122 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
May, 1919 
Roses in Minnesota. 
To have a really fine rose garden 
one must have at least a thorough 
working knowledge of the habits 
and requirements of roses. Soil, 
location and varieties, how to plant, 
prune, etc., are all important. 
Do not select a spot near trees or 
shrubs; have your bed or garden 
at least as far away as the height of 
the trees, as the roots spread as 
far as the branches, taking all the 
fertility from the ground. 
Sun is necessary, but it need not 
shine on the beds all day. If you 
have any choice, place your beds 
where the morning sun is slow to 
come, as the roses will then hold 
the dew and their freshness much 
longer. 
By the way, always pick roses as 
early in the morning as you can, 
while the dew is on them. 
The ideal soil is clay loam, a 
sticky kind of dirt that will let the 
water through. This soil will grow 
good roses but not the best. 
Do you want better roses? Add 
old cow manure and leaf mold, and 
mix well at least two weeks before 
planting, leaving the surface of the 
bed two inches lower than the 
gound to hold the rain. If you 
would have the very best roses, you 
must work, and this is what you 
must do : If your soil is not na- 
turally well drained, dig out your 
bed or trench to a depth of two and 
a half or three feet. Pill in the 
first six inches with coarse stone 
or broken brick and finer stones on 
top. The next six inches must be 
well rotted cow manure, on top of 
the stones, and then the top soil. 
When the land is well drained, be- 
gin with digging a trench two or 
three feet deep, and then fill in with 
six inches of manure, and then top 
soil. 
When the soil is loamy add yel- 
low clay (it gives the roses a deeper 
color), to make the ground more 
solid and hold the moisture ; also 
add to this kind of soil old cow 
manure, leaf mold and a little bone 
meal ; the latter will be in good con- 
dition for the roots to absorb in 
from thirty to sixty days, just when 
they are in full bloom. Mix all 
together and pulverize. 
Have you only a sandy place? 
Dig it out and fill the hole with a 
combination of clay, loam, leaf mold 
and old cow manure in equal parts. 
Thoroughly mix and make fine with 
the rake. Do this, too, when your 
beds are old. 
The soil around roses should be 
changed every five or six years. 
The bushes may be taken up early 
in the spring and the dirt changed. 
They really should be dug in the 
fall and buried, all but the tips. 
The bed should then be made new 
and allowed to freeze all winter, in 
this way killing many of the bugs. 
Care should be taken in selecting 
stock to have the graft not more 
than three inches from the roots, 
as this gives less chance for suck- 
ers. Suckers have seven leaves on 
each stem, and the wood is reddish 
and thorny. 
When planting, spread out the 
roots as much as possible, put the 
fine dirt over them and press in 
firmly with the foot. The graft 
should be about three inches below 
the surface of the ground. 
Hybrid perpetuals should be 
planted two or three feet apart, ac- 
cording to the space you have. Hy- 
brid teas one a half or two feet 
apart. When your bed is all 
p’anted, add one-half cup of air- 
s’aked lime to each plant and rake 
in well. Then prune, leaving the 
bushes not over two feet high, with 
about one inch of stem above Ihc 
last bud. When all is finished, 
cover the whole surface with about 
six inches of old cow manure and 
water well if the ground is not al- 
ready wet. 
Soot, wood ashes, nitrate of soda 
and a very little muriate of potash, 
are all good fertilizers for roses, 
but it would take lots of space to 
tell about them. If you do try to 
use them, do so with discretion. 
The most important thing of all 
is a thorough preparation of the 
soil. If you do this well in the be- 
ginning two-thirds of the work is 
over. 
For a small garden, the best 
twelve varieties for me have been : 
Hybrid Perpetuals — Mrs. John 
Laing, soft pink; Frau Karl 
Drusehki, large white; General 
Jack, red; Mad. Gabriel Luizet. sil- 
ver pink ; Marshall P. Wilder, 
cherry red; Clio, white .sometimes 
tinted pink ; Prince Camile Dc Ro- 
han, dark velvet red. 
Hybrid Teas — Killarne.v, a fine 
dear pink; Mad. Caroline Testout, 
salmon pink ; Kaizerine Augusta 
Victoria, creamy white ; Gross an 
Teplitz, velvety crimson; climbing: 
Dorothy Perkins, clusters of light 
pink. 
Madame Plantier is a hardy 
white June rose, very prolific and 
should be in every garden. There 
are so many beauties, it is hard to 
choose. 
The Hybrid Perpetuals are the 
most hardy, but do not bloom every 
month. The Hybrid Teas do, but 
need more care as to covering for 
the winter. 
The Cochet roses are all teas, but 
are worth having even if one has 
to replace them every year. 
I hate to talk about bugs and 
things, yet must just a little. The 
first tiling in the spring, before the 
leaves come out at all. spray the 
bushes with arsenate of lead one 
and a half ounces to five gallons of 
water, and then again when there 
