April S2, 187G.1 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



307 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



APRIL 22—28, 1875. 



Royal Hort. Society ot Ireland— Spring Exhibition. 

 Royal Institation at 8 P.M. Antiquaries' Society (An- 

 Royal Botanic Society at 3.45 p m. [ niversary), 2 p.m. 

 4 Sunday after Easter. St. Mark. 

 Koyal Geographical Society at 8.30 p.m. [ Auriculas. 

 Manchester Bot. and Hort. Society— Exhibition ot 

 Boyal Botanic Society— Second Spring Exhibition. 



Prom obaervations takea near London daring forty-three years, the average day temperature of the week is 59.2''; and its night temperature 



EOSES FOR NON-EXHIBITORS. 



OUBTLESS there are many situated like 

 myself, who are expected to have Roses by 

 the score fit to cut at a moment's notice 

 any time between the middle of March and 

 the end of the year, to whom quantity per- 

 force takes precedence of quality. Quantity 

 we must have ; quality we have if we can 

 secure it. It is to those who cannot make 

 Rose-growing a speciality, and who are not 

 able to spend much money on it, that I 

 ■wish to make these few remarks, principally, in fact, to 

 my brother professional gardeners. Gentlemen amateurs 

 who make Rose-growing their principal hobby must not 

 expect anything I can say about Roses to give them any 

 edification ; moreover they do not need it. Most of them 

 grow better Roses in the Rose season and write better 

 English than I do, but just let the month of August 

 arrive, and I should not be afraid to compete with some 

 of them any time from then till the following June. 



I may say at the outset that, when I commence to 

 grow plants in quantity which I have previously not had 

 much practice with, I always endeavour not to be dazzled 

 too much by the successes already attained by other 

 growers, as I know this might lead simply to blind copy- 

 ing. It does not follow that because a gentleman ama- 

 teur has shown the best forty-eight at an all-England 

 show that he can give the best advice to a gardener for 

 producing a perpetual supply of Roses. No one with the 

 least taste can deny the extreme beauty of his flowers in 

 the exhibition stand, but it must be remembered that 

 many of the kinds which produce the most perfect blooms, 

 although called Perpetuals, often do not produce a dozen 

 such blooms in a plant's lifetime. This is sometimes the 

 fault of the variety and sometimes of the grower, who 

 makes his plants live on " high-pressure " system. 



What gardeners want are not plants which will bear 

 two or three prodigious blooms the second season ot their 

 life and then rapidly go into decline, but such as will 

 produce fairly good blooms in quantity throughout the 

 season, and more of them each year as they grow older. 

 Now this cannot be brought about by the " life-at-high- 

 pressure " system. If a plant or an animal lives too 

 fast it will die all the sooner. The more unnatural the 

 conditions of life the sooner the constitution will give 

 way. Now the natural medium for the roots of a Rose 

 is a tolerably stiff clay, and in that natural medium it 

 will probably continue to flourish as long as an Oak tree. 

 Planted in light soil, made still lighter by the addition of 

 a quantity of manure, it may produce larger petals for a 

 year or two, which in the present day please the exhibitor 

 and the judges, but there is not the texture in them nor 

 yet the colour there is in flowers which are produced on 

 a more natural soil. 



The reason why Roses on the seedling Briar are better 

 in texture and last longer than those grown on the hedge- 

 row Briar is that the seedhng Briar goes down deep into 

 the earth, and helps itself to more natural and substantial 

 No. 784 —Vol. XXVIII., New Seeibs. 



food than the dainties prepared for it on the surface. I 

 suppose no one now doubts the superiority of the seedling 

 Briar ; if so, let him cut a flower off it and one off an old- 

 fashioned standard grown in the ordinary way, and com- 

 pare them twenty-four hours afterwards. Next to Roses 

 on theu- own roots I prefer seedling Briars ; but as it takes 

 considerable time to raise a large stock of either of these, 

 I am obliged to fall back partially on the hedgerow Briar, 

 and will endeavour to give my method of practice. 



The Briars with the largest quantity of prickles and 

 not more than two years old, about the size of the little 

 finger, and with green yet firm growth, are selected about 

 the end of September. They are taken up carefully vidth 

 as many small roots as possible ; all eyes and root stems 

 which are likely to produce suckers are cut clean away, 

 and the Briars are planted at once, before they become 

 withered, in the stiffest soil at my command, with no 

 addition in the shape of manurial substances. They are 

 headed back to the required height some time during the 

 winter, and tied to stakes, or a quantity of them are 

 tied to a rail. They are ready for budding the following 

 summer, and if budded as late as July the Briars are 

 left to grow wild, and most of the buds wUl remam 

 dormant till the following season. I have sometimes 

 budded from forced plants in the end of May or beginning 

 of June ; the Briars were then cut back immediately the 

 buds had taken, and sometimes a few good blooms would 

 be produced the same autumn when such flowers were 

 scarce. This, however, is only a makeshift system. I 

 would not have a mop-headed Rose within reach of my 

 eyesight if I could avoid it. My favourite system is to 

 grow Roses from cuttings, but it is a slower system ; it 

 takes several buds to form a cutting, and only one to form 

 a standard. 



It is surprising how easy it is to grow Hybrid Perpetual 

 Roses from cuttings when one once understands the way 

 of it: the only sine qua non. is well-ripened wood of the 

 current year. Roses grown in the ordinary way and highly 

 fed do not always produce sufficiently firm growth for 

 striking ; but well-grown pot Roses produce the right sort 

 of wood in abundance — wood which cannot help striking. 

 My cuttings are put-in at the end of October or beginning 

 of November in the open ground where it is rather gritty. 

 A trench is made as if for laying a Box-edging, and in 

 this the cuttings, which have at least three or four eyes, 

 are placed about 4 inches apart, with only one bud above 

 the ground, a little soil is placed against each cutting to 

 hold it in position till the line is finished, when it is 

 fiUed in and trodden as hard as possible. The next trench 

 is made a foot or 15 inches from the first one, and so on 

 to the end. 



Now if one of these cuttings fail it is by accident — as a 

 rule, they all strike. They sometimes require treading 

 in afresh after a sharp frost has heaved up the ground. 

 " But does not a sharp frost kill them ?" Oh no. Sharp 

 frosts never hurt gardeners' Roses; it is only the fast- 

 hving Roses that sharp frosts can injure. I find my 

 cuttings the wrong end uppermost sometimes after a 

 sharp frost, they merely rei]uire putting back firmly before 

 No. 1886.— Vol. LIU., Old Series. 



