ROSES.

In the very midst of the wealth of bloom with which we are surrounded,

the scent of the roses wafted to us on every passing breeze, it seems

exceedingly appropriate to enjoy a little talk with our readers about

roses. There is no need to tell of their beauty. Acknowledged to be the

queen of the flowers, the rose holds a position of pre-eminence that

requires no words of praise from us to establish; ours shall be the

humbler task to tell her admirers how best to care for their favorite,

so that she may be able to put on her royal apparel, and come forth in

all her loveliness.

There is required for the growing of roses in their perfection a

something that is not to be found in books. “Poets are born, not made”

it is said, and there is somewhat of the same truth in this matter of

growing roses. The perfection of the art is the outcome of a devotion

that ever burns but never consumes. Deep down in the secret chambers of

the heart it is continually glowing, and when to other eyes the rose is

no longer a thing of beauty, in the days of the “sere and yellow leaf,”

it waits tenderly and lovingly upon the object of its devotion. To such

care she most generously responds, arraying herself in gorgeous beauty,

putting on her most lovely tints and beaming with most bewitching

smiles.

We have some obstacles to overcome in the cultivation of the rose which

are quite unknown to her devotees in England. Our mid-summer suns are so

scorchingly hot that our roses soon lose the richness of their fresh

tints. To enjoy the full beauty of the rose, to see it in the freshness

of its coloring, while the delicacy of the tints is yet unimpaired, one

should stroll through the rose grounds at sunrise, before the dew-drops

are exhaled, and see the flowers unfolding to the morning light. Could

we shade our roses from about ten o’clock of the morning until four in

the afternoon, the lustre of their beauty would be preserved much

longer. But that is almost an impossibility in our latitude, where the

sun at mid-day is so nearly vertical. The best thing we can do is to

cover the ground over their roots with a thick mulch, so as to keep it

moist and cool. Again, the severity of our winters is very trying to our

rose trees. Usually the shoots are more or less killed back, so that

they require to be cut down in spring almost or quite to the ground.

Some protection can be given to them by sticking evergreen boughs around

them, so as to hide the rose trees from sight during the winter, while

other kinds that are tenderer must be taken up in the fall and heeled-in

in the cellar, where they will not be exposed to much frost. Yet,

notwithstanding all these difficulties, we can grow roses of great

beauty, and that too in the full blaze of our vertical sun, and fully

exposed to the severity of our winter frosts.

It is very desirable to have a strong soil in which to grow roses, a

rich clayey loam is the very best. And this should be well enriched

every year, indeed there seems no danger of making it too rich. An

excellent fertilizer is made by composting sods from an old pasture with

barnyard manure in about equal quantities. And the ground should be well

drained, not merely on the surface, but the sub-soil, if tenacious and

wet, should be thoroughly relieved of all surplus water by means of

sub-soil drains, having a good outlet, so as to carry off the water

rapidly and fully. Nevertheless, where clay loam soil cannot be

conveniently had, cultivation and liberal fertilizing will largely

compensate for its absence, indeed some of the finest roses have been

grown on a sandy loam which had been stirred to a good depth and

liberally supplied with compost, the best of all composts that of the

farm-yard, where the sweepings from the stable are mingled with the

litter of the bedding, and thrown out to be trampled by the cattle, and

worked over by the pigs.

The planting may be done either in the fall or spring, as may be most

convenient; and whatever time it may be done, after it is completed, the

surface should be deeply mulched with a heavy covering of strawy manure,

thick enough to keep the ground cool and moist in the hot days of

summer, or to keep out the frost in the cold winter nights. If the trees

are on their own roots, that is, have not been budded nor grafted, they

should be planted so as to stand at the same depth in the ground as

before, when the soil has become settled. But if they have been grafted

or budded upon another stock, the rose trees should be planted deep

enough to bring the point of union two or three inches below the

surface. This is desirable for several reasons, but especially that in

case the plant is killed back by unusually severe frosts quite to the

ground the tree might not be wholly lost, which would be the case if the

point of union with the stock be above the ground; for though sprouts

might come up from the stock, the roses that would appear would not be

the roses desired; whereas, if the union be a few inches below the

surface, there is a possibility that a sprout may be thrown up from the

part above the union, and thus the desired variety preserved.

In pruning roses, attention must be given to the habit of the variety.

Those of a very vigorous habit should be moderately pruned, for if they

are severely cut back they will make a large growth of wood, and give

but little bloom. But those which naturally grow feebly should be cut

back more severely, so that the supply of sap may be sufficient to make

the flower-buds that are left grow vigorously, and the roses to be fully

developed. The form best suited to our climate is that of a low bush,

for the cold of our winters and the heat of our summers bear very

injuriously upon tall standards or tree-roses. For this reason it is a

waste of money to buy these tree roses and weeping roses which are sold

through the country at from three to five dollars each. They are

produced by grafting upon tall stems of the Dog-rose, but in two or

three years, at best, they succumb to the peculiar extremes of our

climate. The so-called Weeping roses, are made by grafting some slender

growing variety, sometimes two or three sorts of different colors, upon

tall Dog-roses, and frequently the sorts that are grafted upon them are

tender varieties, wholly unable to endure our winters; and if they live

through the first summer are sure to perish during the first winter,

unless carefully housed on the approach of winter.

The rose has also some insect enemies that will require to be watched

and treated according to their works. One of the most annoying and

injurious is the Rose-slug. It is a small light-green shiny creature

that eats the soft green portions of the leaves, so that they have

almost the appearance of having been skeletonized, making the rose-bush

look brown and very unsightly. The Slug usually makes it appearance as

the roses are beginning to bloom, preying first upon the more concealed

leaves near the ground, and ascending as its food is exhausted to the

higher branches; and as the number is usually very great, in a short

time the leaves are all destroyed. The writer has found white hellebore,

applied by putting a large table-spoonful into a pail of water, and

sprinkling the rose bushes with the water by means of an ordinary

watering can, a sure means of destroying them. It is perhaps a better

plan to stir a handful of the hellebore into a pail of water and allow

it to stand over night until the next evening, and then stir it up

thoroughly and add about a pint of the mixture to a pailful of water,

and with this sprinkle the rose bushes. It is a very cheap and easy way

of getting rid of the Slugs. In some seasons the Green-fly or Aphis are

very abundant, covering the ends of the shoots, and sucking out the

juices. These are easily destroyed by dipping the ends of the shoots in

a strong decoction of tobacco, or by sprinkling the plants, if very

badly infested with them, with the tobacco water through a watering can.

But a more determined and obstinate insect pest than either of these is

the Rose-leaf-hopper, insignificantly small in size, yet making up by

infinitude of numbers for all lack of individual magnitude.

Entomologists call these little scamps _Tettigonia rosae_. They are,

when full grown, not more than three-twentieths of an inch long, the

body is of a yellowish-white color, the wing-covers and wings are white,

and the eyes, claws, and piercer, brown. They begin to hatch out about

the middle of June, and appear upon the under side of the leaves without

wings, but with an exceedingly sharp piercer or proboscis with which

they pierce the skin of the leaf and feed upon the juices. This

operation they keep up, increasing in size, casting their skins when

their jacket becomes too tight for them, and sucking the juices out of

the leaf all the more vigorously as they grow larger, until it assumes a

pale sickly appearance, and no longer is able to perform its proper

functions. The cast off skins of these insects may be found in great

numbers adhering to the under side of the leaves, and likewise the

little creatures themselves, manifesting their vitality by hopping about

with great agility. Their hind legs are made somewhat like those of a

grasshopper, which enable them to leap very briskly. After a time their

wings appear, and then they seem to be more active than ever, and spread

about till they find every rose-bush in the garden. The writer has had

considerable experience in fighting these little pests, but cannot say

that he has succeeded in winning any great victories. Sprinkling the

bushes with hellebore and water or with tobacco water from a watering

can, is a useless expenditure of labor, for the little hoppers have only

to keep their place on the under side of the leaf and use it as an

umbrella to shield themselves completely from the shower. The only way

of reaching them is with a garden syringe. At one time it seemed as

though the hellebore in water applied to them in this way, when they

were quite young, was effectual in killing them, but later experiments

have suggested the question whether they were not washed off by the

force of the shower thus directed against them, and were unable in that

early stage of life to find their way back again. If the latter be the

correct solution, there need be neither hellebore nor tobacco in the

water. The Rose-bug, _macrodactylus subspinosa_ feeds on the leaves, and

when numerous are very destructive. Thus far the writer has never been

troubled with this insect. They pass the larvæ state in the ground, and

come out in the month of June as perfect beetles, remaining about a

month to carry on their destructive work. The only certain method of

combatting them, known to the writer, is that of gathering them by hand

and crushing, burning, or scalding them. They are perfectly proof

against whale-oil-soap and decoctions of tobacco; whether they can

digest hellebore is not known, but probably they would succumb to

paris-green. Should they not appear in too great numbers it would not be

a difficult task to pick them off by hand, for they are very sluggish

creatures, and easily caught.

Having given these hints on the cultivation of roses and the means of

preventing the ravages of these insect enemies, we have but a few words

to say concerning the different varieties. These all naturally fall

under four heads, the summer, autumnal, climbing, and monthly roses. By

summer, is meant those hardy kinds which bloom in the early summer only;

the autumnal sorts not only bloom in the early summer, but also again

more or less in the autumn. These are also called Hybrid Perpetuals, and

Remontants. They are indeed hybrids, but the term perpetual is only

calculated to mislead, for they do not bloom perpetually, and many of

them give but few autumn flowers.

By climbing, is meant those hardy, free-growing, rambling varieties

which can be trained to climb over a trellis or cover the side of the

house or verandah. It is not intended to embrace those tender climbers,

such as climbing Devoniensis or Marechal Niel, which can be grown only

in the house, and are grouped under the head of monthly roses, which

includes those known as Bourbon, Tea, and China Roses, which bloom

almost constantly during their growing season.

It is not proposed to give anything like an exhaustive list of the roses

which are classed under these different heads, that would be wearisome,

but only to name a few of those which have been well tested and are

likely to become favorites in every rose garden. Of the summer sorts we

name first of all one that is probably well known to every one of our

readers, one that has been the companion of our childhood’s happiest

hours, and fraught with many, many memories, the CABBAGE ROSE. It is yet

one of our very prettiest roses, double to the perfection of fulness,

and its petals suffused with blushes. Very like this, only with an added

beauty, is the

COMMON MOSS ROSE, which is believed to be a sport from the old Cabbage

Rose. A German writer has ventured to tell us how it happened:

The angel of the flowers one day

Beneath a rose-tree sleeping lay;

Awakening from his light repose,

The angel wispered to the rose;

‘Oh fondest object of my care,

Still fairest found where all are fair,

For the sweet shade thou’st given me,

Ask what thou wilt, ’tis granted thee.’

‘Then,’ saith the rose, with deepened glow,

‘On me another grace bestow.’

The spirit paused in silent thought,

What grace was there that flower had not?

’Twas but a moment; o’er the rose

A veil of moss the angel throws;

And robed in nature’s simplest weed,

Could there a flower that rose exceed?