294 The American Flower Garden 



too many suckers for admission within the trimly kept rose garden. 

 Some people reject the flowers for indoor decoration. Although 

 the fragile petals of the single roses fall after a day, buds open 

 continuously in water, just as our native wild rosebuds do, and 

 the rugosa's value for cut flowers, each of which brings its own 

 beautiful setting of dark green, glossy, crinkled foliage, free from 

 insects and disease, is appreciated by the discerning. 



These Japanese roses, wild and hybrid, have scarcely reached 

 their high tide of bloom when the yellow briers bring us their one 

 meagre but precious offering of the year. Except in old-fashioned 

 gardens, one rarely sees Persian yellow, Austrian copper and 

 Scotch roses now; nevertheless, if only for sentiment's sake, the 

 modern garden will not lack these charming little roses beloved 

 by our grandmothers. After a warm, gentle rain, what delicious 

 incense arises from another favourite of theirs, the sweetbrier! 

 The small-flowered, fragrant-leaved, wild eglantine of Shakespeare's 

 day has benefited by many modern improvements at the hands 

 of the hybridiser, and of the sixteen varieties of Penzance sweet- 

 briers all are good. Some are exquisitely tinted. None responds 

 encouragingly to high cultivation, however. Once planted in rich, 

 heavy soil, about ten feet apart, all they ask is the support of a 

 trellis or fence, and to be let alone. Tied upon pillars or arches 

 in an attempt to tame these more than half-wild revellers, they 

 never look so well as when the long, vigorous canes are allowed to 

 follow their own sweet will. 



June is and probably ever will be with us the month of roses, 

 however much we may hasten and prolong their season. Then, 

 and only then, are the hybrid "perpetuals" in their glory on 

 American soil but in spite of their limitations, ignored in their 

 name, they bid fair to remain for awhile the main stock of the rose 



