370 



ON THE CULTURE OF TALL OR CLIMBING ROSES 



other places make shoots 20 feet long in a 

 couple of seasons, and flower profusely ; 

 therefore, if the Rosa arvensis and its varie- 

 ties climb trees of their own accord, surely 

 art might train the twigs of other climbing 

 roses in a track where nature unassisted 

 prompts them to run. There is no plant of 

 easier culture than the climbing rose : for 

 all roses grow freely from cuttings, and 

 thrive well in the common corn-land of the 

 country, and even in places and soils where 

 corn would scarcely be produced. They 

 never fail running and flowering every 

 year ; and this running propensity, or, in 

 other words, this truly desirable quick habit 

 of growth, has hitherto caused this section 

 of the rose family to be excluded from col- 

 lections, or, if not excluded, to be unmerci- 

 fully cut in, in order to keep them in 

 bounds, which cutting, owing to the pecu- 

 liar habits of this section of roses, amounts 

 to nothing less than cutting off their heads; 

 for if they are cut at all, the head or flow- 

 ering part, being at the tip, is sure to be 

 sacrificed, whether the cutting be only an 

 inch or a pole in length. The climbing 

 roses should either have a building to climb 

 on, as a ruin, a bower, a wall, a trellis, &c., 

 or. failing these, they may readily and 

 cheaply be accommodated with a tree to 

 climb for the small outlay of one penny. 

 This arrangement is not confined to the 

 culture of climbing roses only, but should 

 extend to the culture of climbers of all 

 kinds ; for at the present time climbers 

 cannot be grown in gardens, from sheer 

 want of anything to climb upon. The 

 grape-vine family, nearly all hardy, but sel- 

 dom grown, produces the most beautiful 

 foliage imaginable as a climber ; but, alas ! 

 for lack of the prop, we lose the service of 

 the vine. In an economical point of view 

 the vine is worthy of a place with a tall yew 

 hedge to back it, and, thus situated, some- 

 thing more than leaves would repay the 

 planter. Any one who has eaten grapes 

 cooked, even when not fully ripe, will al- 

 low that they are superior to any other tart- 

 fruit, and, as they would come in late in 

 autumn, could not fail to find a welcome at 

 table when our native fruits were ripe or 

 dead. The white bryony formed an object 

 of the greatest beauty, growing up the face 

 of a tall clipped yew hedge at Caenwood, 



in the kitchen-garden. This plant attached 

 itself by its tendrils to the hedge ; and, as 

 it belongs to Cucurbits, it gives an admira- 

 ble lesson to cucumber growers, for it form- 

 ed a perfect fan, with rays nine feet long, 

 loithout the aid of man. The cucumber is 

 a plant adapted by nature for a similar 

 situation; for its beautiful tendrils tell that 

 they were never made to crawl, but to 

 climb. But I need not go farther than to 

 the pea for an example of the value of living 

 props: hundreds of persons would grow peas 

 if they had sticks to prjp them with. I saw 

 a neighbor with a row of peas well sticked 

 with a couple of rows of living beans, which 

 by a special blunder had been sowed after 

 the peas were covered with the soil. 



The cultivation of climbers is a field too 

 great to be entered upon here, and yet too 

 important to be passed over in silence. I 

 have therefore thrown out these hints in 

 passing, and leave it to the lovers and ad- 

 mirers of this class of plants to carry it out, 

 resting assured that the scarlet trumpets of 

 that splendid climber, the trumpet-flowering 

 honeysuckle, alone will proclaim by their 

 few and feeble specimens the truth of what 

 I am endeavouring to show, namely, that 

 for want of a prop we lose the services of 

 the most beautiful plants that could adorn 

 a garden, ay, and the services too of valua- 

 ble esculents. But to return to the rose. 

 The umbrella form of trellis is well suited 

 to show to advantage certain kinds of roses. 

 Now the dwarf or weeping elm, engrafted 

 on the common elm, forms an elegant head 

 of this form ; and, as these artificial drocp- 

 ing-headed trees are monsters, and grow 

 slowly, they may be kept in dressed ground 

 in small compass for many years. The one 

 which I have before me has been four years 

 planted; and one or tvvo others, about ten 

 years planted, have yetbut very small heads. 

 I may here mention that the young shoots 

 of the elm resemble an immense pinnate 

 leaf, and thus the leaf of the rose harmoni- 

 ses better with the foliage of the elm than I 

 was led to expect before I made the com- 

 parison with the rose and elm twigs united. 



The weeping ash makes an admirable 

 trellis for a climbing, or rather a trailing 

 rose, and having pinnate leaves, the harmo- 

 ny of the foliage with that of the roee is 

 complete. Nothing but a figure drawn ac- 



