CHAPTER XLVI 



HARDY ROSES 



The ideal g^arden has many Roses in it. Roses 

 here and there, and everywhere. There cannot be too 

 many of them. Indeed, to the lover of this most lovely 

 of all flowers there can never be enou£:;;h, though per- 

 haps the Californian may have a surfeit of them. A 

 lady wrote me last summer about a Marechal Niel 

 which clambered up to the eaves of a two-story house, 

 from which she had often cut a bushel basket full of 

 flowers without being able to note the loss of one. 

 Think of that, and long for Paradise in southern 

 California, oh lover of this lovely Rose which we often 

 fail to get a dozen flowers from in our greenhouses 

 in the course of a whole season ! 



Roses must be given a very rich soil if you want 

 them to do their best, and we ought to be satisfied 

 with nothing less. They will bloom well, compara- 

 tively speaking, in an ordinary soil, but you never 

 know what they are capable of doing until you give 

 them a bed in which plenty of old, strong manure 

 is worked. Treat a bush which has been giving you 

 flowers of ordinary size and color to such a fertilizer 

 and you will be surprised to note the difference in 

 growth, foliage, size and richness of color of the 

 flowers. 



The Rose likes a somewhat heavy soil. It prefers 

 a clayey loam to a sandy loam. Its roots are strong, 

 and it seems to want a soil in which it itself can 

 intrench firmly. If the location selected for your 

 Rose bed is not naturally well drained, see that it is 

 made so. Dig out the soil to the depth of two feet, 



