Cultivate your roses every week or ten days, and keep the ground covered with grass clippings unless it is protected from the sun by the shade of other plants. Cut off close to the parent stem any wild shoots or "suckers,"—generally recognizable by their briary stems,—as they will cause the budded part to die.
FALL PROTECTION
Late in the fall mound up the earth well around the roots of all your roses, and give them a good covering of coarse manure or leaves. The more tender kinds can be laid over and protected with litter or boughs.
SPRING PRUNING
Then early in the spring, before the first of April, cut back the hardy roses, keeping only the strong canes, which, however, should be shortened to about 10 inches. The middle of April prune the more tender varieties. But remove from both all shoots growing in toward the center, and cut all weak plants back to the third or fourth eye, to promote stronger growth and larger flowers. Climbing roses need only the weak branches and tips removed.
Date new climbing canes with wired wooden tags each spring, and cut out all over three years old. This renews the stock, restrains ambitious climbing, and produces better flowers.
SPRAYING
About this time a spraying first of Bordeaux mixture to prevent disease, and a little later a spraying of whale-oil soapsuds as warning to the great army of bugs, slugs, etc., will give your roses a good start toward a successful season of bloom.
Watch for that robber, the rose bug! Talk about salt on a bird's tail! The surest way to end His Majesty is to take a stick and knock him into a cup of kerosene. Slow process? Yes, but sure. The leaf-roller, too, is most effectively disposed of by physical force,—pressure of thumb and forefinger. Clear, cold water, twice a day through a hose, comes with force enough to wash off many of the rose's foes; but if they get a start, fall back on strong soapsuds, pulverized tobacco, or some other popular remedy.
The Garden Club of Philadelphia is said to recommend the following: