1 92 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



bloom, all of the finest sorts, seeming as free as the Monthly Rose 

 is in the West of England. In our country we have to face hard 

 winters, but we have many Roses which will stand the test of our 

 hardest, and there is little difficulty in getting good effects from the 

 Rose as a bold climber, and better than anything else able to break 

 up the hardness and monotony too visible in flower-gardens. 



" OVER PRUNING CLIMBING ROSES. The way the unpruned Rose 

 behaves is this : the plant, as soon as fairly established in a good soil, 

 throws up plenty of strong shoots, and the following year these shoots 

 break their buds freely along the stem, and each branch produces a 

 mass of bloom, which, after a shower, weighs the branch almost down to 

 the ground. They are often best let alone when among shrubs or in 

 groups on the lawn, and it is the climbing Roses that show what the 

 Rose is capable of when cultivated in this free and natural manner. 

 One of my best rose bushes is an old double white Ayrshire Rose 

 growing in a shrubbery for more than thirty years sending out 

 a shoot of white flowers sometimes on this side, and sometimes 

 on that side of the clump of bushes, and sometimes scrambling 

 up to the tops of the tallest branches, and draping them with blossoms 

 throughout June and July. Some time ago I measured the ground 

 covered by the plant and found it rather over 70 feet in circumference. 

 It is growing in a deep dry loam, and this, together with head room, 

 seems to be all it requires. There are far too few examples of this 

 kind, for our efforts have not been in the direction of showing what 

 could be done with the Rose as a tree or bush. The common Dog 

 Rose teaches us a lesson in pruning and climbing. It forms a mighty 

 mound of branches, the older stems dying down as the young ones 

 grow till a large bush is formed, covered with flowers, and they are 

 never the less for the absence of all pruning ! 



" Climbing and strong-growing Roses make handsome bushes in a 

 few years on pleasure-ground lawns. I have seen bushes of this kind 

 twenty years old in which the wood had accumulated about 2 feet 

 or more deep, and yet nowhere was any dead wood to be seen, owing 

 to the plants throwing out annually fresh shoots which covered the 

 old ones. The plants, in fact, grow exactly in the same manner 

 as the wild Brier, which keeps sending up from its centre long 

 shoots, increasing its size every year. Except against walls and in 

 similar situations, there is no occasion to prune climbing Roses. 

 They make the finest display when left to themselves, and it is only 

 necessary to provide them with a deep, strong soil, and to let them 

 have light on all sides. Whether planting be carried out with the 

 object above described, or for the purpose of covering naked tree- 

 . stumps or branches, or for draping any unsightly object whatever, 

 good soil in the first instance is the main thing." J. S. 



