Summer Flowers From May Planting 



WHAT TO DO TO HAVE FLOWERS AFTER THE ANNUALS HAVE STOPPED BLOOMING — 

 OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE BEGINNER WHOSE GARDEN WAS NOT STARTED EARLY IN SPRING 



I — Bedding Rose Plants 

 By A. Kruhm, Ohio 



FEW flowers are easier to 

 grow than roses, and yet 

 roses are grown with less 

 success by the average 

 amateur gardener than any other 

 flowers. If we keep on trying, 

 it is simply because no other flowering plant 

 can fill the rose's place, since roses offer us 

 better rewards in fragrance and flowering 

 beauty than any other plants. 



Although a gardener by training, I am 

 just as much an amateur when it comes to 

 roses as the majority of readers of The 

 Garden Magazine. I became interested 

 in the small mailing size rose plants on own- 

 roots last year and it seems to me that it 

 has a distinct place as summer bedding 

 plant and that it is worth attention quite 

 apart from the ever present controversy as 

 to whether a variety does best on its own 

 roots or budded. The claim I wish to make 

 now is on account of the convenience of 

 those little rose plants which can be set 

 out in the beds at the time when other bed- 

 ding plants are put out and which will then 

 continue to give a good crop of flowers, 

 although perhaps not growing to any great 

 height through the summer. 



The properly grown own-root rose is 

 just as healthy in itself as a wild briar 

 and the opportunity it offers for late 

 comers into the country to plant a rose 

 garden for a small price is not to be ne- 

 glected. You can plant these little roses, 

 as I did, in July and have flowers the same 

 season. I would regard them entirely as 

 bedding plants and put them in the same 

 category as other summer bedders, and I 

 am not at all anxious in my own case that 

 these plants should be carried over during 



Rooted plants as they are ready for potting up for winter 



As the rose plants are packed for mailing 



the winter to start growth again the follow- 

 ing season. They're cheap enough at the 

 price to be regarded as temporary material 

 and I am perfectly satisfied with one sea- 

 son's growth 

 and the results 

 that I get in 

 that time. 



On several 

 different occas- 

 ions last year I 

 brought back 

 with me from 

 the place where 

 they had been raised 

 different lots of these 

 little own-root rose plants, and even 

 in late July a few were packed into a 

 box and treated just exactly as 

 though they were to be mailed (only 

 I carried them home myself) and 

 here is an interesting experience: 



The box containing the plants was left on 

 my desk for more than a week and the weath- 

 er last July, as is usual in most Julys, was 

 hot. When the box was finally opened the 

 little rose plants were set out in pots. Less 

 than a week later they had started growth, 

 were moving along thriftily and before fall 

 some of them bloomed on a window sill that 

 only saw four hours of sunshine each day. 



Take another experience, this time late 

 in October. I bought the plants shown in 

 the first illustration on this page and they 

 remained packed until the third day be- 

 cause there was insufficient light before 

 that time to enable me to make a photo- 

 graph. This work attended to, however, 

 the box was placed on the window sill and 

 two days later, when I went to look for 

 it, had disappeared. Freezing weather set 

 in and I forgot all about the plants. A week 

 later the box was picked up behind some 

 boards in the yard and for my own satis- 

 faction they were mailed back to the 

 grower. The little plants were taken out 

 and put into pots and grown under glass 

 and in February of this year when I looked 

 at them they were just as rugged and 

 healthy as their companions who had never 

 left the greenhouse. I submit that what 

 these plants may lack in size they make 

 up in general ruggedness and in the fact 

 that they can be planted late in the season 

 long after the other kind of plant is in full 

 growth and cannot be procured for the late 

 beginner in garden work. 



The propagation of these plants is inter- 

 esting. Large establishments are given up 

 to the raising of these little plants, the prop- 

 agation being done constantly throughout 



245 



the year just whenever the parent 

 plants produce the shoot that can 

 be taken for propagation. The 

 parent plants are kept in growing 

 condition all through the winter. 

 Then in springtime as the sun 

 climbs and the temperature in the 

 house cannot be kept down in 

 spite of ventilation, the young 

 shoot — the "rose wood" of the prop- 

 agator — is developed. People who make 

 a specialty of growing these own-root 

 mailing roses have developed an intimate 

 acquaintance with the peculiarities of the 

 various kinds which enables them to realize 

 just when is the best time to start propa- 

 gating each variety, and let me tell you 

 that there are great differences among the 

 varieties. This is one of the things whereon 

 we cannot generalize. Of the 500 and more 

 varieties that can be had on own-roots 

 there are peculiarities, more or less marked, 

 to practically every one and the skilled 

 propagator asserts that a difference of 

 twenty-four hours is a factor to be reckoned 

 with as controlling the degree of success. 

 Even such a short time as that, it is claimed, 

 will make the wood on certain kinds hard- 

 ened to such an extent that it becones unfit 

 for cuttings. The bulk of the propagation, 

 however, is done between March and May 

 but is continued more or less into August 

 and even to some degree all through the 

 year. 



The entire routine of propagation can 

 be told in the words of an expert propa- 

 gator as follows: — 



In January, both dormant budded roses imported 

 from Europe (new varieties) and own-root roses of 

 standard varieties are planted in cool houses, kept 

 at a temperature of from 38 to 40 degrees. They 

 do not make any top growth in this temperature, 

 which is maintained for one month, but there is 

 plenty of root action. During the month of Feb- 

 ruary the temperature gradually is increased in the 



A bed of cutting 



six week? after plan tins 



