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Mulching is advisable in any soil and in any climate. It is most necessary in dry areas for soil-moisture conservation. Research workers have found that, irrespective of all aids, it is impossible to grow roses satisfactorily in areas where atmospheric evaporation from an open tank of water exceeds one-third of the total made up of average annual rainfall and available artificial watering. A mulch acts as a steadying agent of soil temperature, and prevents heavy rain or watering from causing caking of the superficial layers; and most mulches have fairly high manurial value, for vegetable matter of some form is generally used. Straw, dry leaves, lawn clippings, rotted tan bark, seaweed, malt-combings, and sawdust are all good mulching materials. All of them, either as mulches or when incorporated with the soil itself, can produce a temporarily harmful effect on plants by supplying extra food for soil microorganisms, which then multiply and need extra nitrogen, leaving less available nitrogen than usual for the garden plants. The foregoing applies especially to sawdust, which also decomposes very slowly in either the soil or the compost heap. If supplemented with some readily available source of nitrogen, such as urea, sulphate of ammonia, nitrate of soda, urine, or bird-droppings, they can be used without causing any setback to the plants. The nitrogen later is liberated for use by plants together with all the other food contained in the mulch; it has helped to make them available. The texture, water-holding, and aeration of any soil is improved by mulches. Twenty-five pounds of sawdust can absorb fifty to a hundred pounds of water.

In nature, one needs to lift only as inefficient a mulching agent as a stone and see the moisture of the soil under it to realize the value of covering the soil. Most mulches blow away readily in strong winds; a sprinkling of soil over them will greatly decrease this trouble. Continue mulching as frequently as possible right through the summer.

Never manure your roses unnecessarily, and do not over-feed in an attempt to obtain abnormally large blooms, for by so doing you will usually do harm to the plant and will not get the desired result. If you wish for large blooms you must plant varieties that habitually produce them.

If you use chemical foods, do not allow them to touch the foliage except in very dilute solution, for they would damage it, especially the sulphates of ammonia, iron, and potassium. Frequent small feedings in dilute solution into wet soil and the following of each application with further watering is the only safe way. In general, Pernetianas resent heavy feeding.

Roses need large quantities of soil-derived water but very little soil-derived food. This food is, however, of paramount importance and must be in correct balance, each ingredient with each of the other ingredients.