For December . 1921 



gll 



Departments of Foreign Exchange and Book Reviews I 



ROSES AND ROSE GARDENS 



THE considerable mansion with abundance of land may have 

 stately terraces and lordly jjartcrrcs, enclosed gardens of many 

 kinds and wildernesses; the denizen of "Suburbia" must be content 

 with a strip little wider than his house frontage and of no great 

 length. Both, however, may, if they- wish, have a rose garden, 

 albeit on very different scales, and who shall say that oft-times 

 the owner of the little garden, with its few rose bushes on which 

 he lavislies personal care, does not get greater enjoyment from 

 Iiis rose garden than the squire of many acres from his more spa- 

 cious one ? 



There are many gardeners, many excellent gardeners from one 

 point of view, whose chief joy is in a plant well grown. A rose 

 or a cabbage brought to perfection affords tlicm equal transports 

 of delight, and if the two in their gardens happen to be in juxta- 

 position it matters very little. Every man to his taste and every 

 garden for its owners. The following notes will not interest such 

 gardeners, so they may turn the page. 



In the smallest garden, space may be found for a tiny formal 

 rose garden, though it consist only of four L-shaped beds set in 

 turf, surrounded by a green hedge (for preference) or by a screen 

 of Ramblers. In the centre may be a bird-path or even a small 

 sundial. 



Where greater space is at disposal there is necessarily more 

 scope for individual taste and judgment. One may have a garden 

 austerely formal in design with jierhaps two rows of beds on 

 either side, each of moderate width and divided. Some simple 

 center treatment and pivotal ornament alone redeem the quiet 

 severity of ordered beds, trim lawn and clipped surrounding 

 hedge. This type of design is varied sometimes by surrounding 

 the garden by banks of rose species instead of the deep green 

 hedge. The writer yields place to no one in his admiration of the 

 various wild roses, but he qannot think that this is the best place 

 for them. They have density enough to obscure any solid back- 

 ground placed behind them and not weight enough to form an 

 adequate background in themselves. The same applies even more 

 forcibly to the roses on jioles. which so often form a rose garden 

 surround, unless they are backed at a little distance by solid plant- 

 ing. Even then the effect they produce does not appeal like the 

 ordered simplicity and glowing coloring of the type of garden 

 first mentioned. 



Formal gardens, whether rose or other, need not, of course, be 

 oblong. They may be square, circular or oval. The square garden 

 is, of course, but a "particular case" of the oblong one, and when 

 of fair size may be made extremely beautiful. Circular and oval 

 rose gardens are, unless some special situation call for them, a 

 mistake. The rose undoubtedly looks best in well proportioned 

 oblong beds one variety in each bed. There are, however, cases 

 where circular or, more frequently, oval gardens are the best and 

 easiest solutions of a problem. Imagine a garden on a hillside 

 adapted to lit the moulding of a hollow, either natural or formed 

 incidentally, when excavating stone or gravel. Below this rough 

 shelf the ground falls again to a ravine. Here, then, is a case for 

 an oval garden, and on the banks, above a Yew- hedge if possible, 

 for the rose species surround. Sometimes a circular garden may 

 be desirable where, in extensive .grounds, vistas cross. 



The sunk garden has many admirers, and where space is limited 

 and numbers of separate gardens out of question the rose .garden 

 may be formed as a sunk garden. Tliough this type of garden 

 lacks the simplicity and .some of the dignity of the plain rectangular 

 treatment, it has a quaint tidiness which reminds one of a Dutch 

 garden, and this ctTect can, where desired, be accentuated. Roses 

 are often used for planting a paved garden, but in some way neither 

 the roses nor the paved garden look altogether happy so treated. 

 Dwarf roses, at any rale, have not that mounding, .spreading habit 

 so delightful in a paved garden, and the soft greys and browns 

 even of .self-faced paving, delightful as they arc in themseivcs, 

 scarcely provide an a(le(|uate foil for tlie pure rich colorings of 

 the rose. Mauve and grey arc the colors which especially 

 tone with paving, and they are entirely wanting in the Queen 

 of Flowers. 



Happy indeed should be the hillside gardener. Terraces are 

 always charming, and a properly contrived terrace rose garden is 

 delightful, (jrass walks should be introduced on every tier, but 

 the arrangement of the beds must nee<ls depend on the width of 

 the terraces. The intervening walls, whether shallow or deep, can 

 be rose-clad. If shallow, the pillar roses will be of service. If 

 taller, Wiclnn-aianas above or Ramblers beneath may be used to 

 drape them. Drape them be it noted, not smother them. To build 



a beautiful stone wall and then entirely hide it, even under charm- 

 ing climbers, is wicked ! 



So far we ha\c considered rose gardens of ordered formal de- 

 sign, and before passing to more informal treatment it may be well 

 to pomt out that rectangular gardens may be Idled with beds form- 

 nig sweepmg curvilinear lines, the fornialitv of the garden, such as 

 It IS. consisting only in the regularity or .symmeVrv induced bv 

 quadruplicatmg the design in each corner of the garden around a 

 central feature. Gardens with straight boundaries' it may be well 

 to point out, even when four-sided, are not necessarily rectangular, 

 so that the diamond shaped garden sometimes gets over a difficulty! 

 especially when a long vista strikes the garden boundary, perhaps 

 a road, at an acute angle. 



We come n.^w to quite informal rose garden treatments, though 

 It IS well to s'.ate at once tliat the ordinary garden bedding rose 

 is not well suited to purely informal treatment. The many rose 

 species and certain more free-growing roses may be arrangea 

 informally with splendid effect, especially where a natural hollow 

 can be utilized for the purpose. Where this is wanting, excellent 

 results may be obtained by a little contouring, aided bv a judicious 

 arrangement of backgrounds. Where this method ' is practised 

 great care must be exercised to use only varieties with a graceful 

 habit of growth, and these, leaving aside species of course, will 

 generally be found in the Noisette. Tea, Hybrid Tea and Polyan- 

 tha classes and in that order. In planning the informal rose garden 

 diverse habits of growth may be used to provide contrast almost 

 more largely than contrasting coloration. In the formal rose 

 garden, on the other hand, care must be taken to avoid the hetero- 

 genous efifect produced by alternating tall and dwarf varieties. It 

 IS usually better to plant one variety in the beds surrounding a 

 sundial or other central feature, though two varieties may be ifsed 

 of either sharply contrasting or harmonizing coloring, the opposite 

 lieds being planted with the same variety. The two\-arieties thus 

 employed should be as similar as possible in habit of growth and 

 freedom of flowering. A particularly suitable Rose for these cen- 

 tral beds, at any rate on light soils, is Lady Hillington, as it is 

 soft, yet noteworthy, in coloring, has good foliage and vet, owing 

 to Its slenderness of growth, may be planted fa'irly thickly. The 

 oblong beds in the central vista of an oval garden should be filled 

 with Dwarf Polyantha Roses. The circular beds in the same gar- 

 den would be filled with rather dwarf, free-flowering and brightly 

 colored varieties, as it would be desirable to emphasize these beds 

 as far as possible. — The Garden. 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF CONIFERS 



'T'HERE is something distressing about the arrangement of Coni- 

 A fcrs in many places, particularly in surburban gardens, while 

 the varieties used too often show a lack of imagination on the part 

 of the planters. The most obvious instance which occurs to mind 

 of^ this last failing is that which relates to the planting of Cedars, 

 Wellingtonias and similar free-growing trees close to the house 

 windows, so that, ultimately, the choice must be made between 

 dwelling in perpetual twilight or sacrificing a beautiful specimen. 

 I'or a long period before this stage is reached the tree has probably 

 been a disfigurement to the house architecture, dividing into com- 

 partments a frontage which any planting should have served to 

 empha.size. With regard to the actual arrangement, "spottiness" 

 IS the fault most characteristic and widespread. The rule of |>lant- 

 ing seems often to he "here a Ljiwson, there a I^wson." inter- 

 spersed mainly with deciduous trees and shrubs, willi perhaps a 

 specimen Picea or two to bear them company. .An enquiry as to 

 the raison d'etre of the "Lawsons"— the gardener's name for the 

 so-called White Cedar, Cupreasus Laivsoimma, and used here to 

 cover its numerous varieties— usually draws the response that they 

 are to "provide furniture" in Winter ! .Mas ! it is in Winter, 

 when the surrounding planting is destitute of foliage, that their 

 spottiness is so apparent and so appalling. In Summer the ctTect, 

 though unsatisfying and worrying to a critical eye, is hardly so 

 blatant. When one thinks, however, of what might have been, 

 it fills one with an abiding dissatisfaction. 



Each countryside has its characteristic scenery and its e(|ually 

 characteristic vegetation. Trees which succeed, though common- 

 place, give a far better eflfect in the garden than choice exotic 

 species or nursery varieties which never look thoroughly at home. 

 The hungry soil seems admirably to suit the Scotch Fir, and in 

 such situations this tree should be freely utilized for backgrounds, 

 contrasted with the equally common, but wonderfully beautiful. 

 Birch. For the rest most conifers succeed, and Cedars, including 



