The Rose Garden 297 



tecting trees stand near enough to the roses to shade their wards. 

 Red roses that fade unpleasantly bluish in strong sunlight would 

 better take back seats in the lightly shaded places, if there be any 

 such. An enclosing hedge of hemlock, arborvitae, or the ubiqui 

 tous privet about a rose garden protects it almost as well as a wall, 

 and makes a far more effective foil for the flowers; but the roots 

 of the evergreens should be kept from robbing the roses by 

 partitions of concrete, boards or ashes, as explained in the 

 perennial chapter. 



A wonderfully beautiful garden has a rose entwined and 

 canopied pergola running entirely around its four sides and within 

 a breast-high hemlock hedge. Here are easy chairs and tea- 

 table, sewing-baskets and books in plenty, sunshine and shade, 

 the sound of splashing water in the central fountain, the com 

 panionship of birds that come to bathe and to drink in the pool, 

 the fragrance of roses inhaled with every breath, colour to delight 

 one, and an entrancing picture from every seat in the open-air 

 living-room. What a delicious place to rest! After centuries 

 of running after false notions of what constitute home comforts, 

 shall we not return to the Roman s idea of living in a garden 

 if not in the flower-filled courtyard of a house, as he did, then in a 

 verdant enclosure near it ? 



The shape of the rose garden may depend upon the site avail 

 able for it, but one that is formal in outline and the arrangement 

 of its beds, yet with the curse of flatness and rigidity obliterated 

 by arches, pillars and festoons of rose vines, has practical as well 

 as artistic merits. It need not be large nor costly to make or to 

 maintain. A fountain, an arbour, a sundial, a picturesque old 

 tree with a circular seat around its trunk, a clump of big boxwood 

 or a bed of especially beautiful roses, may be its central feature, 



