I 
128 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ June, 
Assuming that Pot-roses are required to flower in the month of May, before 
the roses appear out-of-doors, the plants should be pruned and introduced to 
gentle heat in February, slightly increasing the temperature from week to week, 
until a maximum of 60° by day and 50° by night be obtained. Syringing 
should be freely resorted to, morning and evening, in warm sunny days, and 
sparingly applied at other times. Clarified soot-water is highly valuable for 
this purpose. The house must be filled with tobacco-smoke from time to time, 
as the green-fly appears. Mildew, should it arise, must be kept in check by 
dusting the leaves with sulphur immediately after syringing. 
Roses when in pots, having but a limited area from which to draw their food, 
require a rich soil, and this should be supplemented, from the time the leaves are 
half-grown until the flowering is over, with constant doses of weak liquid manure. 
Roses in pots when growing and flowering can scarcely be over-watered, provided 
the pots be well drained, and the soil thoroughly porous. Two parts good fibrous 
strong loam, two parts well-decayed stable manure (the remains of a hot-bed), 
and one part drift or road sand, will form a capital soil for them. Crushed bones 
in small quantity may be added, as they form a permanent source of food, and 
increase the porosity of the soil. 
Plants grown in pots should be pruned much closer than those growing in 
the ground. In fact, with the exception of the Hybrid Bourbons and some few 
shy-blooming Hybrid Perpetuals, few shoots should be allowed to develop more 
than two eyes. These should be obtained from near the base of the shoot, not 
quite at the base, and these lower eyes if they develop should be rubbed out. 
The dormant eyes will quickly burst forth after pruning, and should be closely 
watched that the rose-grub may be destroyed, or the flowering will be irregular 
and unsatisfactory. Supernumerary buds should also be rubbed out in this early 
stage, especially if a moderate number of large handsome flowers is preferred to a 
larger number of small ones. As the shoots increase in length they should be 
tied out, each flower-bud having a separate stick to support the flower. Just 
before the plants come into bloom a thin shading should be drawn over or under 
the glass to protect the flowers from the sun, and the temperature may be slightly 
lowered to prolong the period of flowering. 
When the flowering is over, the Tea-scented Roses should be allowed to make 
their growth under glass, but the other kinds may be removed at once out-of-doors 
to some spot sheltered from the full sun and wind, that the foliage may be preserved 
in a healthy and perfect state. The Tea-scented may be removed to join them 
when the growth is finished and partially hardened, and the whole may be taken 
back to the house about the end of September, repotting then such as may 
require it. 
Although Roses in pots may be obtained finer in May than in any other 
month, yet they may be had very good in March and April. The same method 
of growth is followed in this case, but the plants should be brought to rest at an 
