36 THE BOOK OF ROSES 



hard pruning of the perpetual-flowering Roses those 

 which flower twice in the season will not damage them 

 so much as it will the Summer flowering kinds, but will 

 defer the blooming season. Climbing Roses should 

 only have the oldest wood cut out, and the new growth 

 tied in its place ; and this should be done as soon as the 

 Roses have finished flowering, the shortening, if any, of 

 the shoots being done in the Spring. 



The instruments needed for pruning are simple and 

 few. A hone on which the tools may be kept keen, 

 a pruning-knife, a small saw for old hard wood, a pad 

 on which to kneel, and a pair of secateurs. Gardening 

 gloves will be needed by all but the most horny-handed 

 gardeners. 



There is much division of opinion among gardeners 

 as to the relative merits of the knife and the secateurs 

 for pruning Roses, and the majority of Rose-growers 

 are decidedly against the secateurs, but there has lately 

 been a slight revulsion of feeling in favour of the latter 

 instrument. No old-fashioned rosarian would be seen for a 

 moment using anything but knife and saw on his cherished 

 trees, but the modern is beginning to believe in the more 

 complicated instrument. Mr Darlington, in a paper 

 contributed to the National Rose Society, examines the 

 relative merits of the two in detail, and on the whole 

 gives his verdict in favour of the secateurs. As he says, 

 a clean cut with a sharp knife when the shoot is firmly 

 held below the cut, has no doubt certain qualities in 

 some ways preferable to those of the cut made by the 

 secateurs : the cut of the knife causes practically no 

 crushing of the wood ; the cut is smooth and heals 

 rapidly, it may be made closer to the bud intended to 

 be left to grow than is possible with the secateurs and 

 thus no dead wood need be left above the growing shoot ; 

 the bark round the cut is but little injured by the cut of 

 the knife, and may in favourable circumstances, and if 



