THE EOSE AND ITS CULTURE. 



15 



may be shortened "back one-third or so of their 

 entire length without causing serious injury to the 

 base-shoots by forcing them to break xsrematurely. 

 All the weakly shoots may also be removed, as 

 abeady advised, to admit more light and air to the 

 shoots left. These thinning processes not only enable 

 the shoots to resist the frost better, but keep their 

 buds longer dormant, for the riper the wood the less 

 susceptible the buds, and vice versa. 



Spring Pruning. — As the once-a-year flower- 

 ing Roses are disappearing rapidly before those 

 that flower twice or oftener, so autumn or winter 

 pruning is dying out among the Roses. The wide 

 difference in character and constitution necessitates 

 quite a different time of pruning. Were we to 

 prune Hybrid Perpetual, Tea, Xoisette, Bourbon, 

 and China Roses in the autumn, and in mild 

 winters almost without frost till the end of 

 February, the buds left for bloom would be from 

 four to six inches in length, and become tender food 

 for March frosts, instead of gems of beauty in the 

 garden next June. All this is much aggravated by 

 the dangerous excitability of the modern race of 

 Roses. The infusion of Indian and Chinese blood is 

 so great, its potency on constitution so marked, that 

 the best strains of modern Roses seem never at ab- 

 solute rest. Hardly has one flower faded when an- 

 other treads on its heels, nor one shoot ripened before 

 its buds break into fresh ones, and so on throughout 

 the season. Fresh developments may be suppressed 

 by cold, but the growth, frozen into inaction to-day, 

 is quickened into greater speed by the thawing and 

 quickening sunshine of to-morrow. 



All this complicates the time of pruning Roses so 

 much that the wisest and most experienced sttmd 

 and hold, as it were, knife in hand, longing yet 

 fearing to prune. The unpruned shoots burst into 

 gTowing shoots along almost their entire lengths ; the 

 waste of force and of time seems most extravagant. 

 But our hopes of success lie in those semi-dormant 

 buds at their base, and hence pruning is mostly 

 deferred until ]March, and for Teas, April or even 

 May. 



Those early-growing shoots are the rosarian's 

 safety-valves. They carry off the earliest and the 

 strongest current of life, and while it flows through 

 these, the base-buds sleep on and take their rest. 



And yet the late pruning is at best only a com- 

 promise, a choice of the lesser evil out of two. 

 Were it possible to be assured that no severe frosts 

 would come after February, Roses of most sorts 

 might be pruned in Xovember. But the winter 

 seems every year to come less and less in winter, 

 and then to make up for its absence it chases the 

 rosarian far into the summer. Hence, it is no 



uncommon thing to have Tea Roses blackened in 

 May. And, humiliating as it may appear, it must 

 nevertheless be admitted that the date of what is 

 caUed spring pruning must be largely determined 

 by that most capricious of aU potential elements 

 in horticulture — the weather. As nothing is certain 

 in regard to it, but that the most unexpected is 

 the most likely to occur, the best-laid schemes of 

 rosarians, as of other men, are often upset by it. 

 Un the whole, however, and in the average of seasons, 

 about the middle of March is the safest month to 

 prune all the Hybrid Perpetual Roses, leaving Teas 

 and tender Noisettes until April. 



"What Growth, shall the Pruner Cut to? 



- — This is a modern question arising out of the 

 character and conditions of the growth of modem 

 Roses. The majority of these make two growths 

 a year, the one ripening in June or July, the 

 other in September or October. The tendency of 

 this double growth is to remove the plant by 

 a compound process of extension very rapidly 

 from its base or starting-point, the root-stock, 

 or, in standards, the point of union of the scion 

 with the stock. One of the objects of priming 

 is to keep the jDlant, of whatever form, within 

 reasonable distance of its base. Distinctions in 

 the qualities of the flowers and of the shoots have 

 also been drawn between those produced on summer 

 and on autmmi-made wood. As a rule, however, it is 

 best for the future form and health of the tree to 

 cut boldly back to the summer wood {b, Fig. 33), as it 

 is called ; that is, the ripened shoots of the previous 

 spring. Were the opx^osite com-se adopted, and the 

 autumn shoot only pruned back to c, the probability 

 is that the major portion of the buds on the lower por- 

 tion of the shoot between a and h would remain dor- 

 mant. The Rose-tree would thus become thin at its 

 base, and soon have a lanky, scarecrow appearance. 

 There is another advantage in cutting back to the 

 summer-made wood. This being, on the whole, 

 more mature, and possibly partially emptied of its 

 fluids to produce the second shoot or shoots on its 

 crown, its buds are longer in breaking than those on 

 the younger shoot above it, and every day's delay in 

 the bursting of Rose-shoots in the spring gives an 

 additional chance of safety. The retarding of the 

 buds is, in fact, the chief vindication of spring 

 pruning. In pursuit of this object, the growing 

 buds on their extremities are allowed to run away 

 freely ^ath sap and growing force, and the pruner 

 refuses to use his knife until the advancing season 

 and the bm'sting buds at the base of the shoots 

 compel him. In pruning for bloom chiefly, there is 

 another safe rule of pretty general application, and 

 that is — prune to the best buds on the shoot, no 



