OUTDOOR ROSE GROWING 



ends. A good pair of pruning shears and a sharp 

 knife are the two best implements for this work. 

 Cuts should be sharp and clean and the roots should 

 be cut off above the break. It will take only a minute 

 to examine each plant before it is actually set and 

 to cut ofT broken roots and any suckers in which 

 growth may have started. (For further information 

 on suckers, see page 20.) 



The thing to be most carefully considered, and 

 most important in planting roses, is to dig a hole 

 about eighteen inches deep, the center of w^hich is 

 approximately the center of the mark for the rose. 

 The earth should be taken out with a spade from 

 this hole, and before finally replacing it, two things 

 should be carefully noted — that the roots spread 

 out at the bottom and do not cross one another. 

 The more the roots are spread out, the more sus- 

 tenance the plant will get, and the more room there 

 will be for the little fibrous roots. It is particularly 

 difficult to spread out the roots of pot-grown plants. 

 The other important point is that the bud, i.e., the 

 point at which the variety has been budded to the 

 stock, which may be easily noted, should be at a 

 given distance below the ground level. On these two 

 factors depends the size of the excavation. The bud 

 should be not less than two inches and not more 

 than three inches below the finished level of the bed, 



except with roses budded on Multiflora, which should 



156 



