74 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[May, 
to manage and get into flower at this season, 
which is its natural blooming time. The 
principal treatment required is to grow it in 
strong or stiff loamy soil, for it is a gross 
feeding plant, giving it liberal pot-room, and 
placing it outdoors in the summer months, 
where it can get plenty of sun and air, in 
order to ripen the wood, and enable it to form 
its flower-buds, which are produced, as in most 
of its class, on the terminal eye or point of the 
current year’s growth. Being of a deciduous 
character, it can be put away into any out-of- 
the way corner as soon as the leaves are off, 
and remain there until the time required to 
start it into renewed growth. 
The flower heads very much resemble, both 
in shape and colour, those of the old Gueldres- 
rose, V. Opulus, the hardy Snowball shrub, but 
they are three or four times the size, while the 
plant is of a dwarf compact habit, and well 
suited for grouping amongst other sorts in 
flower at this season in a conservatory or 
greenhouse.— John Webster, Gordon Castle. 
THE BEST WALL BOSE. 
T may seem almost presumptuous to at¬ 
tempt to single out any one kind of Rose 
as the best for the clothing of dwelling and 
outhouses, and of walls. Such a Rose 
ought to he vigorous, hardy, and free-flowering, 
of pleasing colour, of fair form, and fragrant. 
Its leaves should also be large and semi-ever¬ 
green, and its constitution so strong as to give 
a long tenure of life to individual specimens, 
whether on its own roots or worked on other 
stocks. 
Not a few of our best wall Roses lack dura¬ 
bility, or floriferousness, or both. Marechal 
Neil, for example, possesses most of the 
qualities of a first-class wall Rose, only it 
sadly lacks durability ; hardly has it filled its 
allotted space before a huge wart on the stem, 
or some other unlooked-for catastrophe, cuts 
short at once its beauty and its life. Cloth of 
Gold is longer-lived as a rule, but then it is 
mostly a shy bloomer, and in many situations 
refuses to grow. No, neither of these come 
up to our ideas of the best Rose for clothing 
a wall. Homere comes nearer to our standard; 
but then its colour is hardly sufficiently decided 
to afford enough contrast with the w T all surface, 
and besides its first flowers have mostly mal¬ 
formed and monstrously bad eyes. Its late 
flowers are, however, most elegant in form, 
while their colour, a soft mottled pink or blush 
suffused with rose, is almost unique among 
Roses. The foliage, too, is ample, green and 
shining, and admirably adapted for the clothing 
of walls. 
But neither of these, nor any other Rose 
that I am acquainted with, is at all to be 
compared with Gloire de Dijon as a house or 
wall clother. Few Roses under fairly favour¬ 
able circumstances grow so fast, perhaps none 
last so long. I hardly remember to have lost 
a Gloire de Dijon Rose through old age, 
and but comparatively few have succumbed to 
severities of weather, even in those Rose¬ 
slaughtering winters when the thermometer 
has run down to zero. On walls, too, it is 
almost evergreen as well as ever-flowering, 
and its foliage is almost as pre-eminent for size 
as its flowers are for their number, fragrance, 
and beauty. In vigour of growth and per¬ 
petuity of flowering it has few if any equals. 
Gloire de Dijon is well known as one of the 
most free and persistent-blooming of all Roses. 
Either as a dwarf bush, a standard, a pyramid, 
or weeping Rose, it exhibits this extraordinary 
capacity for flowering, in all forms, places, 
seasons ; but its full capacity for flowering 
can hardly be said to be seen unless on a 
high wall, such as the gable end of a house, 
a church, stable, barn, warehouse, or other 
high building. In such positions a few plants 
of Gloire de Dijon will produce not merely 
hundreds but thousands of blooms throughout 
the season. And hardly will the first flush of 
bloom have faded before a few stray blossoms 
will bridge over the chasm between the first 
and the second bloom ; the latter, if not so 
numerous, mostly merging into a third, or 
even a fourth crop. Established plants of 
this fine Rose are in fact seldom without 
flowers from May to December. 
Unlike some of our finest Roses, this Glory, 
as it is, and ought to be called, by way of pre¬ 
eminence, is not at all particular about stocks. 
It grows well alike on the briar, Manetti, 
Banksian, or any other free-growing stock, 
and better than either on its own roots. On 
the latter it often throws up enormous suckers, 
which may be used either to extend the old 
plant or regenerate it as desired. These 
