802 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tended that Tea Roses are, in the South of England at any rate, 

 and in many parts of Scotland, practically hardy plants ; not in 

 the sense that the wood is not liable to injury from frost, but 

 that, even when in winter the whole wood of the plants is killed 

 to the ground-line, the plants will nevertheless in the spring 

 throw up shoots from the base with such vigour and rapidity 

 that they will still be in bloom before the Hybrid Perpetuals, and 

 make fine plants again before autumn. During the past winter 

 the whole of my collection of Tea Roses, numbering some thou- 

 sand plants, was left entirely unprotected beyond the mulching 

 of manure which all the Rose-beds get in November— no fern or 

 straw being placed among the branches of the plants ; and though 

 nearly all the wood of the plants was killed to the ground-line, 

 less than a score of plants were killed outright, and the rest are 

 shooting strongly from the base and are already making good- 

 looking plants again. 



I have alluded to the protection of the plants with fern in 

 hard weather ; but, as a matter of fact, I am not at all convinced 

 of the efficacy of bracken-fronds, as ordinarily employed, in pre- 

 serving Rose-shoots from severe frost. In the winter of 1886-7 

 I left a bed of several hundred of dwarf Teas, planted on somewhat 

 strong ground in an exposed situation, without artificial protection 

 of any kind, having neither bracken among their tops nor a 

 mulching upon the surface of the bed. Under these conditions 

 the plants passed through the whole winter, during which on 

 two successive nights the registered temperature four feet from 

 the ground was 7° Fahr., or 25 degrees of frost, but the only 

 variety of which some plants were killed was Madame Bravy ; 

 and at pruning time no appreciable difference could be found in 

 the state of these exposed plants and in that of the rest of the 

 collection which had been carefully protected with an abundance 

 of fern, of which therefore the utility seems rather doubtful ; for 

 in a mild winter a wrapping of bracken-fronds is not only 

 unnecessary, but may be even harmful, while as a protection 

 from severe frost it does not appear efficacious. 



The point, however, is not very material in view of the fact 

 that unprotected dwarf Teas, even after exposure to 30 degrees 

 of frost (or a temperature of 2° Fahr.) in an exceptional winter 

 like the past, to say nothing of that of 1886-7, are alive and 

 flourishing, and already (June 23) coming finely into flower. 



