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Celluloid Label: Teas

Hybrid Teas and Teas budded on Multiflora need more room than when budded on Briar or Manetti.

In the lists extra room is allowed for such plants.

In moving roses it is best to take the earth with them as much as possible. In the case of a small plant a successful method is to take the bottom out of a galvanized iron bucket, and after thoroughly watering the ground around the plant, place the bucket over the same, forcing it into the ground until the top is even with the ground level. Then by moving from side to side and aiding with a digging fork underneath the bucket, the plant and dampened earth will come out with the bucket, and may be moved to its new location. In the case of a larger plant where this system is not practicable, it is necessary to dig out around the plant, using digging forks to take up the plant without cutting the roots. The earth may be kept in a ball by the use of canvas or burlap. It is well to thoroughly water the plant after moving, and some authorities advise filling the hole with water before planting.

PRUNING is one of the most important parts of rose culture; just as it is most necessary to prepare the ground properly and to plant intelligently, so also should one be certain to prune systematically.

The whole growth of the plant is changed by the manner of its pruning.

Under climbing varieties rules for their proper pruning have been given, and in this chapter will be taken up the pruning of all the roses contained in the lists. It is an easy matter when the theory of it is understood. Perhaps the simplest and clearest illustration which could be given would be to suppose a rose cane has fifteen buds or eyes on it; from these buds or eyes spring the shoots which afterward become the flower stalks of the plant.

Now, if this were not pruned at all but the entire cane left, the sustenance received from the roots would be divided into fifteen parts. As a matter of fact the greatest amount would go to the end or top of the cane and to those buds nearest the top, for in all plant life it is more difficult to get the sap to break the buds nearest the base, especially if there is too great a distance from that base to the top of the lateral, limb, or cane.

Roses will differ in growth and the strongest growers will naturally throw out more buds on any given length of cane than the weaker. In addition to this, plants of low, spreading growth, whose canes grow more or less parallel to the ground, do not send their sap as quickly to the ends of the growth as do plants whose canes are more upright. For this reason different varieties require somewhat different pruning, and in the lists are given the number of eyes or buds to which each variety should be cut back, provided, of course, the wood has not been winter killed below the point indicated. Returning to the theory of the sap and the illustration of the cane with fifteen buds: Cut off, say, ten of these buds from the cane and the five remaining will receive just so much more sap and there will be that much more chance of the lowest buds breaking and sending out their shoots. If the cane were not cut, the greater part of the sap would go to the few top buds and the lower buds would be late in growing, some possibly not breaking at all. Nature prunes the weaker varieties by killing back a portion of their wood,_thus causing them to throw up strong new canes.

It will readily be understood that the larger the cane and the hardier and more vigorous the plant, the more buds could be left with still a chance for their breaking; conversely, the weaker the variety and the smaller the cane, the less sap would be contained therein and the fewer buds would break and grow shoots in any given length of cane. This is the main theory of pruning Hybrid Tea roses, provided that it is reasonable quality, and not quantity without much quality, that one wants.

The average rose plant in its second year should give from fifteen to fifty blooms, according to the variety, if it is cut back on this principle. Shy bloomers will not give fifteen flowers and the greater number of these will be borne in the spring.

Usually a good bloomer will have three or four flowering periods, the most profuse being in the spring and early fall.

In counting blooms only those with fair stems are considered and the usual amount of disbudding done, the rule being to count every bloom with a stem of six inches or over.

If more blooms of poorer quality are desired, do not prune the roses as far back as suggested below, but they will require a certain amount of thinning after the growing season starts, so that the various shoots do not crowd each other too much; all but the strongest varieties of roses which are so pruned should be staked, i.e., fastened to a stake driven firmly into the ground. In so pruning and staking do not use wire but tie the bushes to the stakes with soft woollen string. This latter course of pruning is usually carried out with roses of the bedding type, on which the blooms are seldom fine enough for cutting; but so treated, the plants form a mass of color and are used for this reason for garden decoration.