S4 THE FAEM. 



Beware how you prune any of the above. — They may be made to climb 

 up trees like the honeysnckle. 



Of the Prairie Rose or Bramble-Leared Rose — -K. ruUfoUa — from North 

 America, the best perhaps is the queen of the prairies ; but florists 

 apologize for them, by stating that " the group is in its infancy.'' 



Tlie fianksian Roses — R. Banksice — from China, white and yellow va- 

 rieties, are half-hardy climbers, which must have plenty of space to 

 ramble over, and a sheltered situation. If kept in bounds with the 

 knife, they will only make the more wood and won't flower. Dead 

 wood and irregular shoots must be rectified with finger and thumb. In 

 all the Banksias, the blossoms are very small, in clusters, and very fra- 

 grant. ■ Were they hardy, they might be budded on the tallest procur- 

 able stocks, to make trees of the magnitude of the weeping-ash. For 

 instance, at Toulon, there is a white Banksia which, in 1842, covered a 

 wall seventy-five feet broad and eighteen feet high ; when in ful flower, 

 from April to May, there were not less than from 50,000 to 60,000 

 flowers on it. At Caserta, near Naples, there is another plant of the 

 same variety, which has climbed to the top of a poplar-tree sixty feet 

 high. And at Goodrent, near Reading, there is a yellow Banksia which, 

 in 1847, produced above two thousand trusses of flowers, with from six 

 to nine expanded roses on each truss. 



TJie Many-Uowered Roses — R. multiflora — ^from Japan and China, are 

 very pleasing climbers, with numerous clusters of small flowers, of shades 

 often changing and fading in the same cluster, from full pink to white. 

 Unfortunately their hardihood is not to be depended on, and they can 

 only be trusted as conservatory plants here, or to be budded and grown 

 as standards in large pots. Beautiful varieties are Grevillei or the seven 

 sisters, Laure Devoust, rubra, elegans, and alba, which will make a 

 grateful return for whatever protection it may be thought fit to bestow 

 upon them. 



All roses to do themselves justice must have a rich soil ; many are 

 even gross feeders. The hardier and more robust kinds do well in deep 

 alluvial loams, and will not object to heavy clayey land if well manured, 

 and not too wet and cold. The Chinas, and many of the hybrids, when 

 on their own roots, must have a lighter, warmer, better-drained soil, 

 with a considerable proportion of sand and rotten animal and vegetable 

 remains. In theory, all roses may be propagated by cuttings ; in prac- 

 tice, non-professional gardeners find certain kinds, such as the mosses, 

 the Provence, and the cabbage-yellow, of a difficulty which approaches 

 the impossible. Many hybrids, the Bourbons, the Chinas, the noisettes, 

 and others, strike readily, especially if assisted by a hand-light and 

 bottom-heat. Species like the cabbage-yellow, which will neither bud 

 nor strike well, must be increased by layers, the shoot being " tongued." 



Tlie Siberian Crab. — This shrub is by some esteemed for its fruit, of 

 which they make a conserve — more, I imagine, to gratify the sight than 

 to gratify the palate. But, as a tall shrub, it yields, for the time, to very 

 few. There is the red-blossomed and the white-blossomed. The 

 branches of both, when in bloom, present ropes of flowers, while the 

 trunk, the limbs, the branches, and the leaves, are all delicate in form 

 and in hue. 



