HINTS ON PRUNING ROSES. 
13 
succeeded most perfectly ; and any one who visits their nursery while the roses are 
in flower, will be struck with the superiority of plants of this description to those 
pruned according to the usual method. The following are its leading features. 
After a stock is budded, and the newly inserted buds have completed their first 
years growth, it is primed in the customary manner ; the same course is pursued 
for one or more years afterwards, till a sufficient number of branches are obtained 
to constitute a symmetrical head. When this preliminary stage is reached, only 
the points of the shoots are removed, and the remaining buds are all allowed to 
develop themselves. The only attention of this nature which the trees will 
subsequently need, is the occasional extraction of any redundant shoots, or the 
shortening of very exuberant ones. By the weight of the flowers and the lateral 
sprigs, the lower branches will soon assume a downward direction, and thus a fine 
drooping tree, with all the elegance of nature, under the restraint of artificial 
culture, will be readily procured. It should be remarked, however, that the very 
strong-growing varieties are not well adapted for this purpose. 
Climbing roses, whether they be best fitted for attaching to poles or training against 
walls, are nearly alike in their habits. Flowering, for the most part, from the ends 
of their shoots, it is obviously improper to shorten these. A simple thinning when 
they are too abundant, and a provident provision of healthy young stems to 
supplant the old ones after they have ceased to flower vigorously, will be quite 
sufficient to secure every desired advantage. Those of the shrubby sorts that are 
treated in this way, may be primed as their more humble congeners, except that 
the principal stems, and such laterals as are required to fill any vacant intervals, 
must not be stopped after the lower part of the wall or trellis is duly covered. 
China and Damask roses, with their manifold hybrid and seedling varieties, 
may be appropriately placed in juxtaposition with regard to pruning. To grow 
and flower these successfully, the knife must be very sparingly used. Their shoots 
are so particularly tender, and the amputation of these exposes such a large surface 
of unprotected pith, that they sometimes die the winter they are pruned, and the 
operation always facilitates their decay. It is merely useful to cut out the older 
stems as they assume a brownish- yellow appearance, not to suffer the others to grow 
too thickly, and give those that make very rapid progress the first season a trifling 
check by decapitating them. It is from the extremities of these, as well as of the 
climbing species, that the blossoms appear, which alone is enough to guide the 
culturist in the pruning process. 
It now remains that we lightly consider Scotch roses and sweet-briars, ( R. 
spinosissima and R. rubiginosa,) with their varieties, the former of which ;ire 
eminently worthy of regard. If the decaying wood is annually cleared out, and 
the largest suckers shortened, nothing more will be needed, either of pruning or 
any . other procedure. Like the two preceding tribes, they flower in terminal 
clusters, while they are more easily cultivated than any of their allies. We lately 
visited a suburban villa, where a collection of Scotch roses was planted in a bed of 
