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THE GARDENERS* MAGAZINE. 



July 1912. 



THE MONTHS OF ROSES- 



June and July are, according to tradi- 

 tion, the months of roses, but, with the aid 

 of the more recent varieties, roses may be 

 had in abundance for a much longer period. 



"I 6&W the rose grove blushing in pride. 

 1 gathcn d ih*' blushing rose, and eigh'd — 

 I come from the roce grove, Mother ; 

 I come from the- grove of roses.'" 



— Gil Vicenii. 



A Moslem tradition is that when Mahomet 

 took his journey to heaven, the sweat which 

 fell on the earth from the prophet's fore- 

 head produced white roses, and that which 

 fell from Alborak, the animal on which he 

 rwle, produced yellow ont^. 



And the Greek poets tell tliat originally 

 all roses were white, but were changed to 

 red from the bloo<I of Venus, who lacerated 

 her feet with the thorns. 



The earliest certain trace of ihecultivated 

 rose ie from the pen of Herodottifi, who tells 

 that the two sons of King Temenus fled 

 from Macedonia, and took up their abode 

 in the gardens of Midas, where roses grew 

 of themselves so sweet that no others could 

 compare with them. 



The rose is the badge of England, and 

 John Gaunt used a red rose for his device 

 in right of his wife, Maud of Lancaster, 

 and Edmund, his brother, took for his a 

 white rose, which their followers bore in 

 the long wars between the houses of Lan- 

 caster and York; and long before this, at 

 the seat of the latter at Longleat, in Wilt- 

 shire, in tin* garden there, grew a white 

 rose tree, wliieh bore npon one branch a 

 fair white rose on one side and as fair a 

 red rose on the other. 



At one time there were no roses in Eng- 

 land other than the wild forms, and tradi- 

 tion tells that they were brought here by the 

 Crusaders from Damascus, where the hedgt^s 

 are chok(vl l)y thfMr boughs, and the very 

 air loaded witfi their (breath; and where 

 no otln r ^)s»^s will grow ''sweet as Damask 

 roses." vvr<)t<' Slmkespere. 



Nearly all cultivated roses were budded 

 or grafted on the common hetlge or doo- 

 mse originally; of this rose 8ir Thomas 

 Browne writes that the beards in the leaves 

 thereof of two are smooth, and have no 

 beard, while the other two leaves are beset 

 HMth beards on either side, but the fifth 

 leaf is half smooth and half bearded, and in 

 olden days there was some poetry in Latin 



about this, which tmnclo + r^rl 



"One summer dlay, in sultry weather, 

 five brethren were bom tog. ' 

 Tw I had. bean:k «nd t:wo had 



And th* other had but hnlf a one. 



PImy tell how a drink made from the 

 root of this rose saved a life; it is also 



called the Canker rose, and 8hakespere 

 writes : 



"The cankrr blooms have full deep a dye 

 M the perfumerl tinrturr of the rosee : 

 B)it for their virtue only i> their show; 

 They hve um^oo'd, nnd un^e.'^p.eeted fade 

 Die to themis^'lves. iSweet roses do not fiO." 



In the poetic world the first honours have 

 been awarded to the rose ; for why, no one 

 can tell, unless for its exquisite perfume 

 and colour, so tender that the wild beo 

 nestles in its scented bosom. 



The yellow rose has been called the best 

 or all the roses in the world, and came 

 from the East. 



The rose is symbolical of love, beauty 

 and innocence, and has furnished lovers 

 and poets with more comparisons and 

 imagery than all other flowers taken to- 

 gether; roses were more highly prized by 

 the Romans than any other flower. 



The nightingale is said to sigh for the 



It^^ t^^^ Persians '^assert 



that the bird flutters round the rose 



bushes till, overpowered by the strong scent, 

 he drops stupified on the ground. 



" That boiwer and itg Tuuisic I never forged, 



But oft when elone in the bloom of the year 

 I think : ' Ikfi the nig-htingale tainging there yet ? 

 Are the rosee etill bris'ht by the calm Bendemeer ?" 



The Romans, by the testamentary wills, 

 directed that their heirs should assemble 

 once a year on the anniversary of the tes- 

 tator's death, at his grave-side, at wbicli 

 everyone present was to appear w ith roses ; 

 which custom, in some form or another, was 

 continued until within comparatively re- 

 cent times. Mr. Rose, who died at Barnes, 

 in Surrey, in lGo3, bequeathed to the poor 

 of the parish the sum of £20 for ever on 

 condition that his grave was planted with 

 roses. This sum was laid out in land, and 

 is calle<l Rose Acre, and now produces an- 

 nnally £14 14s. 2d. 



" Rotiee, that briefly live, 



Joy ie your dower. 

 Blest be the Flatec that give 



One perfect hour. 

 And, thoug'h, too eoon you die 



In your duet glowe 

 Something the pa-giser-by 



Knows was a roee." 



— Dr, Garnett, 



The rose is, according to tradition, the 

 true emblem of the best and sweetest crea- 

 ture enjoyments in the world, which, being 

 moderately used and enjoyed, may for a 

 long time yield sweetness to the possessor, 

 but if once the affections seize too greedily 

 upon them, they quickly wither because of 

 the excess of our affection to them. 



George iSimmonds. 



SWEET PEA FANCIES*: 



Last season countless sweet pea enthu- 

 siasts devoted their efforts to the obtain- 

 ing of many-blossomed sprays of great size, 

 to the discovery of new tints in a flower, 

 the iblends and self-shades of which seem 

 endless; but some growers also, cr in pre- 

 ference, sought for new methods of mtiking 

 use of the plant for the perfecting of the 

 garden. Some of the discoveries that re- 

 sult-ed are being repeated this year, others 

 are being aimed at. 



In avenues the sweet pea has perhaps 

 the best chance to exhibit its height and 

 fitness for colour blending; clumps when 

 ranged like the trees of a drive, in either 

 single, double, or treble row, have a magni- 

 ficent effect, and fully enclose any path that 

 they border, shutting out the scene beyond 

 on each side. Sharp contrasts are visible 

 'When white and indigo-blue or cream and 

 maroon are placed in lines behind one an- 

 other; shaded effects are softly beautiful 

 where pale salmon, salmon-orange, and 

 orange-vermilion appear in line rotation, or 

 three shades in pinks, mauves, or blues. If 

 the avenue clumps are all of different hues 

 the choice of colour to most admire proves 

 so bewildering that the summer may pro- 

 bably pa«s leaving it still undetermined. 



A wonderful result was achieved in onp 

 garden by banking up the wide border soii 

 so abruptly that the third row of sweet peas 

 stood a yard higher than the first row. The 

 plants were in triple hedges in this case 

 instead of lines of clumps, as the tier ar- 

 rangement kept any from being hidden. 

 It was found best to level the ground, mak- 

 ing three terraces of border. When the full 

 growth and blossoming was accomplisbed 

 the path lay in a deep glade, or gorge the 

 towering walls of which blushed rose'and 

 red, flamed with yellow-orange, in places, 

 in the rest were cool with the slate-laven- 

 ders that w 



repeated exactly in viola 

 rpets berieath, or were white as snowy 

 fields of hill formation, or azure as the 

 skies abovp. 



The sweet pea is a wonderful plant when 

 grown almost as a standard. The main 

 stem acquires a breadth that is increased 

 in appearance by a stake cunningly painted 

 the exact shade of grey-green of the foliatre. 

 Each branch can be extended horizontallv 

 and supported to the top of a similar- 

 coloured but much slighter stick, the space 

 ultimately covered in the umbrella fashion 

 by foliage and blossom proves remarkably 

 great. Many growers for garden beauty 

 declare that only by devoting study to the 

 natural growth of a sw^eet pea plant, then 

 to providing it M^ith the support it actually 

 requires to separate and extend that growth 

 best, can the full beauty be obtained. It 

 is to be seriously questioned if the custom 

 of employing closely-placed faggots is not 

 a barbarism in sweet pea records, a con- 

 venience only to be tolerated in culture for 

 trade purposes of variety testing, seed or 

 blossom production. Excellent is the ap- 

 pearance of a thin boundary hedge made 

 by placing plants at half-yard or longer in- 

 tervals, and training out each branch hori- 

 zontally on a well-fashioned espalier support 

 of stakes and stout string. 



Quite contrary in character, yet offer- 

 ing a legitimate effect for garden beauty, 

 is the placing of sweet pea plants singly 

 high up in a rockery, allowing the branches 

 to trail downwards over a suflacient depth 

 of stone-built banks. A sweet pea dell can 

 be exquisitely made by this means, the ap- 

 pearance being best when only violas of 

 identical colours are grown in the same 

 place. Since salmons and scarlet are un- 

 known among violas though pinks and 

 crimsons are most brilliant now, where 

 sweet peas of the former bues are employed 

 their best accompaniments are grey or sil- 

 ver-foliaged dwarf plants. 



'Sweet peas secured to fences- offer a new 

 feature. The growth of plants thus treated 

 proves all it should be. The trusses of blos- 

 som jut out well away from the back 

 growth, seeking sunshine and air, showing 

 themselves off to an extent that justifies the 

 method were it adopted for the sake of 

 evidencing alone the beauty of the flower ; 

 whereas, of course, the object should rather 

 be the forcing a favourite plant to adapt 

 itself to the purposes of pleasure-ground 

 improvement. Against a painted wooden 

 trellis on a house wall the appearance 

 would be exquisite, the success as certain, 

 supposing the richness and depth of the 

 soil were the same as in a prepared plot. 

 Aspect has to be considered. In warm 

 localities a south one is too hot, an east or 

 west one proving all that can be desired. 



Some cultivators are trying to encourage 

 height in individual plants by stopping all 

 side shoots; others are .stopping main 

 shoots when but eighteen inches tall, with 

 a view to the production of horizontal 

 branches of extraordinary length. Experi- 

 ments are prais(^wo.rthy in gardening, yet 

 it IS difficult to see how these can extend 



the popularity or usefulness of Lathyrus 

 latifolius. 



Striking contrasts of colour have been 

 pleasantly gained by mingling clumps of a 

 pale pink, such as Gladys Unwin, with Scar- 

 let Gem, orange-salmon Evelyn Byatt witli 

 the bright blue of 'Miss H. C. Philbrick, and 

 any true azure with the magenta rose of 

 Lord Rosebery. Combinations of other 

 plants with special s^eet peas, to show 

 them off, is one of tlip most clever uses of 

 the living pigments of the artist-gardener's 

 palette; a hedge all of pale vellow sweet 

 peas proved delightful last year behind a 

 border belt of beets; vivid indeed was a 

 large plot clotted over with clumps all of 

 scarlet-crimsons, carpeted entirely by gol- 



