental Trees and Shrubs
    Pruning Made Easy - How to Prune Rose Trees, Fruit Trees and Ornamental Trees and Shrubs
    Pruning Made Easy - How to Prune Rose Trees, Fruit Trees and Ornamental Trees and Shrubs
    Ebook241 pages2 hours

    Pruning Made Easy - How to Prune Rose Trees, Fruit Trees and Ornamental Trees and Shrubs

    By H. H. Thomas

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    About this ebook

    “Pruning Made Easy” is a 1927 guide to pruning trees with a specific focus on rose trees, fruit trees, ornamental trees, and shrubs. Written in clear, simple language an profusely illustrated throughout, this volume offers the reader a wealth of useful information on the subject and is highly recommended for gardeners and others with an interest in the pruning process. Contents include: “Pruning Rose Trees”, “Pruning Fruit Trees”, and “Pruning Trees and Shrubs”. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on the history of gardening.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateMay 31, 2013
    ISBN9781473389939
    Pruning Made Easy - How to Prune Rose Trees, Fruit Trees and Ornamental Trees and Shrubs

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      Book preview

      Pruning Made Easy - How to Prune Rose Trees, Fruit Trees and Ornamental Trees and Shrubs - H. H. Thomas

      A Short History of Gardening

      Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture more broadly. In most domestic gardens, there are two main sets of plants; ‘ornamental plants’, grown for their flowers, foliage or overall appearance – and ‘useful plants’ such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits and herbs, grown for consumption or other uses. For many people, gardening is an incredibly relaxing and rewarding pastime, ranging from caring for large fruit orchards to residential yards including lawns, foundation plantings or flora in simple containers. Gardening is separated from farming or forestry more broadly in that it tends to be much more labour-intensive; involving active participation in the growing of plants.

      Home-gardening has an incredibly long history, rooted in the ‘forest gardening’ practices of prehistoric times.  In the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually foreign species were also selected and incorporated into the ‘gardens.’ It was only after the emergence of the first civilisations that wealthy individuals began to create gardens for aesthetic purposes. Egyptian tomb paintings from around 1500 BC provide some of the earliest physical evidence of ornamental horticulture and landscape design; depicting lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows of acacias and palms. A notable example of an ancient ornamental garden was the ‘Hanging Gardens of Babylon’ – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

      Ancient Rome had dozens of great gardens, and Roman estates tended to be laid out with hedges and vines and contained a wide variety of flowers – acanthus, cornflowers, crocus, cyclamen, hyacinth, iris, ivy, lavender, lilies, myrtle, narcissus, poppy, rosemary and violets as well as statues and sculptures. Flower beds were also popular in the courtyards of rich Romans. The Middle Ages represented a period of decline for gardens with aesthetic purposes however.  After the fall of Rome gardening was done with the purpose of growing medicinal herbs and/or decorating church altars. It was mostly monasteries that carried on the tradition of garden design and horticultural techniques during the medieval period in Europe. By the late thirteenth century, rich Europeans began to grow gardens for leisure as well as for medicinal herbs and vegetables. They generally surrounded them with walls – hence, the ‘walled garden.’

      These gardens advanced by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries into symmetrical, proportioned and balanced designs with a more classical appearance. Gardens in the renaissance were adorned with sculptures (in a nod to Roman heritage), topiary and fountains. These fountains often contained ‘water jokes’ – hidden cascades which suddenly soaked visitors. The most famous fountains of this kind were found in the Villa d’Este (1550-1572) at Tivoli near Rome. By the late seventeenth century, European gardeners had started planting new flowers such as tulips, marigolds and sunflowers.

      These highly complex designs, largely created by the aristocracy slowly gave way to the individual gardener however – and this is where this book comes in! Cottage Gardens first emerged during the Elizabethan times, originally created by poorer workers to provide themselves with food and herbs, with flowers planted amongst them for decoration. Farm workers were generally provided with cottages set in a small garden—about an acre—where they could grow food, keep pigs, chickens and often bees; the latter necessitating the planting of decorative pollen flora. By Elizabethan times there was more prosperity, and thus more room to grow flowers. Most of the early cottage garden flowers would have had practical uses though —violets were spread on the floor (for their pleasant scent and keeping out vermin); calendulas and primroses were both attractive and used in cooking. Others, such as sweet william and hollyhocks were grown entirely for their beauty.

      Here lies the roots of today’s home-gardener; further influenced by the ‘new style’ in eighteenth century England which replaced the more formal, symmetrical ‘Garden à la française’. Such gardens, close to works of art, were often inspired by paintings in the classical style of landscapes by Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin. The work of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, described as ‘England’s greatest gardener’ was particularly influential.  We hope that the reader is inspired by this book, and the long and varied history of gardening itself, to experiment with some home-gardening of their own. Enjoy.

      PREFACE

      IN every garden there are rose trees, fruit trees, or ornamental trees and shrubs, that need to be pruned annually, and the amateur is often at a loss to know how to proceed. Frequently he trims the trees without being at all sure whether he is doing the right thing. He is faced with the difficulty that trees need pruning at different seasons of the year, some must be cut back or thinned out, while others ought scarcely to be pruned at all.

      It is little wonder that he is bewildered and seeks refuge in a general tidying up, in the spring of the year, by cutting back all branches that seem in the way. Yet, as a perusal of this book will show, it is an easy matter to understand the principles that underlie the pruning of trees and shrubs; this practice is governed chiefly by the season at which they bloom. If he knows that, the amateur will soon realise why certain kinds are pruned in spring, others in summer, and so on. But if he proceeds in haphazard fashion and contents himself with a general trimming in autumn or spring, he is certain to spoil the display of some kinds and will fail to get the best from others.

      This volume is separated into three parts which deal respectively with the pruning of roses, fruit trees, and ornamental trees and shrubs. Mr. A. Osborn has written the notes dealing with ornamental trees and shrubs, Mr. B. W. Price has contributed the chapter on Prune these Roses Lightly, and two or three of the chapters on pruning fruit trees are by Mr. J. Townend.

      H. H. T.

      PART I

      PRUNING ROSE TREES

      CHAPTER I

      A Chat about Pruning

      MANY rose-growers have their own theories on the subjéct of pruning, and when in their own gardens those theories are put to the test and yield results that are satisfactory there is a likelihood that they may be broadcast and recommended to all and sundry. No doubt, in due course, methods of rose-tree pruning that are generally practised at the present time will become obsolete and will be replaced by others as the result of continued experiment, and in part will have been forced upon us by new types of roses. If we. compare the methods of pruning rose trees now found most suitable with those that were deemed best a generation ago, considerable differences will be discerned—differences that are due chiefly to the fact that the roses themselves exhibit greater variety in habit of growth.

      The truth is that rose-tree pruning, like all other gardening operations, must progress with the times: if we continue to lay down hard and fast rules and to make dogmatic assertions that brook no contradiction, sooner or later we shall find ourselves out of date in our recommendations, we shall realise that we have not kept pace with our subject.

      It is absurd to imagine that one can say, Cut this branch here and that branch there, cut this shoot in March and that shoot in July, and in other stereotyped ways reduce the subject of pruning to something resembling a mathematical formula. Such information may be helpful to those who take no real interest in gardening and like to have a presentable show of bloom with as little trouble as possible, but it can never prove a reliable guide that will enable the keen grower to obtain the best results from his trees.

      FIRST CONSIDERATIONS

      Rules there must be if a book on the subject is to be helpful, but if the reader follows them slavishly without exercising common sense and using his powers of observation, and if he treats all his trees alike, then he will succeed with some and will as certainly fail with others.

      To get the very best from one’s rose trees it is necessary to take into account first of all the variety of rose being dealt with, for modern rose trees vary greatly in the way in which they grow. Some are of stiff, upright growth, others have slender, spreading branches, some are vigorous, others are weakly. Then one has also to consider the climatic and other conditions in which the roses are grown and the health of the trees themselves; they may be thriving lustily or they may be weakly and lacking in vigour; obviously the trees must benefit by careful consideration of their individual needs.

      The whole subject is full of perplexities, some of which the amateur can solve only by studying his plants and taking note of the way in which they respond to, or are affected by, different methods of treatment. Perhaps the most helpful way of treating the matter is first to describe the orthodox methods of pruning and then to discuss such variations of them as have been recommended and practised by growers who have carried out experiments.

      RULE-OF-THUMB METHODS

      There is this to be said for the ways of pruning rose trees that are generally followed—they have been evolved after years of experience and practice and have been found to yield satisfactory results generally. Although they may have been handed down from one generation of gardeners to another, and accepted without demur and without critical examination, and so far may be regarded as rule-of-thumb methods, it is nevertheless true that they would scarcely have found favour for so long if they had not yielded tolerably good results.

      NEW ROSES—NEW WAYS OF PRUNING

      The doubts that have been cast on these orthodox methods during the last few years have arisen because of

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