12 
HINTS ON PRUNING ROSES. 
Therefore, if the shoots were wounded, there would be a weakening flow of fluids 
from the part exposed. Now, if these shrubs are dressed in the present month, 
the frosts of January will have in a great measure paralysed the exertion of any 
vital energy, and there will be scarcely any unnecessary exhaustion occasioned. 
We particularly deprecate the practice of pruning in sj)ring, as the sap is then 
always drawn towards the extremities of the branches, and when these are taken 
off, the lower buds are found deplorably enervated. And though it is asserted that 
roses pruned in winter often have their cut shoots destroyed by frost, we have 
never seen those of the hard- wooded kinds injured below the nearest bud. 
So far as the employment of the knife is concerned, roses may be separated 
into six classes. We shall very cursorily notice each of these. By far the largest 
division is that which includes the innumerable varieties of R. Gallica. Any 
neglect in pruning these, though only for a single year, is attended with the worst 
consequences ; — a sad deterioration in the figure and perfectness of the flowers, and 
a general inferiority in the wood subsequently produced. These roses must be 
carefully as well as closely pruned, from the very commencement of their existence. 
Whether propagated by suckers or layers, (the latter of which are to be preferred, 
because the check caused by layering helps to induce a free-flowering state,) the 
first shoots should be decollated to within six, nine, or twelve, inches of the ground, 
and all the succeeding suckers annually reduced to the same height. This is an 
established principle, and ought not to be departed from ; for nothing diminishes 
the beauty of dwarf roses more than tall rambling stems. In every following 
year, a still more rigorous system must be pursued. Each new shoot should be 
shortened to about three inches, always bisecting it immediately above a bud. 
After one bush has bloomed three or four successive summers, and the original 
stems are becoming old, a stock of young plants should be })rovided from layers, 
and the old specimens destroyed. We recommend this practice both because roses 
speedily exhaust the soil, and require removing periodically, and likewise on 
account of their disposition to spread too widely, to which we may add the decided 
inferiority of the flowers borne by suckers. It is the only way of retaining any 
sort in its pristine loveliness. 
We will next advert to standard roses, which are confessedly among the greatest 
attractions of a garden, if properly pruned. The common custom is to trim them 
yet more closely than dwarfs ; every shoot being yearly cut away to the lowest 
two or three buds. A round dense head is thus maintained, though, in our 
judgment, at the expense of all real beauty. They assimilate too much in appear- 
ance to the old evergreens of former centuries, the disfigurement of which has now 
most justly fallen into desuetude. In short, they are too formal, rigid, and 
unnatural. 
In the nursery of Messrs. Young, Epsom, we first saw an attempt to alter the 
old mode, and impart to standard roses that air of gracefulness which is so desirable 
an accompaniment of the superlative and proverbial beauty of their blossoms. It 
