THE FLORIST. 
203 
To the right is a steep bank, which we will notice in detail, as our 
readers may perhaps have some site requiring the same treatment. 
Mr. Rivers explained that, previously to the lowering of the road, 
this bank was about twenty-five yards in width, sloping gradually to 
the road, and was laid out in beds of spring-flowering bulbs; for 
many of which it was very favourable, the subsoil being a white 
clay. When the alteration in the road took place, a piece was taken 
from the front of the bank, reducing it to twelve or fifteen yards 
wide, and making the slope very sharp—say, perhaps, at an angle of 
40°. This was too steep for cultivation ; so it was determined to 
make it a bank of Climbing Roses, which are planted thus-wise : on 
the top or ridge is a row of Ayrshire, Sempervirens, and Boursault 
Roses, planted six feet apart in a straight line; these are trained to 
stout larch-poles, about seven feet in height, and the terminal shoots 
all left unpruned to descend as nature dictates; they thus form 
weeping Pillar Roses. Mr. R. calls them “ Fountain Roses/ 5 because 
each shoot looks, in the blooming season, like a stream of Roses 
reaching to the ground. The effect of these “Fountain Roses” is 
most admirable : but we have not yet finished our bank. In front 
of these Pillars, on the steep slope, is a row of Climbing Roses, va¬ 
rieties of Sempervirens and Ayrshire, worked on short, stout stems, 
from two to two-and-a-half feet in height. These are never pruned ; 
and from spreading, drooping heads, mushroom-like in shape, the 
ends of the shoots rest on the ground. The head of one very fine 
plant of Felicite Perpetuelle measures ten feet in diameter. These 
“ Parasol Roses,” as Mr. R. terms them, were all covered with 
flowers. In front of these again, in the steepest part of the bank, 
Climbing Roses are planted irregularly, about three feet apart, and 
suffered to ramble where they please: these were also a sheet of 
blossom ; and the effect from the road of this bank of Roses was 
beyond any thing we have ever seen. Climbing Roses are planted 
by Mr. Rivers in every corner requiring embellishment; and, as he 
justly observes, their application is not yet half understood. 
Our attention was next drawn to the Standard Climbing Roses, 
some specimens of which are really magnificent trees, measuring 
from eight to nine inches in girth, five feet from the ground; the 
Ayrshires and Sempervirens only w T ere in full bloom, the Boursaults 
were nearly over. 
Mr. R. informed us that the three families form a regular succes¬ 
sion : the first to give their flowers are the Boursaults, Amadis, or 
Crimson and Gracilis; then follow the Ayrshires, Ruga, Splendens, 
Bennet’s seedling or Thoresbyana, and Dundee Rambler; the Sem¬ 
pervirens, Myrianth.es, Princesse Marie (one of the most beautiful), 
Princesse Louise, and Rampante, succeed, and continue in bloom 
from a month to six weeks—indeed, they are the most graceful and 
enduring of all. Nothing can be imagined more beautiful than these 
weeping Rose-trees, none of which have ever been touched with the 
knife. 
Passing over the collection of fruit-trees, and hardy trees and 
shrubs, cultivated to a great extent (as the nursery spreads over 
