22 



IRISH GARDENING 



FKHRL'ARY 



;i "niixiini j;-;itlK'riiin " o( I'oly.iiillia ;iiKlordiii;irv blooms. 

 I waited palioiilly to see if any of tlio Council — those 

 members responsible for the woriiinjj of tiie schedule 

 would reply to his query, but there was no answer, not 

 even from Mr. Knowldin. who gfenerally has an eajifle 

 eye and habit of pouncing on most thin^-s. I think the 

 Council are wise in lca\ini^ the varieties si)Own to the 

 discretion of the exhibitor himself, as there are very 

 few (gardens where on a j^iven day you could cut six 

 gfood bunches of distinct Polyantha roses. Talkinif of 

 Polyantha roses briiiijs to my mind a pair fearfully alike 

 in nearly every respect. I refer to " Oueen of the 

 Belgians" and "Donna Maria." I had cut two bunches 

 of these roses for our show here in Naas, and was told 

 by an excellent authority that they would be disqualified 

 at the next day's show. I erred on the side of caution, 

 and did not show them both. At luncheon time, after 

 the judcfingf was over, I had Mr. Hugh Dickson down 

 here, and I consulted him, and he clearly showed me a 

 difference. This is not meant as a hint to Mr. K. to 

 look to his judges, so I hope his eagle eye will miss this 

 article. I only want to show my readers how hard 

 rose-judging is, and what a thankless job it is — some- 

 times. It is all right as long as you are in the tent, but 

 it is quite different when you step outside the tent —out 

 of the frying-pan into the fire ! Talking of the frying- 

 pan— by which I mean a tent — why does nobody ever 

 invent a plan of keeping a tent cool? In London the 

 fire-hose is kept going on the roof, but it is no use - onlj' 

 a waste of water. I never could understand w^hy, when 

 there is staging all round the tent, that the sides of the 

 tent should be fixed down to the grass outside. Thin 

 tiffany would be useful, but the cost would not suit. 

 There is no place I w\iuld sooner stage roses, of all the 

 places I have met, than in the Royal Universitj' or the 

 " gaol " of Naas ! Both are cool and have good light — 

 two ver}- important adjuncts in rose-showing. 



e^*' t^^ w^ 



The Most Important Factors in Rose Growing. 

 — .Attention may be drawn to the expert opinion 

 of Dr. Bernard Dyer who carried out exhaustive 

 experiments with soils from famous rose growing 

 districts, under the auspices of the National Rose 

 Society. Dr. Dyer reported that "on the whole I 

 should say that if any part of the special productiveness 

 of these various nurseries in the matter of good roses is 

 to be attributed to natural conditions rather than to the 

 skill of the growers, it would seem that these conditions 

 must be looked for in local climatic influences, aspect, 

 and possibly good, natural drainage, rather than in any 

 special features in the actual composition of the soils 

 themselves." In other words, natural physical con- 

 ditions are of more importance in rose growing than 

 chemical composition merely affecting the feeding. 



The garden I love has a hedge of box. 



That's dimh', darkly green. 

 But it holds such splendour of moon-white 

 phlox 



Its close-clipp'd bow'rs between, 

 The sweet-peas tremble on tiptoes light. 



All lilac, and pink, and pearl. 

 To look past the gloom of its dusky height 



To the birch-leaves all a-whirl. 



Current 1 Opics. 



1^ (', !•". 1{\I.I., Rov.il Hol.-inic C..ir. 



IS, t. 



Till', present winlcr ii.is l)i'i-ii i'xce|ilion;illy sevi-re, 

 lor it is rn.iiiy yi-ars sinci- twenty ilcgrees of 

 iVosi h,i\e been registered at (Uasnevin. in 

 conscqucuvi' plant life has suffered consider.ably ; trees, 

 shrubs, and in some localities vegetables have been 

 affected. If severe weather comes in February the 

 losses will be seriously augmented, for many shrubs are 

 now in a weak condition. With the editor's permission, 

 when spring comes it would be interesting to have 

 mortality lists of the newer shrubs ami also tiiose that 

 have come through the winter safely. The snow done 

 a good deal of damage by its weight, breaking branches 

 of evergreens. The tabular branches of some conifera." 

 collect the snow, and are especially liable to be broken. 

 A good practice exists in some nurseries, where a man 

 is sent round with a pole to shake off the snow from the 

 choicer specimens. Many amateurs lose plants in frames 

 during severe weather by being too anxious to uncover 

 them. In the London nurseries plants in frames are 

 covered by mats and a thickness of straw, bracken or 

 other material handy sometimes during a frost of two 

 or three weeks and for several days after the thaw, so as 

 to let the thawing be gradual, for sun or strong light is 

 injurious to half-frozen plants. The theory of how 

 plants were injured by frost was that the sap, like water 

 in freezing, contracted until it reached four degrees 

 Centigrade, and then swelled in becoming colder, and 

 turning to ice the swelling burst the cell wall, and in thaw- 

 ing the sap was lost, so the protoplasm dies, whereas in a 

 ver}' gradual thaw the sap was partly reabsorbed. This 

 will partly explain why even a few branches will help to 

 save plants, and some plants will come through the winter 

 better on a north than a south wall. Mr. Bedford of 

 Straffan says the only place where he can keep Esmllonin 

 macrantha alive is on a north wall, 



A later theory about the effects of frost is that plants 

 perish from drought. Even during the winter living 

 shoots are giving off water vapour. When the ground 

 is frozen the roots cannot take up water, and so the loss 

 is not made good and the plant dies. If wind happens 

 to come with frost the danger is greater. But these 

 theories are not always applicable, though they may 

 explain some cases. Practically, we know that to save 

 plants not considered quite hardy the method is to 

 mulch heavily with dead leaves, strawy manure or even 

 ashes, and if a bush to work some straw or bracken into 

 the head, and a few evergreen branches. 



The Canadian wild rice {Zizania aquatica) has been 

 for generations used as food by the North American 

 Indians, and early travellers relate how wild fowl flock 

 in thousands to feed upon the wild rice, and by it 

 "become inexpressibly fat and delicious." It is a 

 strikingly handsome aquatic grass growing from six to 

 twelve feet high, and is worth cultivating in shallow 

 ponds for ornament. If it could be naturalised it would 

 really be valuable ; at present facts seem to point that 

 it will only be in milder localities if anywhere. Kew 

 has recently imported a quantity from Canada and 

 distributed it through England, Scotland and South of 

 Ireland. The difficultv is that wild rice is an annual, 



