AMONGST THE ROSES 59 



needed is not only the first and most necessary 

 thing, which is to be able to grow roses. This is 

 purely a horticultural matter, which should not be 

 confounded with what is to come after. The roses 

 of the rose garden must be well grown, the material 

 of the picture must be of the best, just as the artist 

 requires the best quality in canvas, colours, and 

 brushes, but well-grown roses only do not necessarily 

 make a rose garden, and that is why those that we 

 see in many large places, where plentiful labour 

 and all needful means and appliances are freely 

 provided, leave us with a sense of emptiness and 

 regret, even though the roses there seen may be of 

 the loveliest and grown to perfection. 



When this is felt — and alas 1 it is in nearly all 

 so-called rose gardens — it is because it has not, in 

 the first place, been considered as a whole, in proper 

 relation to the place itself and all that is about 

 it ; and secondly, because no intelligent or careful 

 thought has been taken about the arrangement 

 of the details. There are the paints and brushes 

 and the canvas, but where is the artist ? The rose 

 garden is usually a target of concentric rings of four 

 feet wide beds in turf, with arches at the four sides, 

 and, perhaps, a meeting-place of arches in the 

 centre, and it is often placed in the middle or at 



