SUMMER CARE OF ROSES 141 



the most good. If he has water enough to flow in a hoe-ditch or to 

 run from a hose, he could reclaim his rose garden, if he had the time 

 and the will, and the latter usually finds the former. 



But though water applied so as to cleanse the dust from the foliage 

 and thoroughly moisten the roots of the plant is the chief essential of 

 midsummer decency and comfort to the rosebush, it is not the only 

 desirable thing, nor can it by itself give full satisfaction. The whole 

 year has its successive duties which the grower owes his rose, and 

 condition at any time depends much upon foregoing treatment. He 

 who prunes his bushes guillotine-fashion in the early winter, digs in 

 a coat of manure and then thank his stars that the roses are fixed 

 once more, will get some good spring roses on some bushes and some 

 magnificent blooms, perhaps, on others, but some will not bloom well 

 and all will be in distress in midsummer. One heroic treatment a year, 

 followed by neglect, will not enable the rose to do its best. 



It seems to be generally known that removing the fading blooms 

 will conserve the strength of the plant and encourage it to put forth 

 more bloom. Acting upon this belief, some growers go among the 

 bushes, taking off the old bloom as though they were picking cotton. 

 Others take small scissors and clip off the bloom with as little stem as 

 possible, as though every particle of wood was precious to the bush. 

 Others do a little better and cut off the old bloom just above the first 

 leaf on the stem below it. All these treatments are better than neglect. 

 They all obviate the distressful appearance of a bush full of dried 

 bloom, and all free the plant from exhausting effort at seed formation. 

 It is possible, however, to pick roses and to cut off old bloom in a 

 way which will maintain good condition in the bush, lengthen its 

 flowering period and reduce the extent of heroic pruning at any time. 

 It consists simply in cutting with a long stem, the length dependent 

 upon the habit of the variety, down to a good leaf bud, from which a 

 strong new shoot will start. This applies both to gathering good 

 flowers and to clearing the bush from dried bloom. When the buds 

 are opening one at a time on a spray, they may have to be cut with 

 short stems, but when the last bloom of the spray has come to its 

 best, it should be severed clear down to a good bud below the branch- 

 ing flower stem. If this practice is observed, the bush will be freed 

 from the mass of brush and the hosts of weakly shoots which can 

 yield no satisfactory bloom. New shoots will be strong and the whole 

 foliage of the bush large and vigorous. 



A bush thus treated during its winter and spring flowering period 

 comes to midsummer in far better condition than one which has been 

 allowed to take its own course after its winter pruning. If, then, when 

 the spring flowering is over, the bush be looked over for weakly shoots, 

 or for overcrowded growth, and these removed, it will be trim and 



