74 



THE SEASON'S WOEK IN THE EOSE GAEDEN. 



SHE principal work for the rosarian now is to prune bis 

 roses. The wary practitioner is never in haste to do 

 this ; the beginner is apt to be in undue haste. In the 

 horticultural journals, early pruning is generally en- 

 couraged, very much, I consider, to the injury of the 

 cultivator, and the discredit of the advisers. I have always advocated 

 late pruning, and have plainly told the reason why. Perhaps a little 

 more on the subject may be acceptable to rose-growers. We prune 

 fruit trees and timber trees in autumn, and we call all those culti- 

 vators slovens, prorrastinators, and layabeds who defer the pruning 

 of these things till spring. Tet we stick to the rule of advising 

 cultivators of the rose to wait till the middle of March before com- 

 mencing to prune, except in the case of a few kinds that may be 

 pruned earlier than the rest, and in the case also of gardens so 

 situated that the frosts, common at this time of the year, do not 

 affect them. That the two classes of subjects, say fruit trees and 

 rose trees, should have different treatment is indicated by their 

 differences of character and behaviour. Not a pear tree, or an apple 

 tree, or a plum tree has yet begun to grow, nor a bud on any of 

 them has begun to swell even, except where they are on walls, and 

 therefore differently circumstanced to those in the open. The 

 warmth of the ten weeks from the end of November to the middle 

 of February has had no effect upon them ; but upon the roses it has 

 had the effect of making them grow freely, and in some cases flower 

 with about the same degree of vigour they usually have in the 

 month of October. Such a difference of behaviour ought to teach 

 the cultivator to apply to them differences of treatment, and one of 

 the differences I insist on is a difference as to the season of pruning. 

 The proper treatment of roses has in view to keep the flower- 

 buds dormant until the time has arrived when they may be allowed 

 to grow. We desist from pruning, we allow them to grow all winter 

 as they please, and the effect is just the same as putting earth over 

 the crowns of hyacinths in borders. As the sap in its action always 

 rushes upwards, we find that mild weather causes the tops of the 

 shoots to grow ; but all down the stout stems of last season are 

 invisible buds, the places of which are discernible by an obscure 

 ring or joint, and a slight red stain marking where the bud is 

 situated. By preserving the green tops, the sap, kept in motion by 

 undue winter warmth, flows past these buds, goes upward, leaves 

 them dormant, and thus prevented growing, and hidden as it were 

 in embryo within the wood, they are preserved from the stimulus of 

 day heat and the oppression of night frost. This is the philosophy 

 of the case stated in a few plain words ; and those amateurs who a 

 month ago were in haste to prune their roses, will see now the 

 soundness of the argument employed to dissuade them, for the frost 

 will kill the soft green tops which are of no use, but will leave un- 

 hurt those buds which are situated on the ripest of the wood, and 

 from which the best blooms of the coming season are to be derived. 



