THE FLORIST. 
171 
STRAY THOUGHTS ON ROSES. 
For some time past, those beautiful Roses distinguished as Hybrid 
Perpetuals” have been gradually rising in the esteem of all Rose 
lovers; but this is a crowning season of favour, for they have proved 
to be not only the latest, but the earliest of all Roses. On the 14th 
of May last, I gathered a fine bouquet of flowers from the open bor¬ 
ders of the following sorts : Baronne Prevost, Madame LafFay, Wil¬ 
liam Jesse, and Duchess of Sutherland. These, and many others, 
have been in full bloom ever since that period. How pleasant is it 
to reflect, that these are not, as is the case with our summer Roses, 
the beauties of a day: in August, September, and even in November, 
we may have Roses in abundance. A rich soil and a warm climate 
is, however, necessary for very late flowers. In the North of England, 
I have often seen them with abundance of buds in autumn, which had 
not opened, on account of the cold and stormy weather. In the Mid¬ 
land Counties, and in the South and West, they will give their flowers 
in profusion under the most simple culture. Plant them in a richly 
manured soil, give them abundance of liquid manure all the summer, 
and be sure and shorten every blooming shoot, as soon as its flowers 
have faded, to within three or four buds of its base. 
My Roses of this group were this season, as mentioned above, 
most remarkably early. The season, of course, had something to do 
with it, but the management of the plants, entirely the result of acci¬ 
dent, accelerated their blooming at least ten days or a fortnight; let 
me, then, tell, in as few words as possible, how I have ascertained 
the best mode of producing very early Hybrid Perpetual Roses in the 
open air. In April 1847, after our long and severe winter, I found 
some dwarf plants of Hybrid Perpetual Roses of nearly all the leading 
sorts left on hand; these were planted out towards the end of the 
month, and pruned quite close. Owing to the dry summer, they 
made very short-jointed shoots, and were in autumn, for the most 
part, dwarf compact bushes. Under the usual course, these plants 
would have been cut in quite closely in March 1848, but they were 
forgotten till they were in full leaf. Observing their flower-buds to 
be in a very forward state, I determined to let them remain untouched. 
They came into flower in the middle of May, and have bloomed most 
beautifully. Plants of the same varieties, pruned in the usual way 
early in March, commenced to bloom about the 8th or 10th of June; 
thus giving a difference of more than three weeks between plants 
pruned in spring, as usual, and those not pruned. 
Now for a method of bringing this into practice. To have early 
Roses, we must not think of removing our plants every season; how, 
then, is it to be brought about, this new non-pruning system } Sim¬ 
ply thus. Early in September, shorten all the strong and robust 
shoots of those Hybrid Perpetual Roses which you wish to bloom 
early to within six or eight buds of their base; they will then, in the 
course of the autumn, push forth laterals, the growth of which will 
