SENSITIVENESS OF CULTIVATED ROSES. 



527 



ments, which is the delight it takes during its growing period in a mode- 

 rately cool and humid atmosphere. 



Although there are few outdoor plants so quickly influenced for ill 

 by unfavourable atmospheric changes, yet, on the other hand, it must be 

 acknowledged that there are few plants which have such splendid recu- 

 perative powers, and which so quickly recover to a greater or less extent 

 from the injuries inflicted on them as the Rose. So that although 

 a really good Rose year is very rarely experienced, yet it very seldom 

 happens but that at some time or other in the flowering season, though 

 it may be only for a short period, a large number of fine and well-formed 

 Roses can be gathered even during the most unpropitious of summers. 



I will now touch briefly upon one of the atmospheric conditions 

 affecting Roses, and that is temperature — the most potent factor of all. 

 During the winter months moderate uniform cold is the best suited to the 

 requirements of Rose plants, as it allows them along period of rest, which 

 is so desirable at that season without inflicting any serious injuries upon 

 their shoots ; whereas in a really severe winter much damage is often 

 done, particularly if the frost attacks the plants suddenly and after a 

 spell of unseasonably mild weather. On the other hand, great mildness is 

 undesirable, as the plants are deprived of that complete repose which all 

 deciduous shrubs require at some period or other of the year. It also 

 renders them more susceptible to injury should any frosty weather set in 

 at the end of the winter. In hot and dry climates this rest is obtained 

 in the height of summer, but in our higher latitudes in the depth of 

 winter. In my opinion all dwarf Roses are benefited by the surrounding 

 soil being drawn over their crowns in the late autumn to the height of a 

 few inches. When so treated, although the shoots may be destroyed to 

 the level of the earthing- up, the rest of the plant will in nearly every 

 case remain efficiently protected. 



So far the cultivator can, with a little care, safeguard his favourites. 

 But from the time they start into growth in the spring they must be 

 regarded as practically at the mercy of the elements. Late spring frosts 

 are greatly to be dreaded. Often in a single night many of the 

 promising young growths are destroyed altogether, or the plants receive 

 such a check from the cold that a large number of the shoots become 

 blind, and the flowers which are spared are often ill-shaped, and conse- 

 quently worth ess to the exhibitor. 



The greatest trial of all, however — and it is not an unfrequent one — 

 occurs when the plants have passed through the spring months uninjured 

 only to fall victims to a spell of exceptionally cold and dry weather in 

 June, when the buds are just formed. This is, indeed, a trying experi- 

 ence. It is like an angler who, having hooked and successfully played an 

 unusually fine trout, has the keen disappointment of seeing it break away 

 through some unforeseen circumstance at the very moment when the 

 landing-net is about to be put under it. 



The following particulars may prove of interest, as they clearly 

 show the marked variability of seasons as well as their surprising un- 

 certainty : — 



In fifteen of the twenty-five years over which my records extend, the 

 wood of the principal shoots of my Rose-plants had become well ripened 



