Tree Roses
Tree Roses are Hybrid Perpetual or Hybrid Tea or other roses, budded or grafted high up on strong stock, or wild growth, and cut or pruned to the form of trees.
They are very attractive in a formal or “set out” garden, or for edging walks, but such great care must be taken to keep them warm during cold weather that it is best not to try them except in places where there is little snow in winter.
For winter bed covers, place boards around the plant and fill with earth.
“Miss Gardener said,” went on Billy, “that English and Irish rose growers are constantly sending new varieties of roses over to Americans, but the new roses have to be tested in our climate before we can be certain if they will do well here. That’s all the lesson for to-day,” he declared. “Come to-morrow morning for the next lesson—that is, if you want to. The day after, you know, we go on the Wild Flower Picnic.”
[CHAPTER XXXVII]
The Wicked Rose Bugs
“‘ZEALOUS care brings big reward in growing,’ our professor told us.”
Billy was perched in the fork of an apple tree. The two girls and his mother were sitting on the grass which made a thick carpet beneath its branches.
“He used to say it over so often that the fellows nicknamed him ‘Rosy,’” Billy went on.
“Oh!” exclaimed Mary Frances, “wasn’t that awful!” but she and Eleanor giggled, and even her mother smiled.
“You didn’t call him that, though?” said Eleanor.
“Not when he could hear me,” laughed Billy. “But if I’m going to give you this lesson we must make a start. The subject, by the way, is—