POTTING Cf ROSES. 41 



of plants, which have their balls matted with root ; but of the forcing, 

 more hereafter. 



Potting for Sho-w. 



As it is at length the fashion to show roses in pots, the only proper 

 plan of showing any but single 'blooms, face upward, the plan of pot- 

 ting cannot differ from those potted for forcing. Presuming that if 

 they are late roses and require forcing, they will be treated after the 

 plan above mentioned, so far as the potting is concerned, the differ- 

 ence between what the perfectly hardy and summer or autumn bloom- 

 ing roses will require after potting, as we have directed, is to be put- 

 out in an open situation ; and if standards, they should be fastened 

 to a railing, or trellis, as well as being plunged in their pots, that the 

 wind may not disturb them. Here they may be protected various 

 ways : a mat thrown over the head of a rose protected it, though no* 

 a very hardy one, against the last winter's frost. A wisp of straw 

 tied at one end, and opened cap-like over each and among the branches 

 of roses, protected them a good deal, and probably, had they not been 

 autumn pruned, might have protected them entirely from mischief, 

 but as it was, some of the pruned branches died back, though the 

 unpruned ones did not. 



Potting the Small, the Smooth Wooden, and Chinese Varieties. 



Here, from the first, the soil should be one third rotted dung, one 

 third peat, and one third the loam of rotten turf. In this stuff, the 

 most delicate will succeed. From ^he period of their having struck 

 root, they can hardly do wrong if potted in this soil, in a proper-sized 

 pot, with ordinary drainage. Small plants should be placed in pots 

 no larger than the roots require to hold them, with a moderate share 

 of earth to live in. This kind of rose should be kept growing in a 

 cool frame or greenhouse, or pit, with not much moisture; plenty or 

 air in dry mild days, and a refreshing shower when it is warm. It is 

 safer to plunge them in ashes, if you can, up to the rims of their pots : 

 it keeps them moist longer than if the pot is exposed, it mostly does, 

 in bad weather; and though it perhaps does not kill "them, it makes 

 them weakly for some time. In this way, they may grow from time 

 to time, and be shifted from one sized pot to another, requiring only 



