October 13. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
23 
I 
Pillar Roses much easier, aucl in a worse soil, than any 
of the Mosses, if they are on their own roots. 
It is more from prejudice, and for the mere con¬ 
venience of the dealers in Roses, that Roses are budded 
at all; at any rate, it is not from any good budding 
can possibly be to the Rose itself, unless, perhaps, to the 
very weakest; and what is more strange than all, the 
weakest Roses, and those of most tender constitutions, 
as some Chinas, and Tea Roses, are left to shift on their 
own roots entirely. If I was young again, and with my 
present experience, I would make up my mind never again 
to plant any Rose whatever, except standard Roses, but 
on its own roots. I would then get rid of all the bother 
and disappointment caused by unsuitable stocks, and 
want, or supposed want, of Rose soils. All our best 
Pillar Roses ought certainly to be propagated from 
cuttings and layers, instead of from buds, but they 
never will, in a regular way of business, until the public 
have sufficient time to prove that many Roses can 
hardly be made into decent pillars, after the first few 
years, and that, under all circumstances, it is far more 
difficult to manage a worked Rose pillar, than one on its 
own root. 
This settled, let us now suppose a case in whicli a 
gentleman has bought or built a new house, the garden, 
and all the rest of the land being also new to planting, 
i and that he read of the splendid Pillar Roses at Bank 
Grove, in Thf. Cottage Gardener; if he has any taste 
at all for gardening, and if he has not, let us hope he is 
not married, he would surely wish to have one Pillar 
Rose, if only one, but having heard that Blairii No. 2, 
one of the finest for pillars, is so apt to get bare below, 
and turn shabby, after a few years, he would wish for it, 
but still fears the trouble, and much more the dis¬ 
appointment, and makes up his mind for Coupe d'Hebe, 
or Madame Laffay, or some such easy-to-manage kind. 
Here The Cottage Gardener steps in, and thinks, if 
he can make it out, as plain as can be, that Blairii No. 2 
can be so managed, that nothing but sheer inattention 
to the simplest rule can cause any one to fail with it, 
all other Pillar Roses may be taken in band with a 
certainty. It is more than likely, that any of the large 
growers can supply plants of this Rose from cuttings, as 
it comes from cuttings in the spring as easily as a 
Verbena, that is, if the old plant is forced, and cuttings 
made of the young shoots; at all events, we must have 
a good, healthy, young plant of it, on its own roots, to 
begin the pillar, and good fresh loam, with a spadeful or 
two of solid rotten dung to plant it in, and then we 
must prune it on the close system, down to three or 
four eyes, and water it occasionally through the first 
summer. 
It is at the next pruning, this time next year, that 
one is apt to make the first mistake with it. Iam per¬ 
suaded that Pillar Roses ought certainly to be pruned 
for the first six or seven years, by the end of October, 
; unless the season is very mild indeed, such as we had 
this time last year. In that case, the end of November, 
or any time before the new year, would be early enough 
i for the pruning. We shall take it for granted, that our 
young Pillar Rose made three shoots the first season, 
i one of them being stronger than the other two put 
! together, and considering that the form is to be that of 
a pillar, nothing seems more natural than that the 
j strongest shoot should be cut down to one-half its 
length—say to three feet, as a foundation to the pillar, 
and that the other two were cut to within a few inches 
of the bottom, to make sure of a succession of wood, 
and that plan would do very well with a great number 
of Roses, but not with Blairii, and a few others that are 
equally strong; so sure as you are alive, if that Rose 
was cut so at that age, or at any time during the first 
ten years, so sure the attempt to make a fine balanced 
pillar of it would fail, the strong shoot would keep the 
lead, and get stronger and stronger every year, and the 
young idea might be thinking, all the time, that nothing 
could be more promising, but by-and-by, the bottom 
begins to get bare of shoots and leaves, ancl the tale ends 
like that of our correspondent’s. 
There is not an amateur out of a score who could 
explain the first mistake of cutting the strongest shoot 
to three feet only, which was the sole and entire cause 
of the present failure. An experienced Rose grower can 
see it at once. If this Rose gets away in the head while 
the plant is young, it is not disposed to make suckers in 
after years, therefore it must be a very great mistake to 
allow it, while it is young, to make one shoot stronger 
than another; but the first year that could not be helped; 
at the second pruning, instead of leaving the strongest 
shoot three feet long, it ought to have been cut down to 
six inches, and the two weaker ones, instead of being 
cut into a few buds, ought to have been left at half their 
length; just the very opposite of what we supposed 
would be the case, and that which is done in nine cases 
out of ten. Trees and bushes, however, which arc trained 
for particular purposes, and into particular forms, must 
be managed and set off at first rather by particular 
modes of pruning than by any fanciful training; and 
here is an example—the weaker shoots of this Rose are 
left longer than the stronger one, in order to get three, 
four, or five shoots direct from the bottom, and each of 
them of as near the same strength as possible. 
Thus, in one small sentence, we have the whole art 
and mystery of keeping Pillar Roses in health and 
beauty for an indefinite period explained ; get a certain 
number of shoots from the very bottom, not less than 
three, and it is only bad management, or very bad soil 
and late spring frosts, that can ever do them much harm 
afterwards. But, with the best management, and under 
favourable circumstances, some of these strong Roses 
have already failed under the more ordinary practice of 
the gardener, therefore it is not now necessary to repeat 
the experiment to prove the fact. Very many of the 
best Pillar Roses throw up such a quantity of suckers, 
if they are grown on their own roots, that the difficulty 
is to know how to dispose of them for the first few years; 
yet, to such as do not thoroughly understand the rules 
for pruning different Roses, I would advise the plan of 
not allowing any Rose intended for a pillar to grow up 
with one strong stem in the middle, but always with five 
shoots, if possible, of the same strength; and after that, 
whenever a shoot much stronger than the rest appears, 
instead of encouraging it on, and making use of it as a 
centre, it ought to be stopped before it gets more than a 
foot or eighteen inches long. I would insist on this rule, 
particularly after reaching the height of seven feet. It 
is just as treacherous to allow robbers above that height 
in a Pillar Rose, as it’would be at the top of a full-spread¬ 
ing Peach; and we all recollect the earnestness with 
which Mr. Errington bids us to be careful of them 
whenever or wheresoever they may appear in fruit trees. 
To sum up in a few words—Use strong, young plants 
on their own roots for Pillar Roses; prune them the 
first two years, so as to encourage a few healthy and ; 
equally strong shoots from the very bottom; continue 
at least three shoots of equal length for a centre, the 
other shoots to be cut to different lengths, to keep up a 
succession of young wood, and form the outline of the 
pillar; never allow one shoot to get much stronger than 
the average strength of the principals or centre shoots ; 
never attempt to get up a Pillar Rose with only one 
shoot for a centre, until you have mastered the mysteries 
of the art of pruning ; and never lose sight of the fact, 
that all the pruning in the world will not save a few 
Roses from ultimate failure, if they are first brought up j 
with only one strong shoot in the centre, and Blairii 
No. 2 is one of them. Hybrid Chinas, and all other 
summer Roses, ought to have the principal pruning for 
