58 SUMMER 



But in spite of science in the garden June remains 

 above other months the month of roses. The short-lived 

 flower of single petals gives the note. It begins the rose 

 season and in one sense ends it. The garden is a fair place 

 because it is a part, though an intensive and often formal 

 part, of the nature that is outside it ; and abroad the roses 

 first bloom in June and are clean vanished before July is 

 over. Beyond all rivalry the dog-rose is the fairest flower 

 in English hedgerows. It possesses a score of virtues. The 

 first green leaf-buds of the year are the buds of the rose, and 

 most delicate is their tint. Behind the light and airy but 

 very complete screen of the leaves the early nests are built, 

 most cunningly built, not inside the bush but right against 

 the fringe, so that the sitting bird and the young have every 

 advantage of a screen from prying eyes without any want of 

 air or light. And the twigs on which their home rests are 

 so slight that the nest is as safe from heavy climbing crea- 

 tures from stoats or rats as from preying birds. There is 

 no lovelier thing in the lap of summer than a lichened 

 chaffinch's nest perched with secure lightness in these fring- 

 ing leaves, sometimes right against a flower. The bird is 

 not perhaps so fond of the rose as are some others, as the 

 whitethroat, for example ; but now and again you find a nest 

 there of such perfection that it remains a jewel in the mind's 

 eye however many nests be found elsewhere afterwards. 

 This dog-rose possesses almost all the qualities that appear 

 in varying degrees of strength in our newest garden roses. 

 It is a bush rose, but it is also a climber. Great festooning 

 sprays swing out above bullfinch hedges ; and as you catch 

 the dim discs of the many flowers some summer night you 

 might take them for a pattern of stars, illimitably remote. 

 The dog-rose has signs, too, of that almost evergreen habit 

 which we admire in the Wichuriana. It has the colours too. 



