2io GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



not strictly midsummer roses, though they linger 

 on with us often until the longest day, that 

 pathetic day when we realise that the flowing tide 

 of summer glory must soon ebb, and leave us with 

 dwindling days and darkening evenings. 



But it is high summer yet, and we forget that 

 it is passing while roses are in their heyday and 

 we are watching and waiting for the slow-paced 

 ramblers to enter into possession of pillar and per- 

 gola in July. Surely one of the greatest boons 

 that has come to our gardens of late years is in 

 the successional character and grace of the newer 

 roses. There is scarcely a day from May to De- 

 cember on which we may not gather a bunch of 

 one kind or another. And many ways of using 

 roses are now open to us, made possible by their 

 varied habits from the compact low-growing 

 edging kinds of the polyantha race to the climbers 

 with wands of twenty feet in height, which were 

 not brought to the same perfection in years gone 

 by. 



Summer, assuredly, is the time of fruition and 

 keenest enjoyment in the flower garden. We are 

 reaping now what we have sown in the past, and 

 the harvest is rich. But, even so, there is some 

 work to be done as we look forward. Opportunities 

 must be seized as they come, for lose the moment 

 and the year is lost. 



Yet gather we roses while we may, for summer 

 wanes, its flowers are fading, its glory is passing 

 by. 



