134 THE GARDEN, YOU, AND I 



wintered comfortably and on being pruned to within 

 three inches of the ground have lasted many years. 



As to the varieties so treated, that is a secondary 

 consideration, for under these circumstances you must 

 take what the florist has to offer, which will of course 

 be those most suitable to the winter market. I have 

 used Perle des Jardins, Catherine Mermet, Bride and 

 Bridesmaid, Safrano, Souvenir d'un Ami, and Bon 

 Silene (the rose for button-hole buds) with equal success, 

 though a very intelligent grower affirms that both Bride 

 and Bridesmaid are unsatisfactory as outdoor roses. 



I do not say that the individual flowers from these 

 bushes bear relation to the perfect specimens of green- 

 house growth in anything but fragrance, but in this 

 way I have roses all the autumn, "by the fistful," as 

 Timothy Saunders's Scotch appreciation of values puts 

 it, though his spouse, Martha Corkle, whose home 

 memories are usually expanded by the perspective of 

 time and absence, in this case speaks truly when she 

 says on receiving a handful, "Yes, Mrs. Evan, they're 

 nice and sweetish and I thank you kindly, but, ma'am, 

 they couldn't stand in it with those that grows as free 

 as corn poppies round the four-shillin'-a-week cottages 

 out Gloucester way, and no disrespec' intended." 



The working season of the rose garden begins the 



