504 



THE GARDENERS* MAGAZINE. 



J-olt: 6, 1912. 



ROSE UNA SCHMIDT 



MICHEL. 



L 



It is a curious fact that some good 

 never become so well known as tliey deserve 

 to be, while others that are in fany respects 

 inferior, are to be found in almost every 

 rose garden. In most gardens whose owners 



tainly much happier in this respect. Unfor- 

 tunately, we cannot drop the surna-me, as 

 we should be interfering with the rights 

 of that charming little apricot Tea rose 



which goes by the name of Lena. 



White Ladt. 



interested 



awn 



and 



although its 



bright pink semi-double flowers are very 

 attractive and are freely produced, and its 



shoots 



leg, 



— unless it is bent right down very early 

 in the spring, the shoots are almost certain 

 to get bare at the base, and there are few 

 more unsightly objects in the garden than 

 a pillar rose bare and leggy at the base 

 with a bushy top-heavy bunch of leaves and 

 flowers at the top. 



We had almost decided to give up trying 

 to grow Dawn until we are told by friends 

 thax- this leggy habit could be overcome by 

 taking down the long rods in early spring 

 and leaving them for some weeks in a hori- 

 zontal position, and go getting the buds to 

 break all the way along before fastening 

 them again to the pillar. This plan has 

 been quite successful, but it is not always 

 convenient to do this, as the plants take up 

 a lot of room when tied down in this way, 

 and I would advise all who admire the 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF A 

 SCHOOL GARDEN— L 



Its ObjectSi 



Some years have now passed since horti- 

 culture was added to the curriculum of ele- 

 mentary schools^ and school gardens were 

 established. To be quite correct about the 

 commencement, however, I should have said 

 many years, for long ibefore school gardens 

 were recognised by education authorities, 

 certain far-seeing persons in villages here 

 and there, saw the possibilities of school 

 gardening, realised its usefulness, and in- 

 troduced the subject on their own initiative 

 and very often at their own expense. The 

 introduction of gardening, as a recognised 

 subject, however, was the result of a con- 

 viction that our education system was 

 wrong inasmuch as it was not practical 

 enough. Whereas the brain of the boy was 

 utilised, his hands were mostly allowed to 

 remain idle, and he left school with an idea 

 at the back of his mind, and for which his 



respo 



flowers of Dawn and yet do not want to ^^^^ .^^^^ |.g do manual work. 



thei 



scribed, to grow the H.T. Lina Schmidt 

 (Michel in its place. I saw this rose at the 

 Temple Show about four years ago, and was 

 very much taken with the lovely shades of 

 pink in its large, loose blossoms. The big, 

 shell-like petals are of a soft creamy-pink 

 on the inside and very bright glowing rose- 

 pink on the outside, while the buds are 

 almost vermilion red ; altogether it is a 

 brighter and fuller plant than Dawn. The 

 foliage is dark green, tinged with bronze, 

 and rather leathery. The flowers are gener- 

 ally produced singly or at most two on a 

 stem (at any rate, in the first blooming), 

 and are on long stalks, so that it is a more 

 useful rose for cutting than Dawn, which 

 grows in rather tight, uncomfortable 

 bunches of three or four blooms unless it is 

 disbudded. The first summer we had Lina 

 iSchmidt Michel we were afraid we had dis- 

 covered two reasons which might justify its 

 absence from so many rose gardens; the 

 first was that it seemed to be a shy flower er, 

 and the second that it was in no hurry to 

 climb up its 10ft. pillar. However, last 

 summer — its second in our garden— it over- 

 came one of our fears, and reached the top 

 of its pillar, and would evidently have liked 

 to go higher still, while this— its third sum- 

 mer with us— it has entirely vindicated itself 



He acquired a certain amount of know- 

 ledge, but had no capacity for applying it ; 

 he knew something, but could do nothing, 

 and the inborn intelligence which the aver- 

 age boy possesses was not appealed to by the 

 mode of teaching. In other words, he was 

 an institution for the reception of certain 

 facts; the process was one of driving in, 

 but the drawing out and development of 

 latent intelligence is, after all, the keynote 

 of successful teaching. In looking round 

 for material in teaching with the object of 

 altering the existing order of things, and 

 making boys more handy, useful, skilful, 

 intelligent, and self-reliant, the authorities 

 found it at the very door of the school, in 

 the workshop where the lad can make some- 

 thing, and in the garden where he can grow 

 something and see, in the course of a few 



" " This, 



after all, was only a matter of history re- 

 peating itself, and the hall-mark of official 

 authority was given to ideas that solitary 

 teachers and isolated educationists be- 

 lieved in long years ago, and were, to some 

 extent, practised in the village dame's 

 school in times gone by. 



School gardening then was not a spon- 

 taneous growth, its beginning, as we know 

 it, was only a contmuation, in the form of 

 in the matter of freedom of flowering, and an experiment, but, unlike some other ex- 



months, the result of his labour. 



is a most shapely pillar plant, clothe<l from 

 base to summit with it fine big foliage, and 

 its glowing pink blossoms, which seem 

 happy alike in sunshine or in rain. The 

 flowers have a very pleasant scent, and it 

 is not given to mildew. I have just been 

 examining (June 18) our plants of Dawn 

 and Lina Schmidt Michel to see which is 

 the best in this respect, and find that Dawn 



considerabl 



a 



has already ^ t • i, 



dew on the flower-stems, while Jjina has 

 none. It is a good autumn bloomer, and 

 the fact I have just noticed that its flowers 

 are not spoilt by rain makes it specially 

 useful at that time of year. I find, on re- 

 ferring^ to the N.R.S. catalogue, that this 

 rose w'^s only introduced by Mr. Peter Lam- 

 bert in 1905, so possibly it has not yet had 

 time to find its way into the many gardens 

 which, I am sure, would be the brighter for 

 its presence ; perhaps, too, it suffers from its 

 rather cumbersome naw- D^wn is cer- 



periments in education, it has grown and 

 developed, and is still increasing. A good 

 deal of the credit for this must be given to 

 enterprising teachers, who saw the possi- 

 bilities of a school garden as a means of 

 e<:lucation, and in face of criticism and a 

 good deal of local scepticism, went ahead 

 and showed the way, with the result that 

 others have followed, and gardening is 

 gradually becoming an essential part of 

 every elemcninry school in rural Britain. 

 A strong point about the movement is that 

 it has \een voluntary; gardening is a 

 special subject, though, perhaps, this is one 

 of the weaknesses about the (system, and 

 the majoritv of the teachers who have 

 taken it up have done so of their own free 

 will, believing that it would be useful to 

 the 'children and invaluable for giving life 

 and reality to lessons of a more literary 

 type As evidence of its helpfulness in the 

 latter direction a teacher informed me re- 



most 



ing 



cently that the gardening was the 

 *^liAnng" subject in his school. 



In some quarters even now there seem to 

 be hazy ideas as to the objects of school 

 gardening, and apparently certain indivi- 

 duals still retain the impression that the 

 object is to make professional gardeners of 

 the boys. No idea than this could be so 

 mistaken or so mischievous, and it only 

 goes so far as this, that a teacher in his 

 gardening class can detect the boys who 

 have a taste and capacity for gardening, 

 and he may be able to find a way for them 

 to follow the craft after they leave school. 

 This is quite as it should be, and I know of 

 several promising youths who are making 

 their w^ay in hoi^ticulture whose capacity for 

 gardening was discovered in the school gar- 

 den. In my opinion, one of the greatest 

 drawbacks in our system, or rather lack of 

 system, in making gardeners to-day, is the 

 want of discrimination in first finding out 

 whether the individual is possessed of the 

 natural taste and inclination that are essen- 

 tial to the making of a good gardener. 



The object, then, of the school garden, is 

 not primarily to make professional gar- 

 deners, but there is one phase of the teach- 

 that I would emphasise. Scattered 

 about over the face of this country there are 

 thousands of men, and %vomen^ too, who 

 make gardening a hobby. In the course of 

 their daily occupation they toil on the land, 

 down mines, in factories, workshops, ofiBces, 

 and elsew^here, and in their spare time 

 they find pleasure, and sometimes profit, in 

 the pursuit of gardening. That this hobhy 

 is healthy everybody will agree; that it is 

 uplifting must also be admitted when it is 

 realised that those who pursue it are, for 

 the most part, respected members of the 

 community to which they belong. In fare 

 of this evidence, it is very desirable that 

 there should be an increase rather than a 

 decline in this national taste for garden- 



and it is the school gaiden that will 

 help to bring it about. Hundreds of that 

 section of gardeners whom we call amateurs 

 have had no opportunity of learning, and 

 what they know about gardening they have 

 had to pick up as they w^ent along. In the 

 school garden, however, the boys have an 

 opportunity of learning the principles ot 

 the thing, the foundation is laid, and thev 

 go from school with something upon which 



bnild and in their young minds 



put 



and 

 are 



ing, 



they can build, and m tneir y-..»e. 

 are placed ideas that can hardly be 

 there at a later age. 



Another object of school gardening, 

 a highly impcrtant one, is that boys 



Is ; in ot 



nd invei 



dignity of manual labour is a thi..^ 



taught to -use their handsj in other worcls^ 



to work, to he handy and inventive, ine 

 dignity of manual labour is a thing tna^ 

 this country must uphold, and surely tne 

 place to teach the hoy that it is not intra 

 dig to use his hands in honest labour, is tne 

 school. It has heen urged in the past tnai; 

 our education system has failed in this par- 

 ticular, hence the desirability of introduc- 

 ing manual processes into the curnculuni- 

 It is not claimed for school gardening tnai 

 it will solve the question of back f ^ , 

 land but surely, by making use ot loca' 

 environment in teaching, boys m the coi 

 try will he induced to take more m^^rest i 

 their surroundings, and in after lite n 

 pleasures there that life in the town 

 never offer them. Whether the objecte oi 

 school gardening are ever fully a<-^'' 

 plished or not, it is claimed for them thaj 

 they are good, and in subsequent issue 

 propose to deal with different phases ottn^ 

 subject as they appear to 



A thorough ^i^* 



J. 



DAHLIAS TO PEBFECTION.- 

 to the Bucoeseful oulture of thes* 

 " Datiliae and their Ouiltivation, 

 price le. net, hy post l^- Jd bound m ^idfe 

 bv poet. Is. 8d.. from W. H. and L. Couing 

 148, Atdersgate Street, London. 



