Bush (plant)

“ This, too, blooms before the foliage is developed, and hints of spring as surely as the robin’s song. A larger but no less handsome bush is the white flowering thorn (Cratægus crus-galli) , and there are wild spireas that should not be overlooked, and two white flowering shrubs that delight all who see them in bloom, the deer-berry (Vaccinium stamineum) , and the “false-teeth” (Leucothoe racemosa) . All these are spring flowers. And now a word about an August bloomer, the sweet pepper-bush (Clethra alnifolia) . This is easily grown and is a charming plant. ”

“ No two stems should be allowed to crowd each other. A mass of matted foliage is both injurious and unsightly. Sun and air should have access to every part of the plant. Six or seven stems are the utmost that should be allowed to remain, even on old established bushes; and these, as before mentioned, should be strong and well ripened, and should also be disposed in such a manner, that, when the buds have grown into shoots and leaves, the bush will have a symmetrical form. In young bushes, three, or even two, good stems are sufficient. ”

“ To grow these in perfection, they require rich light soil; and about the end of this month the roots should be lifted, divided, and planted into fresh soil, either by giving them a new situation, or changing the earth they were in. Two or three stems together are quite sufficient. The flowers, by the above treatment, will be much larger, more double, and finer in colour; where they are wanted to grow low and bushy, top them in June, but not later than the first of July. Where the soil is rich, and the plant having only one stem, by topping it, makes a beautiful bush. ”

“ Cuttings of young shoots having 1 in. of the old wood attached will strike root, but the plant is of very slow growth, and takes at least four years to grow into a good bush. Choice varieties may be grafted or budded on to the common sorts in June or July. To grow Holly from seed, gather the berries when ripe, crush them, and mix them up with a little sandy loam, bury them in a hole 3 ft. deep, and cover with litter. Dig them up and sow them in March. Big bushes are best moved at the end of August, mixing the earth to a puddle before planting. The less pruning they receive the better. ”

“ Some- times the plants arc grown in the nursery for a whole year or more and put out during the cold weather. After two years' growth the bushes should be 4 to 6 ft. high. They are then cut down to about 8 ins. and are allowed to grow again up to 2 or 3 ft. before, towards the end of their third year, being plucked regularly. The object of this cutting down is to cause the bushes to spread out and cover the ground area usually 'allowed to each plant, i.e. about 20 sq. ft. The yield in the third year is small, probably less than i oz. finished tea per bush. ”

“ And something else, something that will help keep this country clean, from our forest land to the inner cities, and keep America beautiful for generations to come, the money to plant a billion trees a year. ”

“ In most instances, I imagine, our best gardeners rarely trim two bushes exactly alike, but deal with each according to its vigor and natural tendencies; for a currant bush has not a little individuality.
A young bush needs cutting back like a young grapevine, and for the same reason. A grapevine left to itself would soon become a mass of tangled wood yielding but little fruit, and that of inferior quality. In like manner nature, uncurbed, gives us a great, straggling bush that is choked and rendered barren by its own luxuriance. ”

“ This legislation will constitute the most significant step America has ever taken — has ever taken — to cut power plant emissions that contribute to urban smog, acid rain and numerous health problems for our citizens.
Clean Skies legislation will not only protect our environment, it will prolong the lives of thousands of Americans with asthma and other respiratory illnesses, as well as with those with heart disease. ”

“ The roses on the tall bushes are fragrant as of yore; a white-throat sits on the bush beneath the old pear-tree and sings; a gentle breeze steals through the garden and even the box around the circular beds rustles its dark leaves. ”

“ It is upon these that the fruit is chiefly borne. A bush left to itself is soon a mass of long, slender, almost naked stalks, with a little fruit at the ends. The ideal bush is stocky, open, well branched, admitting light, air, and sun in every part. There is no crowding and smothering of the fruit by the foliage. But few clusters are borne on very young wood, and when this grows old and black, the clusters are small. ”

“ Let bushes grow in the natural way, removing all old, decaying branches, and all suckers that rise too far from the parent-bush, and keep the clusters of bushes and leaves thin enough to allow the sun free access, and prevent continued moist [Pg 167] ure in wet weather, which will rot the fruit, and you will find it the cheapest and best. We have seen quite as large and as fine fruit grow on such bushes, that we knew to be more than twenty years old, as we ever saw of the same variety when cultivated in the tree form. ”

“ My Clear Skies legislation will cut power plant pollution and improve the health of our citizens. And my budget provides strong funding for leading-edge technology — from hydrogen-fueled cars, to clean coal, to renewable sources such as ethanol. ”

“ We're also working to provide other incentives to encourage new plant construction, such as federal insurance to protect the builders of the first four new plants against lawsuits and bureaucratic obstacles and other delays beyond their control. A secure energy future for this country must include safe and clean nuclear power. ”

“ When a field is left uncultivated, they are the first plants that appear on it; and I frequently observed them in such fields as are annually ploughed, and have corn sown on them. For when these bushes are once rooted, they are not easily extirpated. [163] Such a bush runs out tendrils sometimes four fathoms off its root, and then throws a new root, so that on pulling it up, you meet with roots on both ends. On some old grounds, which had long been uncultivated, there were so many bushes of this kind, that it was very troublesome and dangerous walking in them. ”

“ Standard trees flower much better than bushes; in this form all the strength seems to go directly to the flowering boughs. No shrub is more persistent in throwing up suckers from the root and from the lower part of the stem, but in bush trees as well as in standards they should be carefully removed every year. In the case of bushes, three or four main stems will be enough to leave. When taking away suckers of any kind whatever, it is much better to tear them out than to cut them off. ”

“ In ever direction the bush rolled away in great billows for miles and miles, as far as the glass would show, only here and there broken by the brighter green of patches of cultivation, or by the glittering surface of lakes. ”

“ With our knife we will remove at least one half of this excess of wood, leaving as much young wood of the previous season's growth as possible by thinning out the old limbs and dead wood severely. Here is one Moss Rose bush, the stems appear as brown and looking as seared as a berry; it is apparently winter killed, and by cutting into it we find that to be the case; the roots are in all probability sound, and we will cut the stems down to the ground and cover the place with a forkful of stable manure; if the roots are alive it will grow and bloom the coming summer. ”

“ The bush is of stiff, erect habit, two to three feet high, a stocky grower and an abundant bearer. The berries vary from one-half to one and one-quarter inches in diameter, are covered with innumerable thorns, scarcely less savage in the green state than those on an ordinary wild bush of this country. When cooked, the prickles soften down to the same consistence as the skin, which is rather thick. ”

“ The bush is densely matted with an undergrowth of supple-jack and all kinds of creepers, but here and there one finds a grove of tree-ferns twenty feet in height, and grown so thickly as to prevent the existence of underwood and ground plants. ”

“ In these islets of bushes in a sea of grass one may gather flowers after they have been all browsed down on the turf. Next to the most interesting aspects of Alpine vegetation, there is perhaps nothing in the world of plant–life more lovely than the delicate tracery of low–climbing things wedded to the bushes in all northern and temperate regions of the earth. Perishing like the grass, they are happy and safe in the earth’s bosom in winter ”

“ A bush tree about 7 ft. in height is undoubtedly the best form of growth, and needs but a minimum amount of attention. In pruning wall trees the main object is to get the side-shoots equally balanced, and to prevent the growth advancing in the centre. The bush form merely require the removal of any dead wood and of cross-growing branches. This should be done late in the summer or in the autumn. The trees are frequently attacked by a small moth, known as the Plum Fortrix, which eats its way into the fruit and causes it to fall. ”

“ The air is full of aromatic scent from many kinds of shrubs, all growing luxuriantly. Wherever there is an opening you can see as far as the coast, and for nearly a hundred miles to the north and to the south, over the bush you have come through. And seen at a distance, the poorest bush has a peculiar and beautiful colour, quite different from anything we see in Europe, a reddish ground, shaded with the very deepest blue, often without a trace of green. ”

“ Propagation is done by suckers and mound layers, though the American varieties grow easily from cuttings. To procure strong mound layers, cut the old bushes back in the late fall or early spring to encourage 150 new shoots to spring up from the roots, and when they are from one to two feet high press them outward from the parent plant, covering the base of the shoot up to about four inches above the root with earth, packing it well down. ”

“ The largest I ever saw had a round, slightly fluted trunk nearly four feet in diameter, which at a height of only eighteen inches from the ground dissolved into a wilderness of branches, rising and spreading to a height and width of about twelve feet. In spring every bush over all the mountains is covered with rosy flowers, in autumn with fruit. The red pleasantly acid berries, about the size of peas, are like little apples, and the hungry mountaineer is glad to eat them, though half their bulk is made up of hard seeds. ”

“ The best season of the year for pruning them is about the first of this month. In doing so it is not advisable to shorten any of the young shoots, except in cutting off the injured parts, that being the wood most productive of bloom; but where there is old stinted wood, it should be cut out as close to the surface of the ground as the other parts of the bush will permit, with any other of the oldest wood that is too crowded. If the plants have been long established, dig in amongst their roots a little well decomposed manure, and stir and hoe them frequently during the summer. ”

“ In the greenhouse, and even out-of-doors, under very favorable circumstances, plants may be grown from single buds; and green wood also propagates readily under glass. A vigorous young plant, with roots attached, may often be obtained by breaking off the suckers that start beneath the surface around the stems; and, by layering or bending bushes over and throwing dirt upon them, new plants are readily made also; but more shapely, and usually more vigorous, bushes are obtained by simple cuttings, as I have described. ”

“ The bushes are now bare of fruit, but ruddy with their autumn blushes, tingeing the surface of the knoll with a delicate coral pink. This thicket extends far down upon the slope, even encroaching upon the wheel-ruts of the lane, and across again, until cut short by an ancient tumbling line of lichen-covered stones, a landmark which has long since yielded up its claim as a barrier of protection to the old orchard it encloses, now only a moss-grown pile, with every chink and crevice a nestling-place of some searching tendril, fern, or clambering vine. ”

“ Every dwarfed, stunted, gnarled bush, had the trunk, limbs, twigs, and gray, withered foliage, all in miniature, of some tree, hapless but sturdy, that has had a weatherbeaten struggle for life on a storm-threshed crag by the shore, or on a granite side of a mountain, with short allowance of soil to eat and water to drink. ”

“ Wild bushes are nearly always attractive in form and habit when planted in borders and groups. They improve in appearance under cultivation because they are given a better chance to grow. In wild nature there is such fierce struggle for existence that plants usually grow to few or single stems, and they are sparse and scraggly in form; but once given all the room they want and a good soil, they become luxurious, full, and comely. In most home grounds in the country the body of the planting may be very effectively composed of bushes taken from the adjacent woods and fields. ”

“ Look for a bush that is stiff and irregular, generally growing low in closely crowded patches like the blueberry, though at times reaching the height of eight feet. It appears to thrive best and is most often seen in sandy soil, but it will grow in almost any kind and flourish even amid the rocks on a barren hillside. ”