Diploma of the Royal Botanic Society

How to Have Roses all the Year Round - Methods of Cultivation Under Glass - How to Pot and

Prune - A Selection of Varieties

It is often said that the season of the rose is such a terribly short one that any display of flowers has at best to be but a fleeting pleasure. This, however, need not be the case where a house especially devoted to roses, or a collection of roses in a greenhouse, is made a feature in gardening arrangements. By careful management, roses may thus be had both in winter and spring, as well as during the summer and autumn months.

Yearling roses should be purchased, as older plants can hardly be expected to stand the strain of constant forcing, even where this is but slight. If roses are lifted and potted from the owner's garden, this should be done during the month of October, and the trees be then placed in a cool house or pit, though in sheltered places it should be sufficient to plunge the pots in ashes out of doors.

The pots used should not be too large.

A fine group of Persian yellow roses in full bloom. By careful management, roses may be had all the year round

Copyright, Kelway & Sons six-inch pots being as a rule large enough, or eight-inch at the outside. Turfy loam, with a small admixture of thoroughly decayed cow manure and a little coarse sand to keep it open is the ideal compost for the purpose. The pots should have plenty of drainage.

Hints On Potting

Firm potting is necessary to successful growing, and the plant should be placed low enough for the juncture of stock and scion to be just covered. Shorten any too strong-growing roots, carefully preserving all fibres, which, however, can be slightly coiled if need arise. Any roots which are broken should, of course, be shortened to below the bruised portion. Keep the plants moist, but never allow them to be sodden with water, and stand them in a shady place for the first few days, syringing now and again if the weather is sunny. They should be put into a cool house for the winter as soon as they have recovered from potting. This re-potting after the plants have been stood outside to ripen their growth will take place the following September. If healthy growth has been made by this time, the plants may be placed in larger-sized pots. In performing this work, the old soil should be gently scraped away from the roots, great care being taken, of course, not to injure the latter. Any decaying roots should be cut clean away, and the fresh soil worked among the newer roots with a potting-stick in the usual way. Plants which are too large for re-potting should have the old soil removed from their sides and top, and be dressed above with a fresh and nourishing compost.

If roses are required for bloom in February, the pruning should be done in November, and the plants be put afterwards in a warm greenhouse to be forced on. The strongest shoots should be taken back to three buds, the weakest to two, all weakly growths being thrown out at the same time to strengthen the general growth. This refers, of course, to second-year plants, while yearlings will need merely to be pruned back to two eyes. The plants will then be put under glass, and will soon break away vigorously, in preparation for natural flowering from April onwards.

Careful Watering

Perhaps the point that will need most care is that of watering, which is easily overdone, since there is not much sunshine in early spring. The need for watering should be ascertained by rapping the pot. Syringing will be beneficial until shoots are about an inch in length, after which the house itself should be damped down instead. Mildew is the chief pest to which the bushes may be subject at this time, and this should be treated either by dusting the leaves and buds with flowers of sulphur, or by spraying with sulphide of potassium.

Older pot-plants will require the shoots to be thinned, as not more than a dozen shoots should be left, and these should, of course, be neatly tied out. Liquid manure will be given as soon as the buds begin to swell, this being made in the usual way by putting a bag of horse or cow manure in a small sack and keeping it in a pail of water. Manure water should be diluted to the colour of pale ale before being used. Soot water may be given alternately with the above, but do not overdo one or other of these stimulants.

Rose trees which are required for special forcing will have been already grown on under cool treatment in a glasshouse. Very little heat should be given at the outset, but by degrees the plants, which will have been brought indoors about November, require more warmth and less ventilation, though at no time is great fire heat at all suitable to them.

Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, a rose of beautiful form and delicate fragrance

Copyright, Kelway & Sons

Of course, the most natural and suitable way of growing roses under glass is to do so in beds of soil, keeping a span-roof greenhouse for the purpose. Young plants should be chosen, and these put in 2 feet 6 inches apart early in November. Tea roses are particularly suitable, as these appreciate the shelter from inclement weather afforded by glass, and they are also disposed to the habit of almost constant flowering. In the summer months the lights must be removed, in order to imitate outdoor conditions. When replaced in September, they should still be given plenty of air, but not watered at all, as a resting-period will now be required.

Pruning

Pruning must be performed in October, crowded and weakly growth being thinned out, and the shoots shortened to one-third of their length. Begin to water freely a little later on, moistening the floor also, and giving some fire heat as necessary. Be careful that ventilation, which must be allowed on all bright days, is not allowed to harm the plants. This may be avoided if only those lights are opened in the quarter from which the wind is not blowing at the time.

Sixty degrees is a sufficient temperature in the coldest weather which will follow, the temperature not being allowed to fall to less than 450 at night. Plenty of flowers can by this method be obtained until well up to Christmas, and in reduced quantities up to March. If pruning is again resorted to in

January, fresh crops will carry on the display until June, when the yearly rose time again begins.

Rose Climbers

Climbing roses, which are unsuitable for associating with other roses in a special house, owing to their rampant habit, may be planted suitably outside a house devoted to other plants, and trained inside over the roof. Pruning will be carried out after their flowering season, and it is well to remove a good deal of the older wood each season, so that current shoots may have a chance to flower satisfactorily before the frosts. Hay-bands should be wound round the stocks when winter approaches, and the same protection afforded in the form of litter to the roots.

Taking the standard of the National Rose Society, as influenced by the prizes awarded at their shows, the following roses are among the best and most suitable varieties for growing under glass, whether in pots or beds:

Tea Roses. - Catherine Mermet, Mme. Lambard, Marie Van Houtte, Niphetos, the Bride, Perles des Jardins, Souvenirs de S. A. Prince, Mme. de Watteville, Sunrise, Bridesmaid, and Souvenir d'un Ami.

Hybrid Teas. - Mrs. W. J. Grant, Viscountess Folkestone, Caroline Testout.

Hybrid Perpetuals. - Mrs. John Laing, Mrs. Sharman Crawford, Captain Hayward, S. M. Rodocanachi, Ulrich Brunner, La France, Merveille de Lyon.