ON THE CULTURE OF ROSES. 



297 



time another honeysuckle close to the above-mentioned speci- 

 men. ,1 mention this evergreen tree with its honeysuckle to 

 prove that climbers or twiners will live and flower among the 

 spray of evergreen trees ; and further, to show that this is not a 

 new combination, I need only quote the couplet, 

 " Not a pine in my grove is there seen 

 But a woodbine entwines it around." 



Cottam and Hallen's cast-iron rose-stake may be regarded 

 as perhaps the most ornamental and economical dead prop 

 in use. This elegant stake I quote here, that I may compare 

 its cost with the price of those I am about to introduce, and 

 likewise that we may continue its services to prop the tiny 

 growing roses worked upon other rose-stems, in order to bring 

 them near the eye, so that ladies may closely examine the rose 

 without stooping, and without being tempted to pluck it ; for of 

 all the casualties to be guarded against, that of not leaving the 

 rose upon its stem until the flower has faded is the most import- 

 ant The price of this stake, six feet long, and strong in pro- 

 portion to its length, is said to be Is. 6^d. (Encyclopaedia of 

 Gardening.) The square heavy heart- of-oak stake, if sufficiently 

 strong to be durable, and well painted, will cost little less than 

 the iron one above quoted. The drawbacks to dead props are, 

 first, the necessity for continual painting, then rust in the iron 

 under ground, and rot in wood at the surface of the ground, the 

 too slender form of the iron stake, and the unnatural square 

 form of the wooden one, so much at variance with the nicely- 

 balanced and symmetrical proportions of live timber, whose 

 wooden trunks are never square like our wooden rose-prop, nei- 

 ther are they so fine drawn as the fashionable form of a standard 

 rose with an iron prop. 



The mountain-ash, when growing as a tree, is admirably suited 

 to prop a climbing rose. Its foliage is pinnate, and not to be 

 easily distinguished from the foliage of the rose ; the colour of 

 its trunk and that of the stem of the rose are the same ashy grey ; 

 in size, it is decidedly a small-growing tree ; in habit it is stiff 

 and formal, with spray full of antlers or little hooks, all tending 

 upwards, just as if Dame Nature had made a tree of pegs to 

 hang her rosy mantle on. Now the price of these living props, 

 three feet high, is three for a penny, and six feet high, 

 only a penny each. Good plants of mountain-ash were delivered 

 here, carriage paid, this season at 25s. per 1000, three feet high, 

 and larger sizes at Id. each, as I have stated. Now, lest any 

 one should imagine that I think of filling up a flower-garden 

 with mountain-ash trees, I must beg leave to state, that where 

 there is room for the rose-trees that I propose, there will be no 

 lack of space for the stakes or props, for they will be within the 



VOL. II. X 



