ROSES AND OTHER FLOWERS 63 



that bloom throughout the summer, for they add more 

 to the gaiety of the garden than the other plants, most 

 of which have their short season of bloom, and, having 

 blossomed, fade and become unattractive for the rest 

 of the season ; a rose, if not in bloom, could never look 

 dowdy, even though it might be uninteresting. Heigho ! 

 then, for roses in the mixed border of hardy flowers. 



I hope no reader will compare this chapter with that 

 on rose gardens, for he may not be able to reconcile the 

 two. But, or so we are told, there is great charm in 

 variety, so I make allusion to the orthodox and the 

 heterodox, certain in the belief that the reader wiU 

 find no difficulties in making a choice, or perchance in 

 striking a happy mean. Should the comparison unhappily 

 be made, let the reader believe that in writing of rose 

 gardens I was but following the conventions, and prob- 

 ably giving similar advice to that which has been given 

 before, and that at the moment I am, metaphorically, 

 kicking over the traces. According as he be heretic in 

 fancy or orthodox in taste, let him take heed of the one 

 and forget the other according to his way of thinking. 

 An author of gardening books, if he is wise (or perhaps 

 if he is unwise), wiU have no cut and dried opinions; he 

 will put the pros and cons before the reader and cry, 

 with Alexander Pope, " This choice is left ye." 



For some, at least, of the roses that can be relied 

 upon to hold their own in the mixed border we have to 

 go back a long way, to dip a little into the lists of the 

 past, for some of the old sorts are giants still when it is 

 a question of " holding their own." Choose, for instance. 



