Ample drainage is vital to success. "Wet feet" are no more conducive to health and happiness for roses than for children. Examine your soil; if there seems a need, provide drainage. Remove the soil from your bed to the very bottom. Place there a layer from 4 to 6 inches deep of stones not larger than your fist, broken bricks, clinkers, or other suitable material that will readily "take" the water from above. The soil is seldom so retentive as to require tiling to take the water away and, indeed, nine times out of ten no artificial drainage at all will be needed.
As to soils, the good loam so often found directly beneath the sod is excellent, but is greatly improved by being broken, even pulverized, to a depth of at least two spades and thoroughly mixed with about one-third its bulk of rotted manure. Fresh manure must never be allowed to touch the rose roots. Indeed, the more thoroughgoing way is to make sure of the neither layer of soil by removing the upper one. First of all, peel off the sod (it will produce excellent compos). Next, take out the top layer of soil to the depth of 1 foot and pile it nearby. If the soil below that is good, rich loam, or a fair mixture of clay and loam, it may remain. Loosen this with a garden fork to a depth of another foot, preferably not upturning it, and mix with it well-decomposed manure, and then put back the top layer of loam in which to plant your roses.
If, on the other hand, you find the subsoil poor, barren, and unproductive, you may have to remove it altogether. Haul it away and put your chopped-up sods in the bottom, grass-side down, to rot and make future plant-food. If you have ready from the previous year a compost made by mixing one-half or two-thirds of sod with the balance of manure from the cow- stables, use it in the bottom of your bed, and thus insure a future storehouse of rich nourishment for your roses.
Another hint: A few broken bones may be mixed with the soil in the bottom of the trench, say a peck for a bed holding a dozen roses. These will decay slowly and furnish plant-food for three or four years to come.
Not all roses like the same soils. The Hybrid Perpetuals, for example, love a heavy clay or loam; so do the heavier-growing climbers; whereas the Teas, Hybrid Teas, Bourbons and the like, revel in a lighter soil and a warmer one, with less than 50 per cent clay or loam, and more sand or leaf-mold. Rugosas thrive even in quite sandy soil.
It is difficult to give the roses too rich soil. If your soil is light and sandy, and you cannot well replace it entirely, it may be greatly improved by mixing a little clay or rich loam with it when trenching. If your soil seems too heavy, it can be made lighter and more open by adding sand, or even coal-ashes. To be good for roses, the soil must be such as will not quickly transmit to the roots sudden surface changes of temperature. The roots should be kept cool. If it be possible, after the soil in your bed has been prepared, give it time, say two to three months, to settle before planting your roses. If this be out of the question, press with your feet each layer of soil in your bed, as you proceed to fill it in.
For more tips and guides on growing roses, head to http://HowToGrowRoses.FunHowToBooks.com
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