CHAPTER V 



The Rose Garden 



No one really has a garden without some Roses. No one ever wrote 

 about gardens without giving elaborate directions for the care 

 of the Rose garden. All sorts of Roses are admirable — even, in 

 a passing way, the freakish attempts at improvement such as the blue 

 and the green Roses, Everyone has said the same thing about the lo- 

 cation of the Rose garden, that it must be sheltered from the wind, 

 but not surrounded, so that the air may have some circulation. It 

 must not be in the proximity of large, water-robbing trees. It should 

 have sun the greater part of the day. Rut everyone cannot locate his 

 Rose garden in an ideal spot. A few hardy, robust kinds can be 

 grown under rather adverse conditions. Those we mention are favor- 

 ites in thei North; many others can be tried in less severe climates. 

 Rbieb Roses. There is a huge group of shrubby or Brier Roses. 

 On the whole, they are hardy and grow under adverse conditions. 

 Some of them will be useful for making a hedge. If a Rose garden is 

 to be made, plan it in the Winter and make preparations to surround 

 it with a row of briers. No Rose is hardier, freer-blooming and more 

 disease-resistant than the Japanese Rugged Rose, or Rosa rugosa. 

 Bearing single and double, crimson, pink or white flowers, it is the first 

 one to place in the hedge. Of charming fragrance and exquisite colors 

 are the Penzance hybrids. Lord Penzance, an English lawyer, 

 strove to be a success at the bar, but his name wiU live as a hybridizer 

 of Roses long after people have forgotten him as a lawyer. He used the 

 standard garden varieties of Roses and crossed them with the Sweet 

 Brier. The result is a wonderful group of Roses with Apple-scented 

 leaves and deUcate pinkish orange, sahnon and rose-pink single flowers. 

 We must not pass over the early yellow Roses, two of which are of 

 great importance. The earUest and lighter yeUow Rose seen in every 

 old-fashioned garden is the Persian yeUow and a few days or weeks 

 later the golden yellow variety, which is shghtly tinged with red on 

 some of the center petals, is Harrison's Yellow. The foUage of this 

 Rose is charming; it is a pity that these two Roses bloom but once a 

 year. One other Brier before we pass inside of the Rose plot which is 

 to be. It is the Prairie Brier, Rosa setigera, and as it has a tendency 

 to climb, should be given some sort of a treUis or fence. It blooms 

 late and bears huge pink single flowers in large trusses. 



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