CHAPTER VI 



STANDARD ROSES 



The Standard rose has lived down the gibes of its 

 detractors, who, and often not without good reason, 

 have derided it as a " mop on a broom-stick." It has 

 been able to do so because it has progressed with the 

 times, and the times, as everyone knows, have afforded 

 it opportunities of self -improvement. The advent of 

 vigorous and free-flowering roses has revolutionised the 

 standard and simplified its cultivation. Then the rise 

 in popularity of the weeping standard has been an 

 immense factor in the uplifting of the standard rose, 

 and this again has been chiefly brought about by the 

 wider choice of roses suited to this treatment that has 

 become available during the past ten years. The weeping 

 standard is no novelty, as one might readily imagine it 

 was, since it is only during the past five or six years 

 that it has really become popular. But Dean Hole, in 

 his " Book About Roses," published forty or fifty years 

 ago, writes of the captivating beauty of weeping rose 

 trees, and remarks how beautiful they are when properly 

 trained. The choice of varieties then available for weep- 

 ing standards was very limited in comparison with the 

 selection now available. 



Ordinary Standards.— There is something mys- 



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