April, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



137 



The Use of the Rose for House Decoration 



By Charles F. Holder 



lOUBTLESS few of the many professional 

 house designers and decorators in the East 

 ever seriously consider the rose as a factor in 

 their plans or schemes for utility and artistic 

 effect. In California, one of the charms of 

 the country, a charm that gives rise to the 

 most enthusiastic comment, is the decoration 

 of inexpensive homes with roses. In the cities of Los Angeles, 

 Pasadena, San Diego, and many other cities and towns of 

 southern California, are seen numerous small houses, many 

 the homes of laborers. Some of them may never have been 



Everywhere in southern California these modest homes 

 are seen; In the heart of Los Angeles, in the suburbs. In 

 country towns, everywhere roses of some kind bloom the 

 year around. I recall one home built by an invalid in the 

 suburbs of a small town not far from Los Angeles. This 

 man had two hundred dollars with which to build. He put 

 up a simple rough board frame house, box-shaped, divided 

 into three rooms — a living-room, bedroom and kitchen. It 

 was a crude affair on the sun-burned mesa, about as unattrac- 

 tive a place as one would care to look at. All the money 

 seemed to have been expended In the house; In any event, the 



dignified by a coat of paint, but over them Is drawn this win- 

 ter canopy of ineffable beauty transforming them into bowers 

 of color. 



You see them everywhere. Great clusters of white roses 

 nod over the fence or cover an unsightly woodshed; roses 

 which If they could be placed on the corner of Fifth Avenue 

 and Twenty-third Street, New York, in the hands of flower 

 venders would sell for more than the value of the building. 

 It Is not necessary for the man of moderate means to build 

 an elaborate house, or even paint it If he will but consider 

 the rose as a factor; the money that he might expend in paint 

 becomes much more effective In water, which in liberal quan- 

 tities about the roots of roses, paints the humble home in 

 marvelous tints and produces an effect at once artistic and 

 beautiful, one that might well excite the envy of the wealthy 

 dweller In lands where the bloom of the rose Is not constant. 



builder made no attempt to paint It; Instead, he ran up from 

 the ground a quantity of wire fencing so that It stood out 

 about two feet from the building. Where the windows were 

 he left spaces, and at this stage the house had the appearance 

 of a bird cage. The next time I saw the place was after the 

 first rains in November. Alfileria and wild grasses had 

 painted the land in greens. The barren board shanty had 

 disappeared and in Its place was a blaze of purple. The In- 

 valid wanted to "paint" his house quickly, so had planted 

 the big purple Japanese morning glory and other vines that 

 had climbed up over the trellis and covered the unpainted 

 wall with a mass of splendid color. But this was only for a 

 time. All about the house he had planted roses that grew 

 slowly, and upon my next visit the shanty was a bower of 

 roses, literally covered by masses of white and pink climbers 

 that made It stand out as a beauty spot in the landscape. 



