THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



209 



American Beauty Roses at a Western Flower Show. 



November to April, or even May. 

 Choose wood that is medium in strength 

 and don t use either the green top or 

 the hard base. \Yhen potting them off 

 ] have lost quite a number by their be 

 ing left exposed to a bright sun. Be 

 careful to shade and keep moist for a 

 few days. Let there be always two 

 eyes to the cutting. 



I n growing them on into 3-inch or pos 

 sibly 4-inch pots, give them all the light 

 and air you can till planting time, as 

 you do the tea varieties. The Beauties 

 want to flower early, but the buds should 

 be picked off till the end of August. 

 From then till the first of November 

 you will get a good many nice buds 

 with 18-inch to ;!0-incli stems, and the 

 stems will break again and usually send 

 up another flowering stem, but as soon 

 as the dark weather sets in the break 

 from a strong cut down shoot will be 

 blind, or practically blind, for it may 

 grow ten feet long before it flowers. 

 So, after the first of November if you 

 are looking for flowers at the holidays, 

 when they are worth .$l.oO each, you 

 must let the flower fully expand and 

 then cut it off at the neck and sacrifice 

 it. You will notice that at the axil of 

 the leaf just below the flower there is 

 already a young growth. That growth 

 will give a flower six weeks later, and 

 you will be gd ting a dollar for your 

 flower instead of l?5 cents, or in that 

 vicinity, which is worth while. 



American Beauties are very liable to 

 be troubled with red spider, and should 

 be thoroughly syringed, but never on 

 damp, cloudy days or late in the day. 



Some growers carry over for the sec 

 ond winter their beds of roses, both on 

 benches and in solid beds. Should you 

 intend to carry over a bed of tea rose^ 

 in four inches of soil, don t do any 

 severe drying of roots. It is very in 



jurious. Keep up your daily syringing 

 in July and August; that will usually 

 keep the soil about right and be rest 

 enough. All the pruning that is neces 

 sary is to cut out weak growths and 

 shorten back the blind wood. If in a 

 shallow bench, you can with care re 

 move one inch of the surface soil and 

 replace with a compost of soil, manure 

 and a little bone meal. A bed that is 

 carried over will give you more and bet 

 ter buds in the fall than a young bed. 

 When you go to the exhibition and 

 see vases of Brides and Maids, large 

 buds on 30-inch stems, it makes you 

 shrink when you think of the 12-inch 

 stems on your young beds at home. The 

 strong growths of a carried over bed 

 of roses after they get a good start will 

 often send up strong shoots which at 

 18-inch length Avill show a bud; that 

 bud is picked off and the shoot keeps 

 growing another foot before showing 

 a bud. Perhaps, if time allows, the 

 second bud is pinched out and another 

 twelve inches of growth follows, to be 

 crowned with a fine bud. You have 

 obtained a stem of thirty inches or three 

 feet. We have found by experience that 

 the pretty rose Cusin and its valuable 

 sports, particularly Mrs. J. P. Morgan, 

 are inclined to flower too freely. If 

 these short-stemmed flowers are pinched 

 off, a foot or more of strong growth 

 will ensue Mhich will produce a splen 

 did flower and of course a good stem, 

 worth three times the price of the little 

 short-stemmed growth. Thus are these 

 long-stemmed roses produced in the 

 fall. We know excellent rose growers 

 who prefer to plant every year. Yet 

 many of our largest growers carry over 

 the majority of their stock. I have 

 never seen a bed of this kind equal to 

 a young, well managed lot, but they 

 occasionally do very well up to about 



February. When intended to be grown 

 on for a second winter they should have 

 a little light shade in June, July and 

 August, or they get terribly exhausted. 

 Plants in four or five inches of soil 

 will not bear to be dried out but very 

 slightly, and that had better be done in 

 July. All the pruning they need is just 

 the blind and weak and worn-out wood 

 cut out. The young, vigorous growth 

 should be left untouched. 



Those in solid beds, in a foot or so of 

 soil, can be dried off considerably more 

 and can also be much harder cut back. 

 In a foot of strong, heavy loam we 

 had a bed of old Safrano, Isabella 

 Sprunt and Bon Silene years ago, and 

 we used to let the bed get hard and 

 cracked. About the first week in 

 August we pruned them back to bare 

 wood, gave them a heavy mulch of cow 

 manure and started again, and I have 

 never seen more roses to the square foot 

 tlian those plants produced for several 

 years. 



The plan of running hot water or 

 steam pipes through rubble stone with 

 a foot of soil or less on top is, I believe, 

 abandoned. It is certainly nonsense to 

 thihk that roses want bottom heat, and 

 no pipes are run under a bench. Mr. 

 Gasser, of Cleveland, who grows roses 

 largely, is a strong advocate of a bench 

 on, or a few inches above, the surface 

 of the ground, on which he puts 2-inch 

 drain tiles close together. I cannot see 

 any advantage in this plan, except that 

 it affords a most excellent drainage and 

 would be a fine bottom to any solid 

 bed. 



Roses for sivaimer blooming are not 

 ohm the attention that they deserve. 

 Mniiy of the hybrid teas are used for 

 this p-irpose. Kaiserin Auyusta Victoria 

 and Souv. du President Carnot art- 

 superb for this purpose. There is just 



