266 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



make a ■beginning with small plants and carry them 

 through their difierent stages in pots. In this way 

 the plants get used to it, and the roots adapt them- 

 selves to this mode of culture before any heavy 

 demands are made upon their tops. 



The size of pots must be determined by the 

 size of the plants. In all cases, however, it is well 

 to start with pots as small as the roots can be fairly 

 got into, and to advance tentatively as the roots 

 need more room. Over-potting is also a sure and 

 certain cause of failure. Neither do pot Koses ever 

 look better than in eight or ten-inch pots, though of 

 course much larger ones are often used for exhibition 

 or other purposes. The most interesting exhibition 

 of Tea Roses ever seen by the writer were a collec- 

 tion in eight-inch pots, fresh and perfect in foliage 

 and in bud, and each with from six to a dozen ex- 

 panded blooms. 



The pots must be dean and deep, and if made 

 rather deeper in proportion to the -width than the 

 usual run of garden pots, so much the better. 

 The drainage may also be less bulkj' than is given 

 for most plants. An inch drainage for six, eight, or 

 ten-inch pots should suffice. The draining material 

 should also be nutritious as well as porous. An 

 oyster-shell 'over the hole, with a layer of smashed 

 charcoal that has been soaked in manure-water, 

 or of half-inch bones, the whole surfaced with a 

 thin layer of horn or hoof-shavings, to form a 

 barrier between the drainage and the BoU, is the 

 very beau ideal of a porous and feeding drainage 

 for Roses iu pots. A dash of soot over all would 

 place a bitter enemy to worms at the point that 

 would most effectually prevent their ingress. 



Time of Potting.— If potted up from the open 

 ground, the best time is October or November, the 

 former month being the best for this purpose if the 

 Roses after potting can be placed in a semi-shaded 

 house or pit, and kept close and moist for a few days 

 till the roots get a fresh grip of the soil, and the 

 leaves are thus enabled to renew their functions, and 

 assist the roots in completing the maturity of the wood, 

 and thus establishing them in their new root-runs in 

 pots. Unless this care can be given, Roses had better 

 not bo potted up tiU November. In any case, after 

 potting and establishing the hardier Roses, such as 

 Perpetuals, should be plunged, say, three inches over 

 the rirns of the pots in a sheltered place in the open 

 air. The object of this deep plunging is two-fold — to 

 protect the pots and also the roots from the frost, as 

 it breaks the first, and chills and paralyses the latter. 



Tea and other sensitive Roses must not be kept in 

 the open air after potting, but should be nurtured in 

 any frost-proof glass structure. Neither must the 

 first potting-up of Roses from the open be confounded 



with the shifting of Roses in pots into larger ones as 

 the roots need more space. The latter may be done 

 at almost any season, April or July being perhaps the 

 best months for the purpose. No Roses in pots, how- 

 ever, should be shifted into larger pots within two or 

 more months of the time of blooming, and it is espe- 

 cially desirable to bear this in mind in regard to 

 forced Roses, as injudicious or untimely shifting 

 not seldom sends these into growth, to the weakening 

 and injury of the blooms 



Potting-up of Roses for Special Purposes. 



The foregoiag remarks are hardly applicable here. 



No one who grows many Perpetual or Tea Roses iu the 

 open air, but must have tried at times to save their 

 late shows of buds and bloom from the winter frosts 

 by placing them in pots, and moving the latter under 

 glass to flower. "With such care as already described 

 for potting-up plants in October, this can be done, 

 and a welcome supply of Roses thus simply secured, 

 by the aid of a pit or conservatory throughout the 

 winter months. As the purpose here is temporary — 

 that is, the finishing of the development of the 

 buds into blossoms — it is important that the roots, 

 should be disturbed as little as possible. Hence the 

 pots may be larger, or even boxes or baskets may be 

 employed, and three to six Roses, with their roots as 

 nearly intact as possible in balls of earth, be placed 

 in each. 



Soil for Roses in Pots. — Most cultivators 

 have said that it cannot well be too rich. It by nO' 

 means follows, however, that the richest soil is the 

 best. The vital point in the pot-culture of Roses i» 

 the multiplication of roots, not the concentration of 

 food into limited areas. The last can be done in 

 many ways ; the first only or chiefly by the use of 

 a root-multiplying soil. The half-and-half of strong 

 loam and stronger night-soil, so often prescribed for 

 Roses in pots, certainly does not stimulate the pro- 

 duction of roots. The following, however, is a root- 

 stimulating mixture, that can be relied on to grow 

 Roses in pots most successfully: — One part good 

 turfy loam, a second part composed of equal portions 

 thoroughly decomposed farmyard manure and leaf- 

 mould, and a sixth part of the whole of a mixture 

 of equal portions of charred earth or charcoal refuse, 

 sand, bone-dust, or inch bones. If all this can be 

 mixed together six or twelve months before wanted, 

 and be turned over and well incorporated, say three 

 times, before use, it will be aU the better. Composts 

 are often used too fresh, for roots never feed on such, 

 a certain stage of mellowness or decomposition being 

 essential to enable the roots to absorb the plant-food 

 that may be in the compost. Such composts are 

 more useful, however, for multiplying than feeding 



