THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 27. 
126 
cut them hack according to their strength and the cha¬ 
racter of the wood. As a maximum height, say four 
feet; and as a minimum, two feet. If, for instance, 
there be four canes, leave one four feet; a second, 
three-and-a-half; a third, three; and the last, a little 
over two feet; this has been our practice for years, and 
finer crops cannot be. By this practice, the young 
shoots of the spring are equally developed all down the 
stakes, and not huddled all in a bunch,—a sure conse¬ 
quence when all are pruned to one height. 
11. Errington. 
THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Evergreen Climbing Eoses. —There are two ways 
of mailing the most of these beautiful Eoses, by which 
they look better than in any other way that I have ever 
yet seen tried. The first is, to begin them as pillar- 
roses, tying them up to iron posts seven feet high, 
standing in rows or in any other way ten feet apart. 
The posts may be, also, of good, old dried oak, or red 
deal, and painted either stone-colour or dark green. 
Then to have small iron chains, or stout rope, painted 
the same colour as the posts, to run from post to post, 
and to hang down in the middle between the posts in 
festoons, and to train the Eoses on them when they 
reached the top of the posts. A good new rope, if well 
painted three times before it is put up, or soon after 
fixing, before it gets any wet, will last a dozen or fifteen 
years, with only one coat of paint once in five or six 
years; indeed, I know where rope festoons have stood 
thirteen years without having received any paint at all 
after the first three coats at the time they were put up, 
and now, if the ropes were cut away to-morrow, the 
Eoses themselves would hold on and festoon between 
the posts just as well as if all the ropes and chains were 
renewed over again. If two or three years’ old stout 
healthy plants are put in against these posts or pillars, 
and the border is good, the shoots will reach the top 
about the middle of the growing season the second year 
after planting, if not before the end of the first growth. 
The best plan, however, in the long run, is to allow two 
seasons’ growth for covering the pillars, so that they be 
well furnished with shoots of different lengths, other¬ 
wise they will be liable to get naked at the bottom, 
unless the plants are allowed to form suckers, and that 
should be avoided, as much as possible, until the whole 
of the posts and festoons are well covered. At all 
events, we shall say that the shoots made in two seasons 
are pruned in to the size of the posts before the end of 
October the second year, and that they have three or 
four ties, but not very tight,—tarred twine is the best 
and most durable. There are two points in the manage¬ 
ment of all kinds of hardy climbers, these Eoses 
included, on which I wish to lay particular stress, and 
they are these :—As long as they are filling up the 
spaces intended for them they should be pruned each 
year, and no matter how long the shoots may be, two- 
thirds of their length should be pruned off. We may all 
differ on every other point of Eose culture without much 
harm, but there cannot be two opinions about the 
pruning and time of pruning young climbers among 
those whose opinions are worth listening to. Some 
young begiuners run away with the foolish idea that, if 
a climber has made shoots ten feet long a year or two 
after it is planted, it would be enough to cut off two 
feet or so, and that the allotcd space would thus be 
sooner filled, but that is altogether a mistaken notion. 
It is true, it would not be so bad lor Eoses as for most 
other climbers, because the slovenly mode of allowing 
suckers to come up to fill and hide the naked posts 
might be adopted to cure the evil; but our present aim 
is at first-rate management, with a first-rate class of rose 
climbers, brought down to the end of the second year’s 
growth, and pruned by the 10th of October, to the 
height of our pillars, six or seven feet; and we are, next 
year, to carry them in festoons from one pillar to 
another, and owing to the closeness of the times, we 
have not yet stretched the ropes to run them on, but 
any time next April will be quite time enough. Mean¬ 
time, we are to look out for ropes or for small-link 
chains, the latter are more easily managed, because they 
are easily fixed, by hanging the first and last link of 
each chain to a hook in each pillar. The top of the 
| pillar may be a round ball, or it may end in a sharp 
j point, or be of any fanciful shape, to please the eye of 
' the owner, and immediately under the top a hook must 
: be fastened on each side to hang these chains or ropes 
to. The easiest way is to have a small iron ring with a 
hook link attached, and to fix the ring in the post with a 
staple, but any other way will do as well, provided we 
fasten the ends of the festooned ropes, so as that- they 
can freely swing to and fro alter the roses are grown 
over them. To see these festoons in the blooming 
season covered with myriads of hanging blossoms, and 
swinging backwards and forwards with the wind, is one 
of the most beautiful sights in the garden. There is a 
whole collection of these climbing Eoses festooned in 
this manner, in one of the flower gardens at Shrubland 
Park, and nothing in the whole place used to be so 
much admired by ladies who saw them in bloom, and 
they called the festoons by all sorts of endearing names, 
“ living beauties,” “ fairy wreaths,” “ lovely garlands,” 
and fifty more names to the same effect. 
The next method alluded to, is to have Weeping Tree 
Roses, by budding these strong growers on stout stocks 
of the common Dog Piose from the hedges, and allowing 
their long pliable shoots to hang gracefully down on all 
sides until their tops sweep the ground all round. 
This is quite a new plan, introduced a few years since, 
by Mr. Eivers, the great Eose grower, and next to the 
festoon system is the most elegant way that can be 
adopted to show off then’ graceful habits. Many good 
Eose growers, who have only heard of this plan from 
common report, have gone away with the idea that very 
tall and very strong stocks were essential to carry out 
this system, but such is not by any means the case—if 
the stocks are healthy it is all that is needed, the enor¬ 
mous quantity of leaves that will come out in two or 
three years will make a stock, not stouter than a walking- 
stick, at budding times, so strong as to cany a very 
large head, and as to height, two feet are as good as six; 
for we must bear in mind that, although the long shoots 
must weep down to the ground by their own weight, 
after a while, they will not do so in the first instance, 
but shoot up as straight as an arrow from the bud the 
first year, just as you see a sucker coming up from the 
roots of an old stool. Any one in any part of this king¬ 
dom may have a large Weeping Tree Eose in a short 
time, by attending to the following simple rules:— Pro¬ 
cure young, liealtby Dog Eose stocks, two years old will 
do just as well as if they were as thick as one’s wrist, 
perhaps better; bud them from two to three feet from 
the ground in the usual way, with any or all the ever¬ 
green climbers which will appear in our list, and before 
the bud or buds start, place a stake five or six feet long 
against the stock, and to this tie the shoot from the bud 
as soon as it is a few inches long, and have an eye to 
the budded part all that season, to see that no more 
shoots s}>riug from it, as they are prone to do in these 
running kinds. When the one shoot reaches the top of 
the stake and is firmly secured there, it may have its 
own course for the rest of the season, and very likely it 
will bend over and get rubbed against the top of the 
stake, but that does not matter much, as it will have to 
be pruned in October lower than the top of the stake. 
At this first pruning, the length of the final stock, so 
to speak, may be determined on, up to near the top of 
