SENSITIVENESS OF CULTIVATED ROSES. 



THE SENSITIVENESS OF CULTIVATED ROSES TO 

 CHANGES OF WEATHER. 



By Edward Mawley, Hon. Sec. N.R.S. 



For the last twenty-five years I have contributed to the " Rosarian's 

 Year Book" (ably edited throughout that period by my recent colleague 

 of the National Rose Society, the Rev. H. Honywood D'ombrain) an 

 article entitled the " Weather of the Past Rose Year." In that series of 

 articles I have endeavoured to trace the influence of the various atmo- 

 spheric changes which occurred in the different seasons of each year upon 

 the Roses growing in my own garden. Had these Roses been grown for 

 ordinary garden decoration, the effect of favourable and also of adverse 

 weather conditions upon them might not have been so keenly noted ; 

 but as they were cultivated with much care for exhibition purposes, the 

 influence of every change upon the size and form of the individual flowers 

 and upon the growth of the plants themselves could not very well escape 

 detection. The general conclusion at which I have arrived is that there 

 is no plant largely grown in this country which is so greatly at the mercy 

 of the weather as our " exhibition " Rose. So powerful and insidious are 

 the attacks of the elements upon it that human skill can do but little to 

 resist them when once the plants have started into growth. Such at 

 least has been my experience. Indeed, the very measures taken to protect 

 such delicately constituted outdoor plants as our cultivated Roses will 

 sometimes increase the very ills they were intended to counteract, and 

 even produce evils which they might have escaped altogether had no such 

 measures been adopted. 



Against all other enemies the skilled rosarian comes fully armed at 

 every point of attack, but only let adverse weather conditions set in and 

 he has to confess himself altogether powerless. " I only wish her 

 majesty the queen of flowers were less at the mercy of seasons," wrote 

 many years ago an ardent amateur rosarian, and I am afraid her 

 majesty is still as much at the mercy of the seasons as she ever was. 



There are, no doubt, several causes why the Rose should be so suscep- 

 tible to weather changes, but most of these may be summed up in the 

 consideration that our cultivated Roses are, after all, only half-hardy 

 shrubs. Could we only obtain a race of really hardy varieties, our diffi- 

 culties would in a great measure disappear, and doubtless, as well, our 

 absorbing interest in Rose culture. As an example of a perfectly hardy 

 Rose I may instance a large plant of ' Bennett's Seedling ' which not 

 only covers the porch of my house and a large wall space above it, but, 

 turning the north angle of the building, has found its way round to 

 the kitchen window and over the back door. This splendid plant, 

 although it receives no attention whatever beyond fastening-in occasion- 

 ally some of its most vigorous shoots, appears entirely uninfluenced by 

 weather of any kind. It has passed through the most cruel winters alto- 

 gether unharmed ; spring frosts have no effect upon it at all, while it 



