6 
Stokesia cyanea is a beautiful, late 
blooming plant with deep blue, aster-like 
flowers. ‘To have it do well it requires a 
well-drained situation, in sandy loam ; 
otherwise, it is apt to die out during win- 
ter. It can be raised from seed. Scabiosa 
caucasica is another beautiful plant, with 
blue flowers, requiring treatment similar to | 
the stokesia. 
The monardas are very showy plants, 
with brilliant scarlet flowers; a mass of 
them. seen from, a distance is very effective. 
They are of very easy culture, doing well 
in the shade or full sunlight. z 
Platycodons, or Chinese bell flowers, 
with blue and white bell-shaped blossoms, 
are fine for the garden, growing about 2 
ft. high. They require staking. The best 
way to increase them is from seed, as they 
are hard to divide. The boltonias are 
very useful plants for the garden, fine for 
cutting, resembling asters, but much more 
refined in appearance. B. asteroides grows 
about 6 ft. high, with white flowers.  B. 
latisquama grows from 3 to 4 ft. high, with 
delicate pink flowers. They can be increased 
from seed or division. *, 
Physostegia virginica is a fine late bolom- 
ing plant, with showy spikes of pink 
flowers; it grows from 4 to 5 ft. high, and 
is fine for cutting. Increased by division. 
The Anemone japonica gives us a fine show 
when flowers are getting scarce. Valuable 
for cutting, lasting a long time in water. 
The plants are not very hardy in heavy 
soil. It is best to give them good pro- 
tection. Tritomas, or red-hot poker, are 
_ grand late-blooming plants, with showy 
spikes of red and yetlow flowers, very effec- 
tive in masses, but they are not very hardy. 
THE ROSE. 
Roses flower so continuously in this State 
that it is possible to secure blooms almost 
every day in the year. This can be done 
by any one who is not afraid of work. It 
ig only necessary to put a little time, labor, 
and money into the Australian rose garden 
to reap a harvest of flowers such as cannot 
be excelled in any other part of the world. 
Australia is essentially a rose growing con- 
tinent. The long spells of summer and 
sunshine, with the delightful silvery days 
of autumn, and the soul-stirring, but all too 
short a springtime, provide one long season 
of gaiety and life for the rose. 
' Tf any nation should be famous for its 
roses, Australia is surely that nation. 
There is nothing, other than the lazy ways 
of our people, that keep us from being 
amiong' the first of the world’s gardeners. 
Everything possible in the way of climate 
has been given to us, and without stint; 
_ we have soils and situations equal to any- 
- thing on the face of the globe, as mild as 
one could wish, or as hot as Arabia; and 
we have men and women among our 
rosarians just about as skilful ag any of 
those who grow roses on the other side of 
the line. To many folks this may read 
like a bite of conceit.. It is true all the 
same, conceit or not. We are not behind 
in the matter of growing the flowers; 
chosen : 
TARE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
where we loose ground is in the rais 
ing of the newer varieties. But this will 
be altered as time goes on. As yet we are 
only in the infaney of our rose growing. 
Some day Australians will be raising varie- 
ties which will find their way to the other 
side of the world. We have made a name 
among dahlias with the productions of Mr. 
G. H. Kerslake that will live for a long 
time, and have also done about as well with 
the colonial raised chrysanthemums. Some 
day our men will get into the right line of 
rose hybridization, and then our time will 
come. For the present we must wait, both 
for the rose prophet, and for an increase 
in the population ag well. Without a 
few more millions of people we have no 
hope in competition with the English and 
Continental growers. 
Still, as we are we are doing well. The 
rose interest in Australia is a live one. Let 
us keep it alive, let us make it grow, until 
every householder in the land sweetens his 
home plot with one cr more of the best 
of all flowering plants. 
SELECTION OF 24 ROSES. — 
For a beginner who is in search of a 
good, reliable company with which to make 
a start in the fascinating work of rose gar- 
den making, the list published recently by 
the “Daily Telegraph” is just the thing. 
No grower, whether he be a beginner 
or a veteran, can afford to be without any 
one of the undermentioned roses. It is 
quite an easy matter to turn out several 
of those named and to substitute others, 
which are thought more highly of by indi- 
viduals here and there, but, for general 
purposes, the list is hard to beat. 
If you have not the whole of them, see 
to getting them at once. We can recom- 
mend every rose; they are all worth a 
place anywhere where roses are grown. 
Out of 356 rose names submitted, the 
following twenty-four topped the pole. 
You cannot do better than begin with 
these, and secure other favorites after- 
wards. 
The following. twenty-four have been 
Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, 
Maman Cochet, ba France, Marie Van 
Houtte, White Maman Cochet, The Bride, 
Marechal Neil, Frau Karl Druschki, Souv. 
de Therese Levet, Prince Camille de 
Rohan, Madame Jules Grolez, Perle des 
Jardins, Niphetos, Madame de Watteville, 
Countess de la Barthe, Belle Siebrecht, 
Devoniensis, Madame Abel Chatenay, Bes- 
sie Brown, Gruss an Teplitz, Reine, Marie 
Henrietta, Madame Lombard, Earl of Duf- 
ferin, Sunset. The list is an excellent 
one. It is really the best that has 
ever been prepared for New South Wales, 
and as such may be commended to the 
netice of the great and ever-increasing com- 
pany of rose-growers. 
ROSE PRUNING. 
The pruning of the rose is a stumbling 
block to most amateurs. There is no rea- 
son why it should be so, as there is little or 
no difficulty in pruning any of the varieties 
generally grown. Many of the professionals 
have done their best to make this matter 
flowers. 
June 1, 1905 
an impossible business to the beginner, by 
surrounding the pruning with a sort, of 
haze, through which the eyes of the ama- 
teur are unable to penctrate. 
But, little by little, we are overcoming 
this feeling. As time goes on, and as roses 
are more freely grown, it becomes all the 
more necessary for the grower to have a 
knowledge of the bushes under his charge, 
so that he might be able to attend to their 
every want without ever calling in the aid — 
of the specialist. Do everything in your 
power to become a specialist yourself. It 
will not take long, if you will but keep 
your eyes open. A little practise makes 
the hand very sure, whether it be in the 
matter of counting sovereigns or pruning 
roses. Make up your mind that you will 
learn to prune, and prune you very soon 
will. 
But first let us understand what prun- 
ing is for. 
It is necessary for three things: For 
' keeping the bushes in order, for preserving 
the quality of the flowers, and for cutting 
away all the old and decayed wood. 
Let us take the first reason: To keep the 
bushes in order. To plant a rose bush 
to-day in a position to its liking, and to 
leave it for years without any attention 
whatever, and to return in three years 
time, would find it endeavoring to assume 
a tree-like state. It would grew and 
grow until it had reached the limit of rose 
growth, That lmit would be governed 
by the nature of the rose, and the strength 
of the soil. If it were a strong-growing 
varicty 1t would probably reach 7 or 8 ft. 
But in doing so it would certainly loge a lot 
of the charm of a well-attended rose bush. 
_ To have to mount a ladder every time 
you wanted a basket of woses would hardly 
be to the liking of the majority of present 
day growers. Pruning, as we said before, 
helpa to keep the roses from getting cut of 
hand. - 
In our second veason for pruning, we 
have one that is ever so much molve im- 
portant: To preserve the quality of the 
This is really the beginning and 
end of rose-growing. 
Any one who loves a rose would at any 
time rather have a well-formed flower than 
one that had lost all its beauties, either 
through malformation cr neglect. Evdry 
grower makes an effort to get a vecult that 
will give an adequate return for the time 
and labor spent in the garden. If the 
flowers are good, the return is a great one; 
if they are bad, the labor has, in a mea- 
sure, been thrown away. Only by getting 
the best that is in the plants is the work 
of rose-growing worth doing. 
The act of pruning is the means by which 
man keeps the rose to itself. If it were al- 
lowed to run its own race, the good quali- 
ties would very soon be lost in the many 
bad habits which would soon take the up- 
per hand. Roses, like most other garden 
flowers, have undergone so many processes 
of improvement that unless they are always 
kept on their very best behaviour, they 
quickly return to the coase ways of the 
wild briar. Every one who knows any: 
thing of the laws of the vegetable world 
