6o THE ROSE BOOK 



by the use of string, the tips of the shoots being attached 

 to the stem of the tree, and to each other, if necessary. 

 But it is a mistake to attempt to make a weeping standard 

 " prim and proper " ; much of its charm lies in the 

 natural grace of the long, slender shoots, and to restrict 

 them unduly is to detract from their beauty. 



The weeping standard demands to be well displayed ; 

 it forms such a perfect picture of rose beauty that there 

 can be no hesitation in giving it pride of place in the 

 garden. It fills the centre of a formal rose garden with 

 queenly grace, and there should be placed in default 

 of a sun-dial, old well head, or stone fountain. Nothing 

 so soon gives an old-world charm to a garden as one of 

 these, but no better substitute can be found than the 

 weeping rose. Wherever placed, the weeping standard 

 needs space. Crowd it, as you may do a bush or even an 

 ordinary standard rose, and its chief charm, perfect 

 contour and grace of form are lost. One should be able 

 easily to admire it from any point of view. 



Half-Standards. — ^It may or may not be necessary 

 to explain that a half-standard rose is one that is grown 

 on a stem about two feet high, but it is perhaps always 

 wise to premise ignorance on the reader's part. The 

 half-standard rose has great merits, for in this form 

 the Tea roses thrive admirably, while often they fail as 

 full standards. To show the perfection to which Tea 

 roses may be grown as half-standards, in the National 

 Rose Society's annual for 1912 there appears an illustra- 

 tion of a half-standard of rose Mrs. Edward Mawley bear- 

 ing seventy blooms. Perhaps I ought to be fair, and add 



