July 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
177 
taking up too much room. Therefore, although I 
never attempted to cultivate climbing roses as low 
bushes in pots, I can easily understand how the 
Yellow Banksian, already referred to, was brought to 
such a manageable condition as, to my own know 
ledge, called forth loud praises from many good 
judges of such things at tlie May exhibition of the 
Horticultural Society. 
I have no doubt whatever but all our climbing 
roses maybe so treated successfully. There is hardly 
any occasion to bud them on other stocks for this pur¬ 
pose, but merely taking cuttings of them and making 
them in the proper way; that is, to cut strong pieces 
of the young shoots into lengths of five or six inches, 
cutting right under a joint and picking out all the bot¬ 
tom eyes, leaving a couple, or at most only three, at the 
top, which will do away with their usual habit of 
shooting up from the collar or bottom, where the 
roots issue from. It will not suffice to slice off' 
these buds level with the bark, for their connexion 
with the shoot is analagous to rooting into the hark ; 
therefore, to do the thing effectually, we must notch 
them out by cutting through the bark and part of the 
young wood immediately before and behind each bud, 
so as to have a small portion of the bark and young 
wood removed with them, or, in gardening language, 
to root them out. The small notches thus made in 
the shoot will soon heal over, and be as smooth as 
any other part. Any time from the middle of Sep¬ 
tember to the end of October is the best season for 
making these kinds of cuttings. They will grow any¬ 
where in tlie garden, either in full exposure to the 
sun or in the shade. The soil for them, however, 
should be well loosened; and if stiff, a little sand put 
under the cuttings would facilitate the rooting ; they 
may be put in either by means of a dibber or in the 
trenches as the ground is being dug. In either way 
the rule is that they he so firm as that you coidd not 
pull them up without a good effort. If you can draw 
them easily they are so loose that the air will get to 
the cut end and dry it so that no roots can be made. 
They should remain in the cutting place just twelve 
months; and, after midsummer, when they begin to 
grow away freely, some weak manure water would 
encourage them a good deal; but, unless you are 
chemist enough to know the right proportion, have 
nothing to do with that stuff called guano: let the 
farmers have it for their turnips. We Lave all heard 
of catching birds by putting salt on their tails, and 
this new stuff’ called guano, which we buy in small 
parcels, is nothing else but a mixture of coloured 
salts for catcliing innocent birds with. There seems 
to be a “ charm” in salt, for it was only the other day 
that I read of bow they catch the wild deer in Jenny 
Lind’s country, by enticing them off their guard 
with liandsful of common salt, which they carry to 
the hills on purpose. 
At the end of the first season, or say by the end 
of October, these rose cuttings must be taken up, 
even if they had room enough to grow on during 
another year, for by the time they are well rooted the 
bottom portion of them which was so much buried 
will require to be relieved and brought to the light 
and air. You will find that many of them have rooted 
from the notches where the buds were taken out; all 
these roots must be cut off, and only those from the 
lowest end of the cutting be retained, and those of 
them that are strong must now be cut into four or 
five inches. The roots of all roses intended for pots 
are cut shorter than for open ground culture. When 
one is impatient to see the issue of an experiment, 
some of the strongest of these plants might be potted 
at once, but nothing is gained by so much hurry, and 
they will answer all the better if they have one more 
season in nursery rows. Throughout this second 
season they require particular attention to pruning, 
or rather stopping and training. You are not to 
allow them to ramble away in long shoots, as if they 
were to retain their natural habit; and as it is essen¬ 
tial that they should be well furnished with bottom 
shoots to begin with like dwarf roses, I would re¬ 
commend that during the growing season no shoot 
be allowed more than three joints at a time, and then 
to be stopped by pinching off’ the very point. This 
will cause other shoots to rise from the three buds, 
and these, in their turn, are to be stopped also, and 
so on till the end of August. It will sometimes hap¬ 
pen, however, that some very weak shoots are pro¬ 
duced under this treatment. When that happens, it 
is best to let them grow on till they are nine or ten 
inches long, by which means they will gain sufficient 
strength for flowering. 
Another point in their progress will also require 
attention and some little judgment. If they are very 
vigorous, and, in the height of the growing season, 
persist in making shoots from all the eyes after stop¬ 
ping, they would soon get too crowded, and by thus 
obstructing the light and air from the middle defeat 
our object; therefore we must thin out, that is, cut 
away the very strongest and the weakest shoots to 
give full room to those in an intermediate state, 
which answer best. 
Now, at first sight, it seems odd to stop a shoot in 
order to compel it to produce more shoots than are 
really wanted, hut we all know how very difficult it 
is, and what restraints are necessary, to overcome 
natural habits, which is the main point we have in 
view in this instance, and the more sure we lay the 
foundation the more safely the superstructure can 
afterwards be reared. As surely, therefore, as we 
neglect “ short stopping”—as gardeners call this sys¬ 
tem of pruning—at every two or three joints at the 
beginning, so surely will the future plant exhibit long 
bare branches, or, as we term it, “ look bony,” always 
a (sure sign either of bad management or of some 
mishap having befallen the plant at an early age. 
By the end of the second year from the cuttings 
being made, these plants thus treated would be in 
full condition for first potting, and this would he the 
proper age to buy them from the nurserymen for the 
same purpose ; but no nurseryman could rear them 
so effectually as above unless lie charged about three 
times the usual price for them: he cannot, even at 
the usual rate, afford the time to pick out the buds 
from his cuttings except of such as he intends for his 
own use. Nevertheless, if we choose to put up with 
the future annoyance of suckers, and a few rough 
bony shoots here and there, we may buy one-year-old 
plants of these climbing roses at sixpence a piece, 
taking them by the long dozen; for I see in many of 
their useful catalogues they offer them at 80s the 
hundred. 
After potting, the usual treatment of pot roses will 
do for them, only that we must never neglect to keep 
down their climbing habit by close stopping during 
the growing season. A few years of this treatment 
will convert the freest climbing rose to the character 
of an ordinary bush, as was proved by the Yellow 
Banksian rose already referred to. There is a double 
white jasmine in our stoves, called scmbac , remark¬ 
ably sweet, and of a strong climbing habit, but I 
have managed it for years in pots, exactly as above; 
and after the third or fourth season there is no more 
trouble to keep it within bounds than any other free- 
