252 THE GARDENER. [June 



tinct Eose : but selection is scarcely possible ; tliey are nearly all equally 

 suitable — at least we find them so. Many of the Tea-scented Eoses 

 are also first-rate for forcing, cutting them when just about to open. 

 It is needless to name varieties, as the whole of them are suitable for 

 pot-culture. If plants are received from the nursery they must be ex- 

 amined at the roots to see if drainage is all right and the soil in a 

 healthy condition. Any plants with the pots full of roots should be 

 shifted at once ; those not demanding shifting should remain until 

 some growth has been made, standing the plants in a cold pit for a 

 time with plenty of ventilation. 



By the first week in June, when the sun is getting hot and power- 

 ful, they should be plunged in the full blaze of his rays out of doors. 

 This is the time when we repot all our stock of pot-Roses ; till the 

 first week in June they have been resting after the flowering period, 

 attention being paid to them in watering and not overcrowding them 

 in some sheltered place out of doors. Those in small pots are shifted 

 on if the pots be full of roots and the soil healthy ; others may require 

 partial shaking out and repotting in the same sized pots ; none of them 

 are in larger than 11-inch pots, which is large enough for early-forced 

 Roses, and fine large plants can be grown in pots of that size. We do 

 not cut or prune Hybrid Perpetuals at this stage, believing that they 

 should have all the foliage left to ripen the wood and enable them to 

 make roots ; much fresh growth after this is not desirable on Roses 

 to be forced early. We, however, cut out any old exhausted wood 

 from the Tea-scented Roses. 



The Rose in the open ground thrives best in strong loam, whose 

 basis is clay ; for potting, however, a lighter open soil is to be pre- 

 ferred : a light, yellow loam of a sandy texture is what we use, well 

 enriched with rotten farmyard manure. Light manures, such as leaf- 

 mould, or old mushroom-bed dung, are not of much use for Roses — they 

 like more substantial fare. The soil should be chopped up rough, and 

 a sprinkling of crushed bones will much improve it, and a few over the 

 crocks will serve the double purpose of drainage and manure, which 

 the roots soon find out. Pot firm, and drain well. When firmly potted 

 the soil is not so liable to become waterlogged, or the drainage dis- 

 arranged. Roses want a deal of water in the summer. When all are 

 potted as they require, arrange the plants in rows according to size — 

 the tallest at the back, and giving room to those which require it, with- 

 out any attention as to the distances being uniform — in a turf pit 

 facing the sun, in a warm sheltered place, and fill in between the pots 

 with sawdust, which keeps the roots equable as to temperature and 

 moisture. The sawdust absorbs the heat of the sun through the day, 

 and pine-wood sawdust is also obnoxious to w^orms when it is fresh. 



