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PRACTICE OF GARDENING. Part III. 



tlie same basket, they should be as much as possible assimilated in size of leaves and 

 flowers, and habits of growth, and as different as possible in the colors of their flowers. 

 By mixing small-flowered with large showy sorts, the beauty of the former is lost with- 

 out adding to the effect of the latter. 



6555. In rosaries commonly but one plant of a sort is introduced, and the varieties which most resemble 

 each other are placed together, by which their distinctions are better seen. Particular compart- 

 ments are often devoted to one species, as the Scotch, Chinese, yellow, Lurnet-leaved, &c. which has an 

 excellent effect ; sometimes a piece of rock-work in the centre is covered with the creeping roses, and 

 on other occasions these are trained to trellis-work, which forms a fence or hedge of rases round the 

 whole. In this hedge, standard-roses are sometimes introduced at regular distances ; a grove of standards 

 is also frequently formed in the centre of the rosary, and sometimes they are introduced here and there 

 in the beds. 



6556. Standard roses, however, have certainly the best effect in flower-borders, or when completely de- 

 tached on a lawn : their sameness of form, and that form being compact and lumpish, prevents them from 

 grouping well, either among themselves or with other objects. Their beauty consists in their singularity 

 as rose-plants, and in their flowers ; and, therefore, to display these beauties to the best advantage, they 

 require to be seen singly, or in succession. This is the case where they occur as single objects on a lawn, 

 or in the centre in, and here and there among, groups of flowers ; or in lines or avenues, along flower- 

 walks. In the gardens of the Grand Trianon, they are planted profusely in large masses, like plantations of 

 trees and shrubs, and there much of their individual beauty is lost, and no good general effect produced. 



6557. Soil. Most species of the rose in their wild state grow in sandy and rather poor soil, excepting 

 such as are natives of woods, where the soil is richer, and comparatively moist. But all the cultivated 

 roses, and especially the double-flowering kinds, require a rich loamy soil, inclining to clay rather than 

 sand ; and they require also, like most double flowers, plenty of moisture when in a growing state. 



6558. General culture. To produce strong flowers, roses require some attention to 

 pruning ; old wood should be yearly cut out, and the young shoots thinned and shortened 

 su-cording to their strength, and whether number or magnitude of flowers be wanted. 

 Those sorts which throw up numerous suckers should be taken up every three or four 

 years, reduced and replanted ; and most sorts, excepting the standards, will be improved 

 by the practice, provided attention be paid to remove a part of the old soil, and replace it 

 by new. The points of the shoots of the more delicate sorts of roses are very apt to die 

 when pruning is performed in winter or spring ; to avoid the consequences of this evil, 

 many give a second pruning in June, or do not prune the tender sorts at all till the be- 

 ginning of that month. A very good time for performing the operation is immediately 

 after the bloom is over ; cutting out old exhausted wood, shortening shoots which have 

 flowered to a good bud accompanied with a healthy leaf, but leaving such shoots as are 

 still in a growing state untouched till October. Where very large roses are wanted, all 

 the buds but that on the extreme point of each shoot should be pinched off as soon as they 

 make their appearance, and the plant liberally supplied with water. To lessen evapor- 

 ation, and keep up a constant moisture at the roots of their roses, the Paris gardeners 

 generally mulch them with half-rotten stable-dung, or partially rotten leaves. 



6559. Forwarding and retarding roses. The earliest flowering rose is the monthly, which, in mild 

 seasons, and planted against a wall, will sometimes flower in the beginning of April ; the roses next in 

 succession are the cinnamon, which flowers in May ; the damask, in the end of May or beginning of 

 June ; the blush, York and Lancaster, Provence and Dutch hundred-leaved, in June, July, and August. 

 The Virginia and musk roses are the latest European sorts ; they flower in September, and in shaded 

 situations will sometimes continue in bloom till the middle of October ; but the earliest rose (the monthly) 

 is also the latest, and generally continues flowering till interrupted by frost. The earliest sorts may be 

 materially forwarded by being planted against a south wall, and if portable sashes are placed before them, 

 and the wall is either flued and heated by fires, or a lining of dung placed behind, the plants may be 

 brought to flower in February or March. The monthly rose being protected by glass in autumn, or aided 

 by artificial heat, may be continued in bloom till Christmas. A very common mode of obtaining late roses, 

 and one of the greatest antiquity (48.), is by cutting all the flower-shoots off when the buds begin to ap- 

 pear, or by rubbing off all the rudiments of shoots, of every kind, early in spring; a second crop is in 

 consequence produced, which will not be in a state to bloom before the autumn. 



6560. Forcing the rose. The best sorts for this purpose are the common and moss Pro- 

 vence; the Indian sorts force well, or rather, in stoves, continue in bloom all the year; hut 

 the commoner varieties of these not being fragrant, they are in less repute than the European 

 roses. Rose-plants should be a year in pots previously to the autumn when it is intended 

 to force them ; they should be planted in pots of six or eight inches' diameter, in rich 

 loam, and plunged in an open airy situation ; their flower-buds pinched off as they ap- 

 pear ; and the plants put early into a state of rest, by excluding the sun and rain, but 



