ROSES
EVEN in a small garden there should be one or two Roses, and as you may
have to choose yours from a long bewildering catalogue, we will begin
by telling you a little about the various kinds suitable for a child’s
garden.
HYBRID PERPETUALS.
There are some splendid and celebrated Roses in this class, but they
have a shorter blooming season than Roses that do not call themselves
perpetual. If, however, you live in the North, you may find that you
can grow the H.P.’s, as Rose-growers call them, better than the more
delicate Tea Roses. Ulrich Brunner and Charles Lefebvre are good old
crimson ones, both fragrant. Duke of Connaught and Duke of Edinburgh
are two of the best reds. Frau Karl Druschki is a splendid white Rose,
but it has no scent. General Jacqueminot is another large crimson,
so are Charles Darwin and Alfred Colomb. Mrs. John Laing is a soft
pink. You must understand that we are only giving you a few names
in each class, in case you are left to struggle unassisted with a
catalogue containing hundreds of names. If you grow those we tell you
of, you will have some beautiful Roses; but so you will if anyone who
understands Roses chooses a different list for you.
TEA ROSES AND HYBRID TEAS.
If you live in a mild climate and have a sheltered corner for your
garden, you should certainly grow the Tea Roses and their Hybrids, as
they last in flower longer than the H.P.’s. Their season is said to be
from May till October, but in a West of England garden we have gathered
perfect specimens on a south wall at Christmas. Perhaps the best-known
Tea Rose is the Gloire de Dijon, an apricot yellow that can be grown
either as a bush rose or as a climber. Corallina is a lovely bright
pink; Madame Lambard is bright rose; Maréchal Niel is the well-known
golden-yellow Rose grown so often under glass. We should say that he
and Niphetos, a beautiful white Rose, are what some gardeners call
‘miffy doers.’ If you don’t give them just exactly what they like, they
either die or look so ill and reproachful that you cast them away.
But if you can please them, they are very beautiful. So are Georges
Nabonnand, a rosy white, shaded with yellow, and Catherine Mermet, a
light flesh-coloured Rose of a globular shape.
Hybrid Teas are a cross between Teas and Hybrid Perpetuals, and are
considered stronger than pure Teas. The best known of all is La
France, and we cannot think why any catalogue should describe it as
lilac. It is a rich pink, a lovely globular shape, fragrant, and one
of those friendly Roses that flower from early summer till the frosts
come. Madame Abel Chatenay is another Rose we recommend strongly.
It is carmine, with shades of salmon. La Tosca is pink. Viscountess
Folkestone is pale salmon, globular, and fragrant. Boule de Neige is
pure white. Caroline Testout must not be omitted even from such a small
list as this. It is pinky-salmon, large, globular, and fragrant.
CLIMBING ROSES.
There are many varieties that will climb, and we can only give you a
few names of the most vigorous and beautiful. The old-fashioned Aimée
Vibert is a white cluster Rose, very hardy and free-flowering. It is a
Noisette, a scented cluster Rose; so is the William Allen Richardson, a
popular apricot-yellow Rose that we should not choose, because its buds
lose colour as they open. Dorothy Perkins is a pink cluster Rose, a
Wichuriana; Lady Gay is a cherry-pink rambler; and the Crimson Rambler
itself is one of the best climbers there is. The Waltham Rambler is a
delicate pink, a most lovely cluster Rose. Alberic Barbier and Elisa
Robichon are both Wichurianas—little climbing Roses, with dark, small,
glossy leaves.
We think that you will only have room for two or three Roses in your
little garden, and that you had better have either those we have
already told you of or some of the China Roses, also called Bengal or
Monthly. Even in the North of England we have seen them in full flower
at the end of November. One of the best is Cramoisie Supérieure, and
you can have it either as a bush Rose or as a climber. Another good one
is the common Blush, a pink Rose that may be grown either as a dwarf
or a climber. Little Pet is a white cluster Rose, and very dwarf. Mrs.
Bosanquet is a pale flesh-coloured cluster Rose.
In 1840 Mrs. Loudon said that there were nearly 2,000 species and
varieties of Roses. Even the well-known garden Roses are divided into
so many groups that we cannot give you a complete list of them. Where
people have plenty of room they grow the Penzance Briars, beautiful
hybrids raised by Lord Penzance. Their foliage is as fragrant as
Sweetbriar, and they have single or semi-double flowers. A wild
Japanese Rose, Rosa Rugosa, makes a great bush that has glowing orange
and red berries, but it is not suitable for a small garden. Then there
are Moss Roses (very sweet-scented), Cabbage or Provence Roses (you
find them in old-fashioned gardens), Scotch Briars (small flowers and
such thorns! but very pretty), Austrian Briars, Banksia Roses, Damask
Roses, Gallica or Provins Roses (from Provins, a small French town, and
not to be confounded with Provence), Multiflora or Polyantha Roses
(very small fairy Roses, that are having a vogue just now). These are a
few you will often hear named, but you will find many more in any good
Rose-grower’s catalogue.
If you live in or near London, you will see a great many Roses grown
on standards. You must decide for yourself whether you like them.
We prefer a Rose climbing, or as part of a hedge or as a bush; but
standard Roses are very popular with some gardeners, and when they are
healthy they certainly carry a great many flowers.
Roses like a good firm, rich soil, what gardeners call ‘unctuous loam.’
It feels almost greasy between the fingers, and many plants love it.
If your soil is light and dry, you must dig in some farm manure and,
if you can get it, some clay before you plant Roses. If it is a heavy,
cold clay, you should add lime, sand, and leaf-mould. In October the
places for your Roses should be well dug and dressed, as November is
the best month to plant. If you live where there is danger of autumn
frosts, you should plant in the middle of October, or as early in
November as possible. We are giving you the general rule about Roses,
but some gardeners like to plant in March, when the frosts are over.
If you buy Roses in pots, you can put them out at any time except
during a frost. In hot summer weather you would naturally watch them
at first, and give them shade if they seemed to flag. When you put a
plant out of a pot, you must be careful not to disturb its roots and
to give it plenty of water. If necessary, break the pot, as that would
disturb the Rose less than shaking and shoving it. Go to a good firm
for your Roses, and, if possible, one that will sell you Roses on
_their own roots_. We are not going to tell you about various grafted
Roses, because we think that while you are a child you will find them
troublesome, as they often send up shoots from the wild briars on which
the Rose you want has been grafted; but we warn you that you will
not get Roses on their own roots unless you go to one of the great
Rose-growers.
When your Roses arrive, do not leave their roots exposed to the air a
moment. Cover them with a sack or matting, and take a pail of water
with you in which to dip each Rose as you plant it. Then make a hole
about a foot wide each way, and just deep enough to allow you to spread
the fibrous roots out to left and right of the stem. Hold the Rose in
its place, and work a quantity of fine earth amongst its roots; and
put the _collar_, the point at which the garden rose is budded on to
the briar, from one to three inches below the surface. When you have
put enough earth, tread it firmly down, and tie the Rose to a strong
stake, so that the wind cannot shake it and worry its roots while they
are trying to take hold of the soil. The best modern growers do not
approve of manure as a mulch in winter. They say it does little or no
good, and they prefer a loose soil surface. Soot dusted over the beds
is beneficial, and so is a dressing of basic slag in the autumn.
It is no use to try to grow Roses in complete shade or where they will
be choked by other plants. The Queen of Flowers _will_ have light and
air and some sun. She will let you set a few dwarf Alpines, Violas,
or Forget-me-nots at her feet; but she will not be shouldered by
high, coarse-growing herbaceous plants, or by greedy shrubs. If your
garden is not backed by a wall where you could have a climbing Rose,
you might have an arch over your path. The ready-made wire ones sold
by ironmongers will make all your fastidious friends shiver, and call
you a Philistine; but you will forget that when summer comes, and it
is hidden by flowers. Of course, if you are a country child, and can
get the village carpenter to make you a wooden arch of small straight
Larches or other young tree-trunks, you will prefer it to any wire
construction. The uprights must be set at least two feet deep in the
earth, and firmly bedded in with stones. The horizontal piece must be
secured firmly to the uprights. You would have a lovely arch if on one
side you put Dorothy Perkins, the pink cluster Rose, with the white
Clematis, Montana; while on the other side you might set a vigorous
white cluster Rose called Félicité Perpétué, or Maids of the Village,
with the well-known purple Clematis, Jackmanni. The four would twine
and mix with each other on the arch, and you would have flowers there
from May till September.
When you wish to gather your Roses—or, indeed, any of your flowers—do
it with scissors or a sharp knife. It is most distressing to see people
violently tear off their flowers, and in doing so probably disturb the
plant’s roots. A Rose should be cut so as to leave the flowering shoot
you will find just below it; otherwise you cannot expect a succession
of blooms. Always pick off dead and faded flowers, and be on the
look-out for curled-up leaves that have a little web of fluff in the
centre. Underneath the fluff there is or will be a caterpillar, who
will live on the foliage of your Roses if you do not destroy him. You
must also wage war on aphides, which suck all the life out of the young
shoots, mildew, and red-rust.
You often find that there is some confusion between spraying and
syringeing plants, but you ought to understand that the two processes
are different. A syringe can be bought for two or three shillings,
and if you cannot afford a proper spray, you must use a syringe with
your insecticides. It distributes the water either through a rose in
tiny streams or in a single jet, and is meant for washing plants. A
good spraying machine, such as the Abol, costs from eight shillings
upwards, and sends the liquid over the plants in a vapour that does not
run off.
Aphides, or green fly, can be kept down if you spray them with tepid
water in which you have mixed a little soft-soap; but when you have
killed your aphides, you must syringe well with clear water, as the
soap would not be good for your Roses. Another way is to boil an ounce
of quassia chips in a pint of water, and when cold to add two gallons
of rain-water; then spray. Many people clean their Roses with a double
brush sold for the purpose, and called an ‘aphis brush,’ but they have
to be most careful in using it not to injure the delicate young leaves
the green fly always chooses.
If mildew appears, it may mean that your soil is badly drained or too
wet for Rose-trees. It looks like little white spots on the leaves. You
had better syringe or water your Roses, and while they are wet dust
with soot or flowers of sulphur. In dry weather this dressing must be
washed off when it has been on the leaves a day or two.
Red-rust is a common disease that turns Rose-leaves yellow before their
time. Then they shrivel and drop off, and when this goes on to any
great extent, it is both unsightly and weakening to the tree. None of
the paraffin mixtures that used to be recommended for this and other
pests are now considered good for roses. If you can have an Abol
Spray you can get a mixture called ‘Abol, White’s Superior,’ which is
recommended by Miss Rose Kingsley in her book ‘Roses and Rose-Growing.’
It is easy to use, and efficacious against Green Fly and other pests.
If you have neither spray nor syringe, dust a little flowers of sulphur
on the leaves.
In summer an occasional dose of manure water is a great help to Roses,
but it must never be given in dry weather unless a good soak of fresh
water is given first; otherwise the thirsty plants would suck up the
strong manure water too greedily, and make themselves ill. We tell you
of this way to encourage your Roses in hot weather, in case you belong
to a garden where you can get some manure water given. Otherwise you
had better use a little Clay’s Fertilizer or some other artificial
manure.
Except in very cold districts, Roses should be pruned early in March.
Tea Roses, however, should wait till the first week in April. The
object of pruning is to induce the plant to make new wood, but the
amount to be done varies greatly with the size and age of the Rose.
Climbing Roses need not be pruned at all, but in the autumn any dead
wood you see should be cut out. On strong-growing bush Roses you may
leave six eyes on a stem; on weaker growths three or four eyes. If
you look at a Rose-tree you will see what we mean by ‘eyes’ are the
little knots or buds on the stalks. With a sharp knife you should
slice off the upper part of the stalk at a bud that faces _outwards_,
because then the new shoot will grow outwards, and make a better-shaped
tree. All brown, dead wood should be cut away. There will be a great
deal more for you to learn about pruning when you are older, either
from books or from gardeners. We have only told you one or two of the
simplest rules, so that in case you have no gardener or gardening
friend to help you, you should not let your bush Roses grow quite wild.
If your Roses have been given you, they may be on various stocks, and
not on their own roots, so we think we must tell you how to know when
it is the stock, and not the Rose, that is sending up its tiresome
wild shoots. Most Hybrid Perpetuals, Teas, and Hybrid Teas have five
leaves, but most ‘stocks’ have seven or nine leaves. When you see these
wild shoots coming up out of the ground, you must cut them away, as
they are using food that should go to your Roses. But never cut the
shoots that come out of the base of the Polyantha or the Rambler Roses.
These look very like suckers, but are the flowering shoots of the
following year.
You may just as well try to take a few cuttings from your own Roses,
and, if they will let you, from other people’s, as if you could succeed
you would soon raise a stock ‘on their own roots,’ and have no trouble
with briars. August is the proper month for this operation, and what
you will want is some silver sand, a sheltered corner, and a sharp
knife. A cutting should be nine inches long, this year’s growth, hard
and woody, but not succulent. It should either be cut straight across
just below a joint, or torn away with a little tag or heel. Try both
ways. All the leaves, as well as the tips, must be snipped off. Then
make a little trench, fill with silver sand, and press your cuttings
firmly in, letting them lie sideways rather than stand bolt upright.
If you have a hand-light for them, so much the better, but they should
strike without that provided you do not let the soil about them get dry
or loose. The following year you will be able to transplant them, but
while they are young it is advisable to pinch off their flowers.