Evening star., 1933-04-29
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

those boughs. and especially all those
leaves, If the latter deign to appear
at~all!
The lilac will come through, If any
shrub will; it is hardy. with q vengeance
But even the lilac, at times, succumbs
to this sort Of treatment; the leaves
ccme out only at the tips Of the
branches, and the bush becomes
'leggy," as the real gardeners say.
1t should have been trimmed back
vigorously, in the first place. Even
where shrub seems to do well with
out this pruning after planting the
chances are that 1t would have done
better with it.
The writer here had an edifying ex-
perience with an althea year ago.
This Is one of the toughest of all woody
shrubs If any can stand mistreatment,
this one can, 1t Is 50 filled with the ele-
mental vitality Of the raw universe.
Out of half a dozen specimens
planted, each some three feet high,
five leafed out nicely along the entire
lengths Of the branches, but one re-
fused to put forth a single leaf bud
An entire month in the ground was
given 1t, yet its slender boughs re-
manned as bare of leaves as Eve before
she ate the apple.
Then each branch was cut of about
inches from the ground.
Within two weeks leaf buds appeared
to turn shortly into leaves. The re-
sulting bush" was about half fog;
high, Of course, q rather diminutive
shrub-but that was not all, by any
means.
Within two months 1t had caught up
with the others, or almost reached up
with them, so that no one who had
seen it in its lowly form, huggtng tae
earth. would have believed 1t the same
shrub.
We would like to speak a word for
the sturdy, unappreciated althea, some
times called the Rose of Sharon. While
1t is true that many gardeners like It.
and use it freely. unfortunately there
are thousands who do not affecting to-
ward it sort of garden snobbery, as If
somehow 1t were poor relation In
truding among its betters, so-called.
No one would gainsay the fact that
there are more beautiful and certainly
there are more expensive shrubs to be
had nowadays. The nurseries are filled
with wonderful things. for those for
tunate enough to be able to buy them
lie dltlled IeIIld1IlS, uOWctcI, dlOllB
with the lilac, among the genuinely
lovely and always useful plants for the
average home garden, where 1t flour
ishes like the green bay tree Of Scrip
ture.
If we could have no other shrub, we
think we would take the althea, and
would make no apologies to any one
for our choice.
- + 4
Our personal belief Is that the less
pruning a shrub receives after 1t has
got its growth the better it Is of, and
the more beauty it lends to its sur
roundings. While there are some i'm
portant exceptions, and individual cases
make rules, most Of our woody shrubs
need to be left alone.
To shorten their branches, as is COM
monty done, to prevent that over-grown
look, is precisely the wrong sort OF
pruning, II they must be trimmed. But
to prune them at all, U most cases. is
to remove the picturesque sprawl which
is their chief beauty.
Nature takes care Of these things, and
above all, arranges them in harmonious
masses which the average landholder
cannot duplicate. It Is in the garden as
in the home aquarium, plants grow
ing naturally and luxuriantly achieve
an effect no amount OF conscious art
can secure When we have to thin out,
we invariably lose something.