kOSA. 



THE ENGLISH FLOWEfr GARDEN. 



ROSA. 



687 



Macowani from the Cape of Good Hope. 

 The showy Crocus-like flowers of these 

 open fullest in sunshine, and vary as 

 to colour from crimson, purple, and 

 rnauve to white and yellow. Perhaps 

 the best of all is R. Pylia, a scarce but 

 very beautiful form of R. Bulbocodium, 

 with Rush-like leaves a foot long, and 

 pure white flowers with a yellow throat, 

 2 inches across when fully open. This 

 kind thrives in the south-west of 

 Britain, spreading fast and flowering 

 freely in spring. 



ROSA (Rose}. The queen of flowers, 

 fair as it is, would be much more at 

 home with all if one could get rid of 

 certain drawbacks. The common idea 

 that Roses can only be grown in heavy | 

 clay soil, if carried out would exclude | 

 them from a large area of our country 

 where light, sandy, and calcareous ' 

 soils prevail. If we can get Roses on 

 their own roots we can grow them 

 well in such soils in some cases better. 

 The trade practice of grafting all Roses 

 from various climates on the native 

 Dog Rose is a source of infinite trouble 

 to Rose growers. Some do well on 

 the stock, though in the end suckers 

 will prevail, some kinds flower badly, 

 and some die. For years I have grown 

 many hundreds of Roses in my flower 

 garden and also in open plots, and 

 found that quite half the Tea and 

 China Roses did badly, or perished, if 

 worked on the Brier, the most vigorous 

 of wild Roses. The old summer- 

 flowering Roses of European origin did 

 well on the Brier ; the trouble arose 

 from attempting to put the Roses of 

 Chinese origin on our native stock. 

 I had at first no choice but to use the 

 plants sold to me by the trade, and so 

 I lost years in trying to overcome the 

 difficulty. The suckers were so strong 

 and fierce in my plots that in getting 

 among them I had to wear very long 

 leather leggings. Getting rid of 

 suckers is laborious and tedious work. ! 

 Where the popular idea is that Roses ! 

 do best on clay, let people who enter- 

 tain it so enjoy them, but let those ! 

 who have soils of a different nature 

 not despair, though they must make 

 their beds deep in the soil in which 

 Roses are supposed to grow best. In 

 districts with such soils that is, light, 

 sandy, or calcareous the best way is to 

 insert medium-sized cuttings of the 

 half-ripened wood in September, if 

 possible where they are to grow. The 

 chief difficulty in working plants on 

 their own roots is that the root is 



more fragile than the Dog Rose root. 

 One Rose put against a wall many 

 years ago in my garden is still in 

 perfect growth, which, I am quite sure, 

 would, if grafted on the Brier, have 

 gone the way of all Roses. 



The attempted classification of Roses 

 into Teas, hybrid perpetuals, etc., is 

 confusing and not sound, as all these 

 Roses are hybrids. What is wanted 

 in the trade and other catalogues is 

 alphabetical lists of the best varieties, 

 without following the absurd attempt 

 at classification. It would be dim- 

 cult to imagine anything more con- 

 fusing than the writings on the Rose 

 and our catalogues of the present 

 day ! Almost useless groups, like 

 the Boursault, are dignified as classes, 

 while more important groups like 

 the noble Teas often receive no due 

 notice ; the confusion arising from 

 the misleading term " hybrid per- 

 petual " has effectually concealed the 

 fact that the true perpetual bloomers 

 are the Tea Roses, so keeping the 

 noblest of all Roses out of gardens 

 even in the southern counties. For 

 many years Roses far superior to the 

 many so-called " perpetual " in point 

 of continuity of bloom have been 

 raised, and yet, as a result of that 

 ill-chosen name, one may go into some 

 of the largest gardens and hardly see 

 a Rose in the Rose garden in August. 

 The set idea of the Rose garden itself, 

 as laid down in all the books, i.e., a 

 place apart where one can only see 

 flowers at a certain season, was harm- 

 ful, as it led to the absence of the Rose 

 from the flower garden. Instead of 

 seeing the Rose in many different 

 attitudes in a country place, we see a 

 wretched mob of standards and half- 

 standards rising out of the ground, 

 generally in a miserable formal arrange- 

 ment called the Rosery. The Rose 

 exhibitors' Rose garden is even uglier 

 than the so-called Rosery in the large 

 country seat, and thus the beautiful 

 human and artistic side of the Rose 

 garden has been forgotten. 



Tea Roses are in many ways so 

 superior to all other Roses that we 

 might place them first, yet there is 

 room for a great extension of their 

 culture in gardens, both large and 

 small. We find even standard works 

 on Rose growing speaking of the Teas 

 as tender and needing protection. 

 Others say that only in a few instances 

 can they be grown in the open ground ; 

 and to have them in full beauty, to 

 ensure a constant succession of flowers, 



