March, 1912. 



221 



HORTICULTURE. 



THE ROSARY. 



The Pruning of Roses. 



(Prom the Gardeners' Chronicle, No. 1, 

 303.— Vol. L., December 16, 1911.) 

 The N. R. S. have recently issued to 

 their members the third edition of the 

 Handbook on Pruning Roses, containing 

 directions for pruning some 1.200 to 

 1,300 varieties of Roses. The book follows 

 very much on the lines of its pre- 

 decessor?, and it is only necessary to 

 notice the modifications that have been 

 made in the present edition. In the 

 earlier instructions for pruning the 

 ordinary garden Roses, that is to say, 

 H. P.'s, H. T.'s, and Teas, the three illus- 

 trations showing the unpruned Rose 

 which appeared in former editions are 

 now generally omitted, no doubt with 

 the object of saving space, and in view 

 of the fact that in the illustrations show- 

 ing the pruned plant the parts that 

 have been cut off are shown in dotted 

 lines, so that the size and features of 

 the unpruned plant may be gathered 

 from them. 



The drawings illustrating the instruc- 

 tions for pruning, instead of facing the 

 instruction to which they relate, are 

 now collected together in pairs, so that 

 each of the pair faces the other ; the 

 pair of illustrations in most cases re- 

 presenting the different ways of pruning 

 the same Rose for exhibition and garden 

 purposes. The advantage of this alter- 

 ation is not, at first sight, very obvious. 

 It would seem generally more con- 

 venient to have the instruction placed 

 opposite the drawing illustrating it, but, 

 probably, the object may have been to 

 bring into sharper contrast and accen- 

 tuate the difference between pruning 

 for exhibition and for garden purposes. 



The book now contains two very clear 

 drawings showing how to prune dwarf 

 Tea Roses. In the previous editions, 

 the only drawings illustrating the prun- 

 ing of dwarf or bush Roses had probably 

 been taken entirely from hybrid per- 

 petuals, and many members had found 

 themselves at a loss when they tried to 

 apply the methods shown in drawings 

 which illustrated the rather stiff and 

 upright habit of these varieties to the 

 Roses of a more spreading and branching 

 habit of growth, such as is generally 

 found to be the ease among the Tea 

 Roses. The illustrations, now inserted 

 in the Pruning Book, show how to deal 

 with Roses of this branching type. 



The instructions for pruning the 

 summer flowering, climbing Roses con- 



tained in the Multiflora scandens and 

 Wichuraiana groups have been entirely 

 revised and rewritten (see Instructions 

 XXV. and XXXV.), and as these are 

 both clear and concise, there should be 

 little difficulty in following them, or in 

 understanding the reasons for the oper- 

 ations suggested. The directions as to 

 the time of pruning especially in the 

 case of the Wichuraianas, raises a 

 question of some interest, which is, 

 perhaps, scarcely yet settled. At the 

 head of the instruction we find : " Prune 

 as soon as possible after flowering them 

 well over " ; while later on it is stated : 

 " The Pruning. . . . may be done as 

 soon as the flowering is over, and should 

 be completed by the autumn or early 

 winter." Now, nearly all the Wichurai- 

 anas have finished flowering by the 

 middle or end of August, and some 

 earlier, and admitting that the pruning 

 of these Roses ought to be completed 

 before the spring growth commenced, 

 the problem is whether it is better to 

 prune in August or early winter, say 

 about Christmas time. The advantages 

 of August pruning are, first, that we 

 allow the young growths on which we 

 are to depend for flowers next year all 

 the sun and air they can get for ripening 

 the wood, second, that we are able to 

 get rid of the loose, surplus growth of 

 summer, and make pillar or pergola neat 

 and tidy in the autumn garden, and, 

 third, that we have probably pleasanter 

 weather for performing the operation. 

 The disadvantages of August pruning, 

 which operate in favour of deferring the 

 operation till Christmas, are that we 

 suddenly cut off, in August, an enormous 

 mass of foliage which must cause a 

 check to the nutrition of the plant ; we 

 miss the chance of obtaining the occas- 

 ional autumn flowers which, in some 

 seasons, may be intermittently produced 

 up to Christmas (it is curious that in 

 the autum following the hot summer of 

 1911 we seem, at least in some places, to 

 have less of this intermittent autumn 

 flowering than is usually the case), and, 

 what is, perhaps, more important than 

 anything else, we lose the rich autumnal 

 effect produced by many Roses of this 

 class, Dorothy Perkins s for example, 

 when the loliage darkens and begins to 

 turn a russet-red in the autumn frosts. 

 It is quite likely that not only do we 

 want further experiment and observation 

 to settle the question, but also that the 

 one method may be best for one position 

 or use to which the Rose is put, and the 

 other for other positions and uses, 



