ROSES AND THEIR CULTURE 219 



dinary character. All that it really needs is 

 recognition as a rose garden, and a habit of 

 thought that accepts its existence and its some- 

 what different concepts as proper and to be 

 granted. It need be nothing more than one 

 unbroken plot set apart for these plants, if this 

 is all that is possible — what we might call a bed 

 if that term and thought were not utterly taboo 

 in the right conception of the garden. Such a 

 little garden space given over to the rose is 

 better expressed perhaps by the term rosary; 

 but terms do not greatly matter of course if the 

 thing itself is right. 



The essential is that every rose plant shall 

 be easily reached — shall be accessible from the 

 ground without stepping upon the loose, culti- 

 vated earth of the bed — that every plant shall 

 be free from interference from every other plant 

 in the assemblage, and that there be no inter- 

 ference below ground from the roots of trees or 

 shrubs growing near by, nor overhead by reason 

 of their shade. The great rosarian and good 

 Dean Hole tells those who look for advice that 

 "the rose garden must not be in an exposed 

 situation. It must have shelter but it must not 

 have shade. No boughs may darken, no drip 

 may saturate, no roots may rob the rose." 



Further than this it only remains to say 



