THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



77 



whicli was objected to as being too heavy. 

 I then proposed phinting it with varieties 

 of Rosa sempervirens,or,as we ought always 

 to call them, evergreen roses. They were 

 ■\vitli some difficulty planted, the gravel 

 being loosened with tlie pick, and some 

 manure mixed with it. In my annual 

 visits to my friends living in this charm- 

 ing distrirt— for no part of England is 

 more so — I watched with some interest 

 my bridge-roses. They grew with great 

 rapidity, and soon covered every brick, 

 but when they bloomed in lai'ge beautiful 

 masses, some disappoiiitment was expressed 

 at the monoton}' of colour. I was prepared 

 for this, and told my friend that they must 

 be decorated. A good-natured incredulous 

 smile met me with 'how ?' I called the 

 giirdener, for this -was in July, the budding 

 season, went with him to the rose garden, 

 and thence took bads of some of the most 

 beautiful of the dark hybrid perpetual roses, 

 not forgetting some of the bright rose- 

 coloured tints, such as Colonel de Rouge- 

 mont. La Reine, General Simpson, and some 

 others. Our great 'horse' was, I remem- 

 ber, General Jacqueminot. My budding 

 hand had not forgotten its cunning, for did 

 I not consider myself at twenty as the most 

 dexterous and rapid budder of roses that 

 ever lived and was likely to live ? So I 

 and the gardener proceeded to place buds 

 here and there in shoots favourable for the 

 purpose. The day was warm and the 

 thorns much sharper than they used to be 

 forty years ago, so 1 have a misty idea 

 that my friend Jackman the gardener put 

 many more buds in than I did. To use the 

 common phrase, nearly all the buds ' took,' 

 i.e., lived, and many of them put forth hne 

 clusters of bloom the following August and 

 September. I paid my annual visit to my 

 friend in June of the next year, just eleven 

 months after my budding exploit. As I 

 approached the bridge I felt full of interest 

 about my biids. What .1 glorious sight 

 met my eye ! Amid the masses of flowers 

 of the pale climbing roses shone forth large 

 clusters of the Geant, General Jacqueminot, 

 Triomphe des Beaux Arts, Prince Noir, 

 Comte Bobinsky, Louise Peyronny, Colonel 

 de Rougemont, Jules Margollin, and others; 

 the bridge was a fairy avenue so charming 

 ■was the effect. 



" I have a full and fervent belief that ere 

 long, banks and avenues of decorated roses 

 ■will be in every rose garden, and that their 

 culture will be carried to an extent we at 

 present scarcely dream of. I have one rose 

 friend who has formed his rose walk with 

 network of iron wire, fastened to upright 

 iron rods ; the meshes formed by crossing 

 the -wire occasionally, are t>velve or fifteen 



inches in diameter, so as effectually to sup- 

 port the shoots of the climbing roses. 



" This walk, in the course of a year or 

 two, will be between two upright walls of 

 •decorated roses,' and I can scarcely 

 imagine anything in rose culture more 

 beautiful. It must be borne in mind that no 

 arches, unless some fifteen feet apart, and 

 no arched coverings must be placed over 

 a rose walk or avenue of this description, 

 for the finer kinds of roses require all the 

 light and air they can have. 



" For pillars,'.banks, coverings for walks, 

 and every fancy that can enter into the mind 

 of a rose lover, these budded climbing 

 roses are adapted, and they will well reward 

 the ingenuity of a clever rose gardener ; in 

 many cases superseding the use of stan- 

 dards, which are for a great portion of the 

 year so very ugly. 



" The ' how to do ' these roses is very 

 simple. If very rapid growth be required, 

 the place in which they are to be planted 

 should be well stirred to a depth of two feet, 

 some manure mixed with the earth, and 

 climbing roses of such sorts as Felicite, 

 Princesse Louise, Princesse Marie, and 

 Spectabile (all varieties of Rosa sempervi- 

 reus), should be planted in November ; if 

 they have strong shoots, they may be tied 

 or fastened up to nearly their full length ; 

 if not with long and strong shoots they may 

 be cut down to within five inches of their 

 bases : they -will in the following season 

 make shoots from ten to twelve or fifteen 

 feet in length. The first shoots that will 

 be fit to bud will be the old shoots that were 

 left at full length when they were planted ; 

 these may be budded in June, and the 

 young shoots that are made during the 

 whole of the summer may be budded weekly 

 till the end of September ; the position of 

 each bud must be thought of so as to make 

 a picture really artistic and beautiful. As 

 soon as a bud is inserted, or if two or three 

 buds are placed in the same shoot, the end 

 of the shoot must be cut ofl' to within two 

 buds of the topmost inserted bud ; the buds 

 may be untied' about three weeks after in- 

 sertion, and all the young shoots that break 

 out below the inserted buds must be rubbed 

 olF ; this is all that need be done the first 

 season. The next season the buds will bloom 

 abundantly, and it will only be necessary to 

 destroy all the young shoots thatbreak outof 

 the budded branch below the buds ; those 

 shoots that breakout above the inserted buds 

 may be pinched in frequently, the budded 

 branch will not then become rigid and 

 starved like the stem of a standard rose. 



''In decorating climbing roses tlie buds 

 should be dotted over the whole surface of 

 the plant, two or three buds in one branch 



