252 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 1913 



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AVOURITE FLO 



from the BEAUTIFUL 

 OLD-FASHIONED 



GARDENS 



ofENGLAND 



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KELWAY'S famous Hardy 

 Herbaceous Plants are modern 

 developments of the old English 

 favourites. The cottage " Piny 

 Rose " has become the Pasony, 

 incomparable in form, colour and fra- 

 grance. The old-fashioned Larkspur 

 has developed into the stately blooms of 

 the Delphiniums ; Gaillar- 

 dias, Pyrethrums and the 

 rest, all serve to bring back 

 the charm of the old-world 

 English garden. Special 

 care is taken in packing 

 plants to arrive in America 

 in good order, and they can 

 be relied upon to thrive with 

 a minimum of attention. 



Full particulars and illustra- 

 tions given in the Kelway 

 Manual of Horticulture 

 mailed free on request to 



KELWAY & SON 



141-145 West 36th St., N. Y. City 



n Kelways Perennials 



:'. J for 



i American Gardens 



As; 



Wk& 



^S'-. 



Direct from 



KELWAY&SON 



The Royal Horticulturists 

 tANGPORT ENGLAND 



Send — now — for a 

 copy of the Kelway 

 Book Free — and make 

 your Qarden glorious. 



How I Grew a Rose Bush from 

 a Slip 



A FEW years ago a prominent boy's magazine 

 announced a competition, in which a prize 

 was offered to the boy contributing the best article 

 on his own experience in growing roses. When the 

 prize winners were announced, the editor in a short 

 note stated that a certain manuscript had really 

 been the winning essay, but that the award had 

 not been made to its author because he had stated 

 that he had grown roses from slips which, said the 

 editor, was manifestly impossible. I had never 

 heard before that the growing of roses from slips 

 was impossible and was convinced that it could be 

 done. 



One day, while visiting a friend, I happened to 

 see on his dining-room table a vase full of magnifi- 

 cent pink roses, with stems fully three feet in 

 length. I asked permission to take some slips and 

 having received it, I cut off several about a foot in 

 length. These I carried home with me and placed 

 in a glass of water where they remained for several 

 days. 



I discovered an old starch box in the basement 

 which I filled with fine clean sand. Sand, I was 

 aware, had but a poor reputation for fertility, but 

 I knew it would absorb a great deal of moisture. 

 With a sharp knife I cut off squarely one end of 

 each slip; at the other I made a long diagonal cut 

 so as to expose as much of the heart-wood as 

 possible. Having wet the sand in the box before- 

 hand, I now inserted the sharp ends of the cuttings 

 to a depth of about four inches. Then I took a 

 stick and packed the sand about them as tightly 

 as possible, and set the box in front of a window 

 having a southern exposure through which the sun 

 shone for the greater part of the day. 



Every morning and afternoon thereafter I moist- 

 ened the sand, applying as much water as it would 

 absorb. After each wetting I packed the sand 

 down tightly about the stems. After two weeks 

 the upper ends of the stems began to brown and 

 die, but the lower portions remained green. For a 

 little over four weeks I was assiduous in my care 

 of the slips, and then one morning I pulled them 

 out of the sand, and found to my delight that roots 

 had already begun to sprout and were over an inch 

 in length. The roots seemed to have come out 

 around the edges of the cutting, between the bark 

 and the heartwood. 



It was the middle of March when the slips were 

 started and the first week in May when I trans- 

 planted each individual cutting to a separate flower 

 pot. I filled each flower pot with a rich black 

 loam mixed with about one third sand, the sand 

 to keep the rich soil from being too heavy and 

 sticky when wet. In transplanting I kept a ball of 

 sand around the roots and perhaps for this reason 

 the growth of the roses was not in the least retarded, 

 nor did they show any signs of a temporary wilting. 

 For a month or two after placing them in the pots 

 all three roses grew and began to assume the 

 appearance of real rose bushes. Then some sort 

 of a disease seemed to affect two of them, and, in 

 spite of my efforts to save them, they died. The 

 other one I transplanted into the garden, in the 

 pot, about the middle of June. This one flourished 

 remarkably and one morning, the latter part of 

 July, I found upon examining it the beginning of a 

 rose bud. 



After this first attempt I made a good many 

 experiments, not only with roses but also with 

 carnations. The latter, for some reason, I found 



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