970 



THE NATURE BOOK 



among the climbing and creeping kinds. 

 A generation ago Gloire de Dijon was 

 looked upon as the typical Climbing Rose, 

 and not only was no Rose garden com- 

 plete without it, but there was none to 

 usurp its place. One might say with 

 much truth even now that Gloire de 

 Dijon is well worthy of inclusion, for it 

 is one of the earliest to open and one 

 of the last to close. But it is a puny 

 thing beside the luxuriant climbers which 

 chiefly American rosarians ha\'e evolved 

 from the dainty, pink and white flowered, 

 almost evergreen Creeping Rose from 

 Japan, and some of the large flowered 

 kinds. They have made of our Rose 

 gardens a rich feast of glowing colour, 

 luxuriant bowers of glorious blossoms 

 that hide the very shoots and leaves that 

 gave them birth. The blooms come not 

 in twos and threes, but in lax bunches, 

 each of which is in itself a real bouquet. 

 Their slender twining stems quickly cover 

 the arch or arbour, pole or pillar that 

 supports them, and their lustrous leafage 

 alone is beautiful to look upon ; beauti- 

 ful in early summer before the buds have 

 burst to blossom ; beautiful still when 

 the flowers have faded, for these newer 

 Roses are almost evergreen. And best of 

 all, perhaps they grow as only they know 

 how to grow, and scorn the coaxing which 

 the old Gloire de Dijon has so come to 

 expect that now it cannot do without. 

 And how they blossom ! As though the 

 very world were one of bloom and they 

 must lead the way. 



Not only should the perfect Rose garden 

 be full of Roses, but Roses must encompass 

 it. Without — smothering all boundaries, 

 festooning gateways, climbing into and 

 hiding the base of neighbouring trees. 

 Within — sheeting arbour and arch, bed 

 and border and trellis with a wealth of 

 fragrant bhjom. A Rose garden must 

 be a garden of Roses — of Roses and little 

 else. We may, with propriety, allow the 

 blue spires of Larkspur to rise here, and 

 group tlie bounteous Paeony there, and 

 among them all, hiding the bare soil 

 beneath a lovely carpet of bloom, plant 

 Pansies and White Arabis. Candytuft 

 and Mignonette. But chiefly the Rose 

 garden is to be a garden of Roses— Roses 

 that clamber and climb and creep. 

 Standard Roses, Dwarf Roses, Swectbriar 



and China (and round about these a 

 casual bush of Lavender and Rosemary), 

 and all the other Roses, new and old, 

 that are available to grace the garden of 

 to-day. Roses, too, clambering over the 

 porch and peeping in at the bedroom 

 windows, Roses for edgings and Roses 

 for hedges. Indispensable for planting 

 without is the Musk Rose from far 

 Himalaya, whose olive-grey leaves have 

 almost as subtle a charm as the large, 

 white fragrant flowers which the slender 

 growths flaunt gracefully at a height of 

 fifteen feet or so. There are few Roses to 

 approach this for sheer vigour of growth, 

 for lu.xuriance of leaf and blossom. Plant 

 it fairly and well in soil made rich and 

 firm, and in the course of a few fast-fleeting 

 years, lo ! you have a giant in the Rose 

 garden, that has thrown a screen of 

 fragrant beauty across the face of the 

 workaday world — the world outside the 

 Roses — shutting out the world, shutting 

 in the Roses. Yet how few grow this 

 Rose. You may see it in the Dell at Kew, 

 and in the gardens of peers and princes, 

 but in countless others where it would 

 thrive equally well it is not known. Yet 

 the Musk Rose is democratic and not 

 fastidious ; it will thrive in the public 

 plot of the wayside cottage as finely as in 

 the exclusive solitude of the lord's domain. 

 For, like almost every other Rose, it is 

 not magnificence it needs, but tender, 

 kindly care. And what I have written 

 of the Musk Rose is equally true of 

 others — of others that clamber and climb. 

 Start them well, plant them carefully 

 in land enriched and well prepared, and 

 there is no doubt of the result — a graceful 

 thicket of gro\\i;hs that in due season 

 glows beneath a canopy of leaves, bright, 

 shining green, and finally sparkles like 

 precious stones when the sunlight plays 

 about its load of blossom. And for the 

 names of some of the Roses that light up 

 the garden in summer, and above all 

 in early summer, with a radiance borrowed 

 from fairyland ? 



Here are a few of the best, and none, I 

 think, were known or grown ten years 

 ago. Dorothy Perkins and Lady Gay 

 (pink) ; Blush Rambler ; Philadelphia 

 Rambler (red) ; Wedding Bells (pink) ; 

 Hiawatha (crimson and white) ; Tea 

 Rambler (cojiper and pink shades) ; Wiiite 



