Then comes the question of protection , which I am convinced is made too much of , so far , at least , as business gardens in the southerly England county . I live in Middlesex , and I never protect any of my roses . Out of the many I have from time to fourth dimension planted I can only think back losing one . Of course , if I had given the plant adequate trade protection I should not have lost even that one , I imagine some ” tribute ” enthusiast cry . But I give in that my experience make out a very just case for ” nonprotection “ -with no political significance , I dissent .
Those who have the fortune to hold out in the cold northerly counties should protect their Tea roses , but all the Hybrid Perpetuals and most of the Hybrid Teas are quite hardy . At least , there is no rationality why anyone should take any peril , for it is the simplest matter in the world to protect one ’s rosiness . There is no pauperism for any of the elaborate methods often advocated ; a little heap Of soil 3 or 4 inch high , around and among the lower branches , is all that is required . Readers may well cry ” shame ” that I do not even take so simple a safeguard to protect my own roses rather than carry the risk of infection of mislay even one ; and while that censure is perhaps well merited , I protest that I am so in use write about roses in the winter that I am apt sometimes to go away them to look after themselves . And I make bluff to say that it would be all the skillful for many other rosiness if they were similarly treated .
The surest agency to weaken a rose is to coddle it . Many of those who protect their flora with pasture brake , straw and other textile , allow these about the plants until late in leaping , with the result that the rosebush start into growth earlier than they would otherwise do , and such ontogenesis as they make beneath the seductive app that give them a dangerous and abnormal warmth is easy and whacky and falls an easy fair game to the least frost . And when is the roseate agriculturist out of the Sir Henry Joseph Wood so far as later leaping frosts are concerned justly we may term this wintertime protection a ” wolf in sheep ’s article of clothing , ” especially so far as the inexperient nurseryman is concerned . And why go to this trouble when mother world is all they demand , and when nothing is better or even so good for them .
Even I , who would seem to hold a legal brief for garden soil as if it were almost to the ground in the month of March following planting . I believe , too , that most amateurs in their heart of essence know this as well as the professional , but they have not the courage to put the precept into practice . At any rate , they have been told times enough . Anyone with a knowledge of the likes and dislikes of roses has doubtlessly had the pleasure of advising a friend as to the method of pruning his roses the first springiness after plant . You find that he has cut bush roses back in the orthodox way ; but the climbing iron , those with nice long growths that seem . to say , ” Ah just provide me alone , and I promise that you shall not be disappoint ” -with those it is different . He has mind to the siren ’s voice , he has started on that seductive short gash to Elysium .
Naturally , you expostulate with him , you argue , and last , jeopardize his pink wine will all the evils to which pink wine are inheritor . But no , he has get a line the capture call , he is enthral , by the appealingness of the dreams he has dreamed , and all entreaty is vain . Since he will do so , he must step the path , which , alas ! so many have tread - I am not ashamed to concede that I am found among the number - that leads without hold to disillusionment . You are tell in a more or less shamefaced sort of way that , ” I think I ought to have cut them harder back , do n’t you know ; but then I was not quite sure . ” And , knowing considerably , you interpret this as really meaning that the nurseryman knew that the rose ought to be geld to the ground , but that he could not bring himself to do it . How much wiser would he have been to go away for the twenty-four hours and commission the jobbing gardener to come in and cut off not only the heads but also the pegleg also of all the fresh constitute roses . The jobber would have had no scruple about doing it , for the more cutting the untrained actor can do the skillful he is pleased , as a formula .
But lease me to the point , and say that every development of every go up you flora between November and March should be cut to within three or four bud of its base about the last week in March or the first week in April . As a preliminary , the growths may be half reduce away as soon as they are planted . I have one lowlife of comfort for the tender - hearted rosebush grower . If it -does really go earnestly against the grain to treat the plants in this way , then all those that belong to to the wichuraiana course may be more leniently deal with , although , personally , I treat them all likewise , . I am afraid I shall need at least a paragraph to excuse all that is denote by that dreaded word ” wichuraiana -a word that , though used glibly enough by gardener and garden writers , is more often than not misspell . I have made sure of that superfluous ” a ” before guess on this mild criticism . The original rose call wichuraiana is a charming Nipponese creeping kind with very longsighted , slender growth and pretty picayune lily-white blossoms , and by cross - fostering with some other roses distinguished by large heyday of rich food colour , Dorothy Perkins and many others have been develop . They are commonly touch on to as wichuraiana roses . Well , these make such signally vigorous growth with little or no attention on the raiser ’s part that it is not necessary to edit out them severely back to hasten them to turn strongly . And there is the whole example in a nutshell . One may leave the best growing almost its full duration , and shorten all others by about one half . So much , then ( and it is much more than I had intend ) , about pruning newly institute roses .
