58 THE ROSE BOOK 



beginners' roses, though, being trained in an artificial 

 form, they may at first sight seem difficult. But they are 

 just as easy as an ordinary free-growing climbing rose, 

 far easier than the average standard, for the simple 

 reason that only vigorous varieties are suitable for the 

 purpose. If planted early in autumn, each shoot being 

 pruned to within six inches of the base in the following 

 March, they soon begin to send out long lissom growths 

 that depend with perfect grace from their point of 

 vantage, and promise an abundant blossoming the 

 following summer. And as the seasons pass, flowers 

 at first spangle the leafy stems, then commingle freely 

 with the leaves, and finally come in such profusion that 

 the latter are almost hidden, and you have a rose tree 

 in its highest form of beauty. 



Grow weeping standards preferably on tall stems, 

 six feet high, so that in high summer the flowers may 

 have a background of blue sky flecked with fleecy clouds 

 or of the soft green of distant trees. If the stem is only 

 four, or even if it is five feet high, the flower-laden stems, 

 so luxuriant are they, soon drag in the dust or the mire, 

 whichever the weather god may send, and one is obliged 

 to shorten them so that the stems are clear of the soil. 

 It is possible, as 1 have done, to transform a five-foot 

 stem into one that to all intents and purposes is six feet 

 high, simply by putting in a tall stake, to which the 

 stem of the standard is made fast, and tying some of the 

 principal growths to it, so that they depend from the 

 top of the stake, instead of from the point at which 

 they were budded. The deception is not noticeable 



