CULTURE OF THE ROSE. 129 



EOSES FOR WINTER BLOOMING. 



Roses for winter blooming require a different treatment, 

 as one essential condition of forcing for flower is that the 

 plant has abundance of active, or, as we term them, 

 "working roots." For this reason, Roses required for 

 winter blooming are either planted out in prepared bord- 

 ers in the green-house in spring or early summer, or else 

 grown in pots throughout the summer, so that by fall the 

 plant is supplied with an abundance of " working roots." 

 Plants are started for this purpose either by cuttings struck 

 in March, or else the year-old plants are used ; but in 

 either case, care must be taken that shiftings are made 

 sufficiently often during the season to prevent the roots 

 becoming what is termed pot-bound. In this condition, 

 there is a matting of hard roots formed around the ball 

 of soil, and touching the sides of the pot. Whenever the 

 fibres begin to lose their whiteness and become hard and 

 woody, their power of absorption, to a great extent, 

 ceases, and, in consequence, we at once have a loss of 

 vigor in the plant. For this same reason, every care must 

 be taken to have the plants supplied with moisture during 

 the hot, dry days of summer, for, if once allowed to wilt, 

 you have dried up the white, working roots, and before 

 the plant can regain its impaired vigor, new ones must be 

 formed. We find that when we dig up a Rose plant in 

 November, and pot it with all the care possible, we can- 

 not get it to regain its vigor, unless it is kept at the low 

 temperature previously recommended until nature has re- 

 paired the destruction of the feeding roots, which occurred 

 in digging it up. By attempting to force it into flower, by 

 placing it in a high temperature in this condition, you will 

 either kill it outright, or else cause it to produce a few fee- 

 ble and abortive shoots and flowers. But the case is very 

 different if the plant has been so treated as to have an abund- 

 ance of active roots ; its system is in full vigor, and it wilJ 



