Planting Roses

In the autumn chapters I give the orthodox advice about planting Roses, but what of the amateur who, about to begin gardening, reads this book in spring? He will want to know if he really must wait until autumn before he plants - if he actually must miss the whole of the season before him? I hasten to assure him that he is under no such painful obligation. Nay, more, I give him my unsullied word that I have planted many thousands of Roses, have planted the greater part of them, from force of circumstances, in spring, and had no failures worthy of the name, all that I have had to deplore being the loss of an odd plant here and there. I have never seriously assured myself that I prefer planting Roses in spring to planting them in autumn, it has merely happened that I have had to do so; yet so uniformly successful have been the results that I find myself not infrequently arguing in favour of spring planting with too-strenuous opponents of it. I do not aggressively assert that spring planting is superior to autumn, but if I hear a rosarian condemning spring planting in toto, I feel impelled to rise and crush him with figures. Of course he never is crushed, really; one cannot absolutely squelch a rosarian - the most that one can hope for is his temporary subsidence under an avalanche of statistics.

Spring is a wide term, and there is a world of difference, speaking horticulturally, between early spring and late spring. The greater part of June is spring, but who would plant Roses in June, except from pots?

Roses may be dug from the open ground, and planted, at the beginning of spring, but not at the end. It is understood, therefore, that when I speak of spring planting I do not mean that outdoor Roses may be planted any time during the spring season. I use the term "spring" in the planting sense, and that is March and early April. All classes of Roses may be planted during that period - pillar, arch, dwarf, weeping, standard.

The planter must be prepared to allow the nurseryman a little more latitude as respects varieties than he would in autumn. The dealer must be forgiven if he sends a few substitutes, because he has been selling Roses for several months, and it is not unlikely that he has sold out of a few popular sorts.

Delay in planting is more dangerous in spring than in autumn, because hot weather is coming near. That is why the ground should be prepared as soon as possible - even in January or February, as our two first chapters advised. With the soil quite ready the plants can be put in immediately they come, unless the ground is frozen, or too wet, in which case the first opportunity should be taken. The holes need not be deep; it suffices if the roots are just covered. The soil should be trodden firmly amongst them.

Pruning Newly-Planted Pillar Or Wall Roses

If an amateur rosarian were to ask one particular trade grower whether he ought to cut back newly-planted pillar, arch, or wall Roses, the expert might cry: "Certainly not!" If the amateur were to ask another nurseryman, the latter would probably answer with equal emphasis: "By all means." Poor amateur gardener! What is he to do? How is he to decide which of the two is right? I think I can help. I have noticed that those experts who are against the cutting back of climbing Roses have a rich, deep soil, and live in a district where they commonly get rains in late spring. Those conditions favour speedy establishment and rapid growth. The growers who favour cutting back have a drier and less fertile soil, in which the plants only establish themselves slowly. If a horse has an uphill journey, we give him a lighter load than if he has a level road before him. The root system of a Rose with a number of long shoots, each furnished with several scores of buds, which want sap sent up from the roots, has a heavy load. If the soil is rich and rains come, the road is level; if the ground is dry and poor, the road is hilly. In the former case the burden can be borne, in the latter it is too heavy, and should be reduced. Is it clear now? I have often found amateur rosarians with poor land reluctant to cut back newly-planted Roses, but I never yet found one who, when he at last screwed himself up to do the deed, regretted it afterwards. When I speak of cutting back I really mean it. It is not a case of snipping off an inch and a quarter of the tips with a small pocket-knife or a pair of nail-scissors, but of cutting the plants back to within six inches of the ground. The only Roses that I would except are the very vigorous Roses of the Wichuraiana class, of which Dorothy Perkins, Alberic Barbier, and Ruga are shining (literally shining - look at the glossiness of the leaves) examples. These Roses have such marvellous root-power that no load is too heavy, and no hill too steep for them. They have strength, and speed, and stamina in a degree that no other class possesses.

As far as dwarf and standard Roses are concerned, I unhesitatingly advise severe pruning for newly-planted trees. You are told, or you read in some learned publication, that some varieties only need light pruning. That is all right enough - I have said the same thing myself. But you are to observe, please, that it applies to established plants, and that I am now speaking of newly-planted ones.

Some quick-witted reader may throw my parallel about the burdened horse and the character of the road at me, and demand to know why what applies to pillar, arch, wall, and pergola Roses should not apply to dwarfs and standards also. I admire the sharpness, but I ask the critic to think a moment longer. Ah! he sees it, of course. We want something clothing that pillar, that arch, that wall, that pergola, from the very first, if we can get it. And we are so anxious that it should not go bare a moment longer than is necessary, that where we can strain a point we do.

The lateral shoots of all dwarf and standard Roses should, I think, be pruned back to within three or four buds of the base soon after planting, whatever the soil, and whatever the variety. This severe early pruning is like the billiard player's "miss in baulk." It is a policy of avoiding risks. It is "playing for safety." At billiards our opponent may reply with another safety miss, but Nature never does that with Roses. She responds with bold play. She lays herself down to work, and plays sweeping strokes with power and precision. The little buds on the stumps which we have left soon break into stems and green leaves. They are an inch long, six inches, a foot; there are actually flowers 1 And all in a few short weeks.