TEA-SCENTED ROSES. 



301 



when after a hard winter they have to start their growth afresh 

 from the base of the plant. 



No doubt the idea that the Teas are hopelessly tender has 

 been maintained by the fact that, owing to the habit of the plant 

 in always continuing to make fresh growth until brought to rest 

 by actual frost, the plants are often full of young sappy shoots 

 when the cold weather comes, and these, of course, are imme- 

 diately destroyed by a hard frost ; their destruction involves no 

 damage to the ripened wood, but their appearance, all blackened, 

 on the plants at pruning-time in the spring certainly might con- 

 duce to the mistaken impression that very little frost has been 

 sufficient to half kill the tree. 



Then, again, prior to the advent of the Manetti practically all 

 Eoses were grown as standards — a form of stock which un- 

 doubtedly does not conduce to the safety of the Teas in winter. 

 If the heads are fine, they are very liable to be broken down by 

 snow, or twisted off by a gale of wind ; if they are not fine, they 

 are not ornamental. And it is further to be noted that while, if 

 a dwarf Tea be killed to the ground-line, it will shoot up strongly 

 from the base in spring, and be a good plant again by midsummer ; 

 on the other hand, of a standard, if the part above ground be 

 killed, the plant is wholly destroyed. It is true that some growers 

 have defended standard Teas, and have even maintained that 

 they withstand a hard winter better than dwarfs, but such has 

 not been my own experience. I had a nice collection of standard 

 Teas once, but I lost the whole of them one winter ; and now I 

 hear of a friend in Norfolk who has lost nearly four hundred 

 during the past winter, so that I do not feel tempted to resume 

 the culture of standard Teas on a large scale. At the same time 

 it is only fair to say that standard Teas with large, well-grown 

 heads form very beautiful objects, and that they often produce 

 extremely fine flowers, which, from their position, are at any rate 

 secure from the fate (that sometimes overtakes blooms grown on 

 dwarf plants) of getting all splashed with mud after a heavy 

 shower. 



Having endeavoured to indicate the causes that have led to 

 the prevailing impression that the Tea-scented Roses are excep- 

 tionally tender, it now remains to point out the conditions under 

 which they may be successfully cultivated out-of-doors. It is 

 simply a question of proper stocks. On suitable stocks it is con- 



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