THE ROSE AXD ITS CULTUEE. 



9 



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

 last is a wonderful jDoint in their favour. No hedge 

 nor screen-plants, nor trees and shruhs, ever grow so 

 slowly as those wanted at once to screen out the 

 east winds, or the prying- eyes of inquisitive neigh- 

 hours. But a rockery may be huilt in a day, and 

 furnished on the morrow, that shall for ever shut 

 out all such annoyances, and itself he converted 

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

 hargain. 



It is not only an effective hut a suhstantial harrier. 

 A screen of leaves may he pushed aside, or faU at 

 the touch of winter, hut the rockery abides, even 

 should its verdure and beauty fade ; its suhstance as 

 ■a screen and hlind and shelter remains. The ladies 

 of the house, even invalids, can see or visit these 

 home rockeries in all weathers ; and if well furnished 

 and skilfully managed, their clothing plants are ever 

 unfolding some new feature of interest and heauty ; 

 they never pall by their sameness nor weary through 

 their monotony. 



Rockeries may often form convenient connecting- 

 links of interest and beauty hetween the garden and 

 stahles, 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 rockerj^, clothed with ferns and 

 other plants, through which a passage may be led 

 into the external air, as is done with admirahle taste 

 at Wolverstone 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 art 

 and most cultured taste, the result being such as 

 is seldom or never met with elsewhere. 



Beware of climhers on rockeries, especially those 

 devoted to the culture of Alpine plants. A few 

 Ivies, Periwinkles, Clematis, Honeysuckle, Vir- 

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

 they clothe the rocks so rapidly ! Yes ; but they 

 cripple and ruin most of the more delicate and rare 

 plants in the end. 



Do not he afraid of showing hare rock. This is 

 directly opposed to the advice 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 visihle ; this may be picturesque, 

 hut it does not seem sensihle. Why go to great 

 expense in making, moving, and placing rocks, 

 and then hasten to cover up every inch of surface, 

 and fill every nook or cranny with one or more 

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

 on meie ground or banks of earth, with never a rock 

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



well as an artistic hlunder, to hide up all the rocks 

 with plants, he they never so beautiful. 



The painter of landscapes never makes this mis- 

 take. In those in which rocks appear, they show u]) 

 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 he the picture, the 

 rocks the frame to set these off to higher and more 

 artistic purposes. As a 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, 

 rain down showers of beauty over their rugged sides, 

 or cluster like golden and silvern gems in their tiny 

 crannies and crevices. 



THE EOSE AND ITS CULTUEE. 



By D. T. Fish. 



PRUNING. 



THE pruning of Eoses, though less severe than it 

 used to be, is far more complicated. Only 

 a few years since, the pruning of Eoses was 

 as simj)le 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 well 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 skill were bestowed on the character of the 

 cut, whether it should be 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 universal, and the more plants were cut the 

 better they were supposed to thrive. All this is 

 marvellously changed now ; pruning, from being 

 almost v/holly a mere mechanical operation, has been 



