THE HOSE AND ITS CULTUKE. 



263 



is speciaily greedy of water, and the roots of Roses 

 under glass will seldom or ever be at restl It is 

 also easy to withhold water when desirable on 

 cultural or other grounds, such as retarding and 

 ripening growth, &c. 



Soil for Hoses under Glass.— The best, 

 most permanent, and most fruitful for healthy wood, 

 and a continuous supply of bloom through a sei-ies 

 of years, is turfy loam, with a tendency to clay 

 rather than sand. This, chopped into small pieces, 

 and intermixed with a few bushels of charcoal or 

 smashed bones, is the best of all soil for Rose 

 borders under glass. Its porosity and sweetness 

 encourage fibrous and free rooting if anything will. 

 Many add a third or so of faiTuyard or other manure 

 to it. This encourages gross roots and wood, and 

 breaks down the texture of the loam with great 

 rapidity. Free-growing Koses, such as Marechal 

 Niel, will make shoots of from six to ten feet a year 

 in the loam pure and simple. 



Time and Manner of Planting. — ^This 

 matters little under glass, more especially as most 

 of the Koses are likely to be turned out of pots. 

 The transference should be thorough as well as care- 

 ful. Merely to turn a Rose, or other plant, out of a 

 pot, and place it in the border, is but very partially 

 to plant it out. The roots learning the revolutionar j- 

 motion in the pots, imless carefully disentangled 

 or released, continue to practise it long after their 

 removal. 



Modes of Training. — These may be as varied 

 under glass as in the open air, and all the systems 

 practised outside may be practised with more success 

 in-doors, as here the Roses are safe against climatic 

 accidents, which sadly cut into and destroy our much- 

 valued forms and shapes of Roses in the open air. 

 Climbers and sia-ong-growing Roses should mostly 

 have larger liberty under glass. Such Roses as the 

 Marechal Niel make shoots of ten or twentj- feet in 

 length, and these break into flowering trusses at 

 every eye the following summer. It is a wanton 

 waste of vital force, as well as of Roses, to cut such 

 shoots back to any serious extent. Bending down 

 the shoots, or twisting them round, as is often done 

 witn Grape-vines, is the best means of forcing the 

 fine shoots to break out into Rose-trusses from base 

 to summit. 



As to bush (standard and pyramidal) Roses, con- 

 siderable looseness of form and freedom of growth is 

 most pleasing and profitable under glass. 



Pruning. — This may be more frequent under 

 gla^ than in the open. It may also be performed 



when it seems best for the plants, as under glass 

 it is not necessary to control pruning operations 

 by calculating a game of chance with the weather. 

 Under such favourable conditions the best time to 

 prune is immediately after any and every crop of 

 Roses. Cut promptly, and come again for another 

 crop of Roses, and when these fade, cut again, and so 

 on ; the frequent prunings being in fact the key that 

 opens the rich storehouse of harvests of sweet Roses 

 in perpetuity. 



Modes of Pruning.— These are, or ought to 

 be, as varied as the Roses grown. Nothing could 

 weU be more unpMlosophical or suicidal than the 

 laying down of any hard and fast line, as to long 

 or short pruning. Only practice, experience, and 

 following the lead of each plant can determine 

 this point. Hence, the more flexible the mode of 

 pruning the better, so long as it is based on the vital 

 principle of pruning for bloom, and making sure 

 that you get it. As a general rule, cut in the 

 blooming shoots to three or even six eyes of their 

 base the moment the bloom fades. With Marechal 

 Niel and other Roses of like character, remove the 

 flowering shoots and lay in fresh annually. Where 

 this is impracticable, good results may be achieved by 

 spurring in the flowering shoots closely, as in the 

 Vine. 



Pruning for strength or regeneration is widely 

 different to pruning for bloom chiefly or only, and 

 may for a time hmit the supply of bloom. Such 

 pruning consists in the bodily removal of all wesikly 

 and exhausted shoots, with a ■\'iew of forcing forth 

 younger and more vigorous ones as close to the root- 

 stock, or base, of the Rose-bush as possible. 



If the principle here laid down is accepted, no set 

 time can be laid down for pruning: in fact, the 

 pruning will become almost as continuous as the 

 blooming. Not only will different Roses be pruned 

 at different times, but even different branches of the 

 same Rose, each Rose and shoot being in fact pruned 

 when the local Rose harvest is gathered. General 

 overhauling with the knife may be given, but the very 

 key-stone to success in gathering Roses every day in 

 the year consists in pruning also every day in the 

 year ; for incessant growth, and a constant supply of 

 bloom, are the complementary results of perpetual 

 pruning. 



Temperature. — The amount, manner, 'and time 

 of pruning, as well as of blooming, are largely 

 controlled by temperature. The latter should be 

 sufficient to convert all the Roses under glass 

 into perpetual growers and bloomers. Constitu- 

 tion, habit, &c., thvrart this consummation, so de- 

 voutly to be wished in many cases. The Marechal 



