BUSH ROSES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3556, 1 December 1882, Page 4

BUSH ROSES.

These are, as a rule, not nearly so effective as they might be. The usual course is to prune and simply to allow them afterwards to grow in what form they may choose to take. On their own roots, in genial soil, they yearly acquire strength such, as necessitates, at the time of annual pruning, the specimens being allowed to get to a larger size, especially in height, the result of which is that the strong shoots, from which the greater portion of the flowers are produced, grow to a considerable height, at which point most of the blooms are borne, leaving the plants comparatively thin and bare afc the base. Although it is anything but desirable to train roses in a way that gives any approech to formality, still such an arrangement of the shoots may with advantage be employed as will keep them well furnished ■with a fair proportion of vigorous growth and full sized ilowers down to the ground, at which point individual plants have the greatest breadth, gradually tapering up to the top —a well managed bush rose, wherein the form is devoid of undue stiffness, yet such as to produce an effect not possible where the plants are left to themselves. To produce this effect it is necessary to have strong, ■vigorous plants, established on their own roots ; at the time of pruning, or soon after growth has commenced, a portion of the strongest shoots should be bent down and tied out horizontally to a few sticks, stout enough to keep them in position, allowing the remaining growths, shortened back to different lengths, to assume the position such as will lay the ground-work for the specimen which later on will bo clothed with foliage and flowers. The central branches, according to the more or less strong growing erect habit of the variety may require a few sticks to hold them in their places, but the whole of such supports •will be effectually hid by the foilage, and no trim outline should be attempted. It will be easily understood that it is not desirable to attempt the training of roses in this way in positions of all descriptions, or where they can much more appropriately be left to assume a wild form ; but for beds in the immediate vicinity of a mansion in the more highly dressed portion of the grounds, where they will be in keeping with the surroundings, they at once produce an effect in every way unexceptionable. By the side of a broad walk, either straight or winding ■where something is wanted to relieve a too even surface, rows of roses at intervals more or less far apart, so trained, are infinitely superior to the naked-stemmed, mop-headed standards, so generally used in such situations ; in addition to their shape, satisfying the eye in a way not possible with the standards, as it is much easier to get a number of bushes sufficiently equal in their growth to keep up the requisite uniformity in the whole than it is with standards, which when placed singly in rows, are so provokingly subject to a portion growing freely, and the others very little.—Cashier's Monthly.