THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



ordinary grafted garden Rose to do well we must give it not less than 

 30 inches in depth of like soil. This is often of a rich nature, and 

 it is very easy to add, in putting the soil in, all the manure which the 

 Rose may want for some years, so that the surface of the bed might 

 be planted with light-rooting rock and like plants, one of the prettiest 

 ways being to surface it with Pansies and Violets. I have beds of Tea 

 Roses over which the Irish mossy Rockfoil has been growing for years 

 without the roses suffering. Beautiful groups of mossy plants of all 

 sorts, or pretty little evergreen alpine plants associated with the earliest 

 flowers, show that the surface of the Rose garden itself might be 

 a charming garden of another kind, and not a manure heap. In the 

 old way of having what is called a " rosery " it did not matter so much 

 about covering the surface with manure, but where we put our Rose 

 beds in the centre of the very choicest flower garden or under the 

 windows of the house it is a very ugly practice. The Rose can be 

 nourished for six or eight years without adding any manure to the 

 surface, and after six, eight, or ten years most beds will probably 

 require some change, or we may change our view as regards them. 



If we free our minds from the incubus of these usual teachings 

 and practices, many beautiful things may be done with Roses 

 for garden adornment. What is wanted mainly is that the very 

 finest Roses, and above all long-blooming ones like Monthly Roses 

 and such Tea Roses as George Nabonnand, Marie Van Houtte, 

 and Anna Olivier, should be brought into the flower garden in bold 

 masses and groups to give variety and prolonged bloom, using the 

 choicest Tea Roses in the flower beds, with wreaths of yellow 

 climbing Roses swinging in the air, and on walls, especially the 

 climbing Tea Roses. Perhaps it may be worth while, to encourage 

 others, to tell the story of 



MY ROSE GARDEN, as a record of a trial that succeeded may be of 

 more use to the beginner. My idea was to get the best of the Roses into 

 the flower garden instead of bedding plants or coarse perennials, to 

 show at the same time the error of the common ways of growing 

 Roses, and also the stupidity of the current idea that you cannot 

 near the house (and in what in the needless verbiage of the day 

 is called the " formal " garden) set flowers out in picturesque and 

 beautiful ways. Another point was to help to get the flower garden 

 more permanently planted instead of the eternal ups and downs of 

 the beds in spring and autumn and the ugly bareness of the earth 

 at these seasons, and to see if one could not make a step towards the 

 beautiful permanent planting of beds near the house and always in 

 view. Tea Roses only were used for the sake of their great freedom 

 of bloom, and these were all planted in large groups, so that one might 

 judge of their effect and character much better than by the usual way 



