10 THE ROSE BOOK 



that the pill be swallowed, but— I have a lump of sugar 

 to take the nasty taste away. 



The beginner must not plant climbing roses only : 

 he must also fill the beds and border with bush or dwarf 

 roses. While the former are making lusty stems for 

 next year's blossoming, the latter will burst, not only 

 to leaf, but to bewitching buds and wide-open flowers. 

 This severe pruning is a lot to ask, it is true, but even 

 if the roses are not pruned at all, the first season's show 

 of blossom wiU be disappointing. And two big hopes 

 frustrated in one year must surely make for despair ! 

 How far better to suffer the disappointment occasioned 

 by an absence of bloom and experience the compensating 

 pleasure of vigorous growth, which brings with it the 

 assurance of a future flower show. 



There is thus nothing intricate about the first pruning 

 of wichuraianas. It is the work of five minutes to cut 

 down the stems, but it takes much longer to make up 

 one's mind that this is the right and proper thing to do. 

 There are gardeners, I know, who have such faith in 

 the accommodating nature of wichuraiana roses as to 

 leave them practically unpruned after planting, merely 

 cutting out those shoots that are obviously useless — 

 those, for instance, that have shrivelled and shrunk in 

 sympathy with the root disturbance, I concede that 

 if one may follow this practice at all it is with the 

 wichmraianas. I am even free to confess that if the trees 

 were planted early in autumn, and are sprouting freely 

 in March, and are well suited as to soil, the practice 

 scarcely needs any apology. But, after all, the material 



