THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



unfortunately ruled the practice of gardeners, and it is very natural 

 many should take the prize-takers as a guide. 



There was some reason in the older practice, because until 

 recent years the roses most grown were summer flowering, that is 

 to say, like our wild roses, they had a fixed and short time of 

 bloom, which usually did not last more than a few weeks ; but in 

 our days, and within the last fifty years, there have been raised 

 mainly by crossing with the Bengal Rose and some others 

 a number of beautiful Roses, which flower for much longer 

 periods. There are, for example, the monthly Roses and the lovely 

 Tea Roses, which also come in some way from the Indian Rose, 

 and which, when well grown, will flower throughout the whole 

 summer and autumn ; not every kind, perhaps, but in a collection 

 of the best there is scarcely a week in which we have not a variety 

 of beautiful flowers. So that, while our forefathers might have been 

 excused for taking the view that Roses are only fit to plant in a 

 place apart, there is no need for the modern grower to do so, who is not 

 tied to the show bench as his one ideal and aim, and nothing could 

 be more untrue and harmful than this ideal from a garden point of 

 view. 



THE ROSE TO COME BACK TO THE FLOWER GARDEN. The 

 Rose is not only "decorative" but is the queen of all decorative 

 plants, not in one sort of position or garden, but in many not in 

 one race or sort, but in many, from Anna Olivier, Edith Gifford, 

 and Tea Roses of that noble type in the heart of the choicest flower- 

 garden, to the wild Rose that tosses its long arms from the hedgerows 

 in the rich soils of midland England, and the climbing Roses in their 

 many forms, from the somewhat tender Banksian Rose to climbing 

 Roses of British origin. And fine as the old climbing Roses were, 

 we have now a far nobler race finer indeed than one ever expected to 

 see of climbing teas which, in addition to the highest beauty, have 

 the great quality of flowering, like Bouquet d'Or, throughout the fine 

 summer and late into the autumn. Of these there are various climb- 

 ing Roses that open well on walls, and give meadows of beauty, the 

 like of which no other plant whatever gives in our country. See, too, 

 the monthly Roses in cottage gardens in the west and cool coast 

 country, beautiful through the summer and far into the cool autumn, 

 and consider the fine China Roses, such as Laurette Messimy, raised 

 in our own day, all decorative in the highest sense of that poor word. 



The outcome of it all is that the Rose must go back to the flower 

 garden its true place, not only for its own sake, but to save the 

 garden from ugliness and hardness, and give it fragrance and dignity 

 of leaf and flower. The idea that we cannot have prolonged bloom 

 from Roses is not true, because the finer monthly and Tea Roses 



