92 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GAHDENING. 



THE EOSE AND ITS CULTURE. 



By D. T. Fish. 



SIANUARD, HALF-STANDARD, WEEPING, BUSH 

 OR DWARF, AND PEQGED-DOWN ROSES.- 

 "Vr OTWITHSTANDING the ridicule that has 

 Jl.1 heen heaped on Roses on stilts, these are as 

 numerous, and apparently as popular as ever. They 

 are less numerous relatively to other forms of Roses, 

 not because the number of standards is less, but 

 owing to the enormous increase of dwarfs. The 

 demand for standards of all heights also keeps 

 abreast or rises ahead of the supply. Nor is this 

 greatly to be wondered at, for there is no mode of in- 

 creasing Roses on the whole more rapid or more suc- 

 cessful than the worlcing of them on the Dog-rose 

 or common briar of our woods and hedgerows. That 

 has been adverted to in our chapter on Propagation, 

 and need not be noticed further here. 



But briars, ugl}- as many people afiect to think 

 them, have other merits of their own. However much 

 our modern aestheticians — ^to coin a word — may decry 

 standard Roses, they may nevertheless be moulded 

 into things of beauty and a joy for many years, if not 

 for ever, to not a, few Rosarians and lovers of their 



Not a little of the abuse that has been so libe- 

 rally heaped on this form of Rose has arisen from 

 the bad form and condition in which they are found 

 in so many gardens. Tall semi-dead briar-stems, 

 inclining at all angles towards the earth, instead of 

 standing up boldly at right-angles with it, carrying 

 ^ops consisting of a few irregular branches, the living 

 sadly intermixed with the dead, pictures rather of 

 death and desolation than of health, Hfe, vigour, and 

 symmetry, such scarecrows have done very much to 

 banish standard Roses of all and every height from 

 our gardens. 



But there are few gardens that might not be 

 further enriched by the addition of few or many 

 good standard Roses. While not incompatible with 

 the beauty of gardenesque scenes, their elevating 

 power is often a matter of much convenience to 

 Rosarians. By judicious selection and regulation of 

 height of stem the Rose may at once be lifted to our 

 own level ; thus the stooping to conquer, the only 

 legitimate mode of enjoying dwarf Roses, is avoided 

 in the garden. Only devoted Rosarians, who find 

 their highest enjoyment of their Roses on their 

 trees, can truly appreciate the solid advantages of 

 lifting up the blooms to our own level. No doubt 

 Roses may be grown as well as worked into stature ; 

 but not a few of our finest Roses grow rather 

 slowly, and would take several years to get up to 

 a height of three or five feet. 



The glowing coloui' of Roses may often be needed 



at considerable height in gardens to relieve to some 

 extent the verdant green of wide expanses of Laurels, 

 HoUies, and other evergreen trees and shrubs. 

 Dwellers in towns can hardly imagine an excess of 

 green in a garden. It is different, however, in the 

 country, which is all green in many places through- 

 out the greater part of the year. Liberal dashes of 

 colour in gardens, thus set in green frames, many • 

 broad acres in width, are as welcome as sunlight 

 dispersing a fog ; or an Ivy or Rose-clad house in a 

 dirty, crowded town. , 



By placing tall standards at the back of groups, 

 and shorter ones in succession, the standards may be 

 made to melt and merge fnto dwarfs in front, and 

 thus a bold bank of Roses of any extent be formed 

 on level ground in less time and at less cost than 

 could be done by any other method. 



The following illustrations of standards of different 

 heights will make all this plainer than any detailed 

 description. 



The first is of a tall standard. These may range 

 in heights frftm five to seven-feet. Fig. 46 repre- 

 sents a standard six feet in height, with a head in 

 proportion. The latter is a point of great importance ; 

 a top out of harmony with the height of stem, ill- 

 balanced, or one-sided, is as great an eyesore to the 

 Rosarian of taste as a wall out of the perpendicular 

 is to the architect or buUder. . 



Pig. 47 represents the more common standard, 

 with a stem three feet high, and a head about 

 a yard through. This is a most convenient height, 

 and looks better, on the whole, than any other. 



Por an illustration of the dwarf standard we need 

 onlyrefer to Fig. 39, page 112, Vol. II. The dwarf 

 standards become so much like a dwarf that it is 

 hardly worth while giving an illustration. Cut a 

 foot or eighteen inches off the stem, and slightly 

 reduce the top, and the effect of dwarf standards is 

 seen at once. 



Weeping 'Rosea. — These are decidedly more 

 artistic and far less common than standards. This 

 arises in part from the far greater difficulty in 

 forming them, and keeping them in good shape after- 

 wards. There are also comparatively few Roses well 

 adapted for moulding into weeping forms, and some 

 of these, notably Niphetos and Marechal Niel, are 

 rather too tender to be relied upon in our fickle 

 climate. The two finest weeping Roses, however, 

 ever seen by the writer were of those two varieties. 

 Some other rather tender Roses make capital weepers 

 — Triomphe de Rennes, Celine Forestier, and La- 

 marque. In each of those fine Roses it will be ob- 

 served the flowering branchlets are sufficiently long 

 and slender, and the flowers so numerous and so 

 weighty, as to allow the Roses to weep naturally. 



