THJi ROSE AND ITS CULTtTEE. 



up, and clothed with verdure and heauty at once. This 

 last is a wonderful point in their favour. No hedge 

 nor SL'rcou-plants, nor trees and shrubs, ever gi-ow so 

 slowly as those wanted at onco to screen out tho 

 east winds, or the prying eyes of inquisitive neigh- 

 hours. But a rookery may be built in a day, and 

 furnished on the morrow, that shaU for ever shut 

 out all such annoyances, and itself be converted 

 into a thing of beauty and a joy for ever into the 

 bargain. 



It is not only an effective but a substantial bai-rier. 

 A screen of leaves may be pushed aside, or fall at 

 the touch of winter, but the rockery abides, even 

 should its verdure and beauty fade ; its substance as 

 a screen and blind and shelter remains. The ladies 

 of tho house, oven invalids, can see or visit these 

 liome rockei'ios in all weathers ; and if well furnished 

 and skilfully managed, their clothing plants are ever 

 unfolding some new feature of interest and beauty ; 

 they never pall by their sameness nor weary through 

 their monotony. 



Rockeries may often form convenient connecting 

 links of interest and heauty between the garden and 

 stables, or other parts of the demesne. In conserva- 

 tories attached to the dwelling-house or dining- 

 room windows, they form the most effective furnishing 

 for the end or other wall in view of the window. In 

 larger houses, one end of the conservatory is often 

 connected with a rockery, clothed with fems and 

 other plants, through which a. passage may be led 

 into the external air, as is done with admirable taste 

 at AVolverstone Park, Suffolk. The outside fernery 

 there is on a cliff of the Orwell, a natural site 

 commanding almost every merit needful, and these 

 have been utilised to the utmost by the highest !U-t 

 and most cultured taste, the result being such as 

 is seldom or never met with elsewhere. 



Beware of climbers on rockeries, especially those 

 devoted to tlie culture of Alpine plants. A few 

 Ivies, Periwinkles, Clematis, Honej'^uckle, Vir- 

 ginian Creepers, &c., are so strikingly beautiful, 

 they clothe the rocks so rapidly ! Yes ; but they 

 Clippie and ruin most of the more delicate and rare 

 plants in the end. 



Do not be afraid of showing hare rook. This is 

 directly opposed to the ad^dce usually given, but 

 long experience confirms its soundness. The chief 

 feature of not a few of the most famous rockeries is 

 that no rock is visible ; this may be picturesque, 

 but it does not seem sensible. "\Miy go to great 

 expense in making, moving, and placing rocks; 

 and then hasten to cover up everj^ inch of surface, 

 and fill every nook or cranny with one or more 

 plants f The latter can be done as well, or better, 

 on mere g^und or banks of earth, with never a rock 

 at all. It is a glaring waste of force and time, as 



weU as an artistic blunder, to hide up all the rocks 

 with plants, uo they never so beautiful. 



Tho painter of landscapes never makes this mis- 

 take. In those in which rocks appear, they show up 

 boldly from the earth, and pierce high into the sky 

 as such. He never allows the Grape-vine or the 

 Ivy so to mantle them o'er as to conceal their cha- 

 racter or destroy their identity. The maker of 

 rockeries in gardens cannot do better than follow the 

 painter of landscapes in this respect. 



But neither must he fall into the opposite and 

 worse extreme of leaving an excess of rock obtru- 

 sively apparent. The plants must be the picture, the 

 rocks the frame to set these off to higher emd more 

 artistic purposes. As u, rule, the worse the rock- 

 work the more barren. This order should he re- 

 versed. The best thing that could happen to 

 eighty per cent, of rockeries would be to let the 

 plants cover up and hide their hideous structural de- 

 formities. But of the twenty, ten, or five per cent, 

 of good rockeries, a fair proportion of them will bear 

 looking at, alike on their own merits and also as 

 setting off to higher advantage the exquisitely beau- 

 tiful Alpine or other plants that nestle at their feet, 

 niin down showers of beauty over their rugged sides, 

 or cluster like golden and silvern gems in their tiny 

 crannies and crevices. 



THE ROSE AND ITS CULTURE. 



By D. T. Fish. 



PBUSING. 



THE pruning of Roses, though less severe than it 

 used to be, is far more complicated. Only 

 a few years since, the pruning of Roses was 

 as simple and easy as that of Gooseberries or 

 Currants. So soon after the fall of the leaf as 

 might be, the pruning was set about and com- 

 pleted; the times as weU as the modes were regu- 

 lar and monotonous in the extreme ; the knife 

 followed promptly the fall of the last leaf, and went 

 straight to within a single, or at the furthest, three 

 buds of the base of the shoots. A good deal of thought 

 and slvill were bestowed on the character of the 

 cut, whether it should he up or down, or side- ways, 

 at a long or acute angle, or as nearly straight across 

 the shoot as possible. But the time to prune 

 was irrevocably fixed by cultivators, and the 

 extent of it stereotyped by custom into an un- 

 alterable law. Close and severe pruning was also 

 all but imiversal, and the more plants were cut the 

 better they were supposed to thrive. All this is 

 mai-veUously changed now ; pruning, from being 

 almost whoUy a mere mechanical operation, has been 



