My rose bushes are almost as much admired for their beautiful foliage as
for their lovely roses. “I never saw such handsome leaves, why they look
exactly like wax.” This is an exclamation I am growing quite accustomed
to hear from friends, and it is really true; but I think any one who
grows roses as house plants may have just as handsome foliage if the
proper care is taken of the plants. Once or twice every week (just as
is most convenient) I wash every leaf with clean, weak soapsuds, under
side as well as upper side. With the small-leaved Polyanthas it is too
tiresome to wash each leaflet individually, but the foliage can be
sprayed well, and then very carefully and gently a branch of leaves may
be wiped at once, and in this manner one can go over quite a number of
plants in half an hour. The leaves may be left without wiping, of course,
but the foliage is apt to be marred unless it is done, as the soapsuds
dries on the leaves in white, unsightly spots. Roses treated in this way
will very rarely be troubled with pests of any kind, and such rich waxen
green foliage as they will possess is more beautiful than many flowers.
It is something quite remarkable here, where the thermometer falls to
40° and 50° below zero, to see roses blooming outside of a conservatory,
But mine have been doing beautifully in the bay window all winter, and
small as the plants are they have flowered wonderfully well. At night
the plants are moved away from the window to a place where they are
secure from frost Queen’s Scarlet seems to make a special effort to
surpass itself each time some other rose comes into bloom, and every
rose it produces is, I think, more beautiful than its predecessor. It is
in every way one of the loveliest of roses, and although lacking in the
rich fragrance of many others, it yet possesses a delicate sweetness of
its own. The first time that American Beauty bloomed for me it bore two
exquisite roses, and the little bush was barely eight inches high, one
of the shoots which produced a flower being only four inches out of the
soil, and the rich, exquisite sweetness of these large, deep pink roses
is surely unsurpassed by any other.
Sometimes when the buds seem very slow about unfolding I take a cup
of lukewarm water and gently bending each bud give it a few minutes
immersion. This certainly hastens their development and in no way injures
them. If I could only have one rose Queen’s Scarlet would be my choice;
if I could have others American Beauty would certainly be the next one.