Tea Roses at Overcross 
Some years ago in planning my rose-garden a friend's advice was : 
" Plant nothing but Hybrid Teas. You will have pleasure and beauty 
in your garden all summer and will lose only a few more than the 
Perpetuals. A hundred new ones each year will replace the ones 
killed by winter." I followed her advice and have never regretted it, 
for we have roses from June until late in the fall — and though, at 
first, it meant buying a hundred each year, though the actual loss 
was not so great, it was still very high, the last two I have bought only 
a dozen plants of a choice or rare variety. 
The last two years I have tried a new method, with such success 
that the loss has been trifling. The winter of 19 14-15, though mild, 
was very hard on roses, owing to constant thawing and freezing 
again; yet out of over five hundred "Teas" my loss was four. 
1915— 16 was very severe. As late as March 18th the thermometer 
registered eight degrees below zero, yet my loss was only nine roses, 
two of which were Standards. 
The method is this : The bushes are not pruned in the fall, except 
the suckers cut off. The tops are left on and tied up as usual in straw. 
Manure is well worked into the soil and some left around the roots. 
Then the bed is filled to above the bud with sawdust, about three or 
four inches deep. Cedar boughs are laid slanting on each side of the 
bed, with one on top to form a roof beam, and we are ready for the 
heaviest storm or cold. For the melting ice and snow falls from the 
slanting cedar roof on to the sawdust floor and is absorbed and held 
from freezing close to the bud. 
In the spring the covering is removed gradually, the wet sawdust 
is taken out as much as possible with a hoe or rake, care being used not 
to disturb the earth beneath. The rest is left to dry out by the sun, 
and then a broom sweeps the remainder away. 
The beds are well worked with a light coating of lime, the bushes 
well pruned to about a foot above the ground, a good feeding of bone- 
meal and humus, in the proportion of half and half, is given the beds 
and then commences the constant watchfulness for rose-bugs. As 
soon as the wealth of June bloom is over the beds are again given a 
feeding of bone-meal and humus. This is repeated about every month 
or six weeks all summer. About August 1st the bushes are again cut 
back, but not severely, to prepare for another glory in September. 
To have success with roses, three things are necessary, loose, well- 
raked soil, spraying and feeding. You are saying "What about 
watering?" With a loose soil and the use of humus, which tends to 
