THE GARDEN WEEK BY WEEK 



April With respect to climbing Roses, the common idea 



^~^5 that pruning is inadvisable is wrong. Pruning may not 

 be absolutely necessary, but it is certainly advantageous. 

 One reads that Crimson Rambler, Gloire de Dijon, 

 William Allen Richardson, Reine Marie Henriette, 

 Dundee Rambler, Dorothy Perkins, I'ldeal, Felicite et 

 Perpetue, Ards Rover, and the rest of the charming 

 sisterhood of pillar, arch, and wall Roses do not need 

 pruning. If by "need" we are to read that they are not 

 benefited by it, the advice is entirely wrong. I do not 

 think that any exact rule can be laid down. To say 

 either "prune" or "do not prune," and go no further, is 

 to follow the line of least resistance. In the former case 

 it does not help the reader very much. In the latter it 

 puts him on the straight and easy path that leads to 

 Rose ruin. 



One has only to study the different habits of various 

 climbing Roses to see that the same method of pruning 

 does not apply equally to all. I might make two broad 

 distinctions, and class them as "rod" and "spray" 

 Roses. The former make long canes, and bear their 

 flowers on short shoots, which break from the rods. In 

 the case of that Rose of miraculous vigour, Dorothy 

 Perkins, the flowering shoots are not really short ; they 

 are often semi-rods, and droop low and gracefully under 

 their burden of flowers. Crimson Rambler and Carmine 

 Pillar are rod Roses, and the way to prune them is to 

 select the old, hard, pithy rods which have flowered, are 

 very dark in colour, and often have crinkly bark, and cut 

 them out close to the ground. The younger, lighter- 

 coloured rods should, of course, be retained for flowering. 

 It sometimes happens that one of the best of the young 

 rods is produced, not direct from the root stock, but 

 from the lower part of an old cane, and the case creates 

 172 



