Every gardener who aspires to the name will really know his or her way round a pair of secateurs, and will, I think, automatically know that the harder you prune shrubs (particularly roses) the stronger the new growths will be. It therefore follows that pruning lightly will not result in any vigorous growth. Thinking of roses, and particularly hybrid T roses which bear their flowers at the end of the season’s growth somewhere about eye level, I suppose the ideal is to prune them between strong and medium, so that during the growing season flowers are borne at a good height. Certainly this would be true if, say,
