THE COTTAGE GARDENER. October ] 3. 
dates for them, together with bearing on other portions 
of a garden establishment, for it is a question not to be 
settled in the abstract alone. So many demands exist 
for on increase of glass in most gardens, that whoever 
builds structures for fruits will speedily find other can¬ 
didates at his elbow seeking admission, although only 
as temporary residents. R. Erkington. 
PILLAR ROSES. 
Ever since I described the extraordinary specimens 
of Pillar Roses at Bank Grove, near Kingston, and 
learned myself, from the living facts before me, bow 
Pillar Roses ought to be begun, carried on, and finished 
in perfection, I felt both the necessity of spreading a 
knowledge of the whole process among amateurs, and 
that I should be called on to do so when the time of 
planting and pruning came round ; so that I have been 
repeating or rehearsing to myself, for the last two or 
three months, the substance of this communication, but 
without anticipating the rise of the curtain so early in 
the season ; and if I am too early, the first glance from 
behind the curtain must be my only apology and excuse, 
and that glance revealed a stag’s head with “ branching 
horns,” and this motto all round, Labor omnia vincit , 
which, in the instance before us, means that diligence 
will overcome all difficulties about Pillar Roses and 
other things. Under this motto are three initial letters, 
and the person they represent begins by saying, “ I have 
a Pillar Rose, Blairii, No. 2. It is eight feet high. 
Last year it was covered with bloom. This year it 
bloomed only at the top. This Rose is now (Sept. 28) 
almost leafless; the long branches are thin and scraggy; 
there is not a leaf as high as I can reach, but at the top 
it is green enough. It had no summer-pruning, nor any 
manure that I know of since it was planted. Can you 
tell me what is the matter with it, and what I ought to 
do with it?” There is no question at all as to what is 
the matter with it, neither is there much difficulty about 
a decision as to what ought to be done with it. 
Whether the late Sir John Broughton, or his gardener, 
was the first person who thought of growing Pillar 
Roses, or whether the Roses formed by them into pillars 
are the oldest Pillar Roses in the world, or not, I cannot 
make out, but I am almost sure there are now more 
Pillar Roses at Bank Grove, in the highest degree of 
perfection, than can be found in any other garden of 
equal extent in any part of the globe. 
Now, when we take into consideration that no treatise, 
nor oven the most commonplace directions, were in 
print for many years after these Roses were being 
formed into pillars, it is not to be wondered at to find 
one or two (only so many) failures in the then unex¬ 
ampled experiment, and the most conspicuous of the 
two failures is No. 2, Blairii, a magnificent tree, rather 
than a pillar, full sixteen feet high; but now the first 
ten feet from the bottom are rather scanty of wood. 
I recollect, as if it were but yesterday, going over to 
the Clapton Nursery, to see Mr Low, on the evening of 
the passing of the Catholic Relief Bill in the House of 
Lords, and there met Mr. Blair, who was then gardener 
in that neighbourhood, and who told us of his success 
in raising a much better Rose than the one called after 
him. This is our Blairii, No. 2, and I should suppose 
that Sir John Broughton would havo planted it either 
in the autumn of 1831, or in the spring of 1832. From 
these dates, it is open to any one to correct my state¬ 
ments, if I am wrong about the want of a guide for 
making Pillar Roses before the passing of the Reform 
Bill. 
There must be something peculiar in the habit of 
Blairii No. 2, when it so far deceived the gardeners at 
Bank Grove as to become leggy, after they managed to 
get up the common Moss Rose to eleven feet high on 
its own roots, and clothed to the very grass with abun¬ 
dance of flowering shoots in the utmost health, and 
that, too, in a garden with the natural soil as poor and 
sandy as any in this kingdom. When a really good 
Rose “ comes out,” more especially in those days, they 
could not afford to make cuttings of it; every bud must 
tell for a plant; and so it was that this plant was worked 
on the Dog Rose, and that alone accounts for the naked¬ 
ness complained of. This Rose is naturally more vigo¬ 
rous than the Dog Rose ; but, for the first seven years 
after planting, the stock and the head progressed more 
on an equality than they have done since. The roots 
of the Dog Rose, by this time, reached the outside of 
the bed, and stuck into a moist, sandy bottom, and the 
head drew more, or would have drawn more, sap, if it 
could, than roots in such unfavourable circumstances 
could gather and send up. The head soon told the tale 
about the poor soil below; the gardener took the hint, 
root-pruned, and enlarged the bed for a fresh start; by 
this time the equality or equilibrium between the roots 
and the head was gone, and, like all trained trees,— 
whether they be Rose-trees, or Pear-trees, or any other 
trees,—the topmost shoots came the strongest, and the 
more strong they, the weaker those at the bottom be¬ 
came, till at last there is hardly such a thing as a 
healthy shoot as high as one can reach. The Peach¬ 
tree, trained against a wall, is the next best exemplifi¬ 
cation of this condition of things. 
When we want a fine specimen of a Portugal Laurel, 
or Laurustinus, or of a pyramidal fruit-tree, as a Pear or 
Apple, we must begin, and always continue, to allow 
the bottom tier of branches to be the longest, and every 
successive tier above that must be a little shorter than 
the one below it; as long as this goes on, it matters 
not it the top is so high that a swallow could not fly 
over it, it will never get top-heavy, and the top shoots 
can never starve the bottom ones by over suction. It 
is not exactly on this very plan that Pillar Roses are 
brought up in perfection, but the principle is just the 
same: the strongest part of the Pillar Rose, or of the 
specimen plant or tree, must always be the bottom part. 
Roses, in general, and particularly those of them that 
are naturally best fitted for being made into pillars, have 
that kind of habit which is easiest to manage and mould 
into the form of a pillar than into any other form what¬ 
ever, that is, their habit of throwing up strong suckers 
from the collar of the plant, so that we should always 
have more wood at the bottom than we needed, instead 
of bare wood, were it not that such Roses are budded 
and made to grow on other roots than their own, thus 
depriving them, in a great measure, of their natural 
propensity of throwing up suckers. According to our 
present mode, the suckers must come from the Dog Rose 
collar, and these we must battle against; instead of their 
coming in so handy as they would do, were they natural 
suckers to that particular Pillar Rose, we are compelled 
to witness the nakedness at the bottom become more 
naked, year after year, and still are obliged to rub off 
suckers as fast as they rise ; surely, then, we are not yet 
on the best road to easy success with Blairii, No. 2, and 
many more such Roses. Let us, therefore, turn to a 
new leaf, and from this season never plant another Rose 
which is intended for a pillar, except it be on its own 
roots, and not budded on any other stock whatever. 
Ten feet is a good height for most of the strong Pillar 
Roses; and when we have the proof of the practice 
before our eyes, in that several varieties of the Moss 
Rose are higher than ten feet on their own roots, and 
also that Moss Roses require the very best soil, we need 
not doubt for one moment that all and every one of the 
Hybrid Chinas and Hybrid perpetuals, above the me¬ 
dium-sized kinds, as Duchess of Sutherland, will do for 
