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The Perpetual Rose

Rosier Hybride Remontante. Rosa hybrida semperflorens. IT appears in the nature of a duty to be sentimental when there is anything to be written about roses; therefore, in order to be heterodox, we propose to be businesslike, and refrain from gushing. The flower figured is one of the so-called "perpetual" class, with a decided preponderance of the blood of the China rose. The hybrid perpetuals have been produced by crossing and re-crossing the China and Bourbon races until a tolerably distinct class has been produced, but the evidences of their origin are for the most part plainly manifested in their more prominent characteristics.

The hybrid perpetuals are the most useful of all roses, and may be said to combine in themselves the best qualities of all the best garden roses, for in a certain number we have the rich scent of the "Provins" combined with the handsome foliage and full rich flowers of the two great sections that have mainly contributed to their production.

In forming a plantation of roses it is desirable to plant a fair proportion of dwarf bushes as well as of standards, and it is a great point to secure those bushes "on their own roots"--that is to say, the plants should have been raised from cuttings, and not by grafting or budding, as is necessarily the case with standards. If amateurs would lean towards own-root roses, and abandon the custom of planting standards chiefly, they would considerably augment their garden pleasures, for the many disappointments that the inexperienced have to endure in the growth of roses are, in great part, attributable to the prevailing belief in standards as the best form in which to grow the "queen of flowers." This is a very important matter, and one but little understood. If own-root bushes cannot be secured, those grafted on the manetti stock may be planted to form bushes, and a watch must be kept upon the suckers that rise from the root-stock, because if these are allowed to grow, the plantation will soon become worthless. But own-root roses may be allowed to throw up suckers, for they are necessarily all of a piece, root and branch, and it is their nature to renew themselves, as do raspberries and blackberries, by the production of strong shoots from the root. This power of renewal from the root is necessarily destroyed by grafting and budding on brier stocks, and thus the artificial form of the tree has an insecure tenure of existence.