498 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



GARDENS OF ROSES. 

 By George Gordon, V.M.H., F.R.H.S. 



Extremely fortunate are those who, in obedience to Shenstone's behest, 

 made nearly two centuries ago, 



Bid careless groups of roses bloom, 



or, in other words, liberally furnish their gardens with bold groups of 

 Roses and allow Nature to have some share in the fashioning of their 

 contour. I am afraid they are but few in number, for we hear but little 

 of such gardens, and the true rosarian is not selfish, or filled with a desire 

 to keep the enjoyment of his favourite flowers wholly to himself. Shen- 

 stone, like many another great man, was far in advance of his times, and 

 his advice failed to obtain the attention it so well merited. It would be 

 a truly delightful garden in which both wilderness and the trimly kept 

 parterre are, in the season of Roses, illumined by the colour and redolent 

 of the perfume of the large number of varieties that are now at the 

 command of the cultivator. 



If there would be happiness in having groups of Roses growing more 

 or less naturally in suitable positions in the wilderness, there would 

 assuredly be an immense amount of pleasure in having masses of free- 

 growing and profuse-flowering Roses in the less highly dressed parts of the 

 grounds, and beds and groups of the finer varieties in the more formal parts 

 of the gardens that are constantly under the eye, and at all times kept 

 neat and trim. This, indeed, is the only way by which we can make our 

 gardens really beautiful with Roses, and happily there is setting in a strong 

 trend of opinion in favour of a fuller recognition of the value of Roses in 

 the ornamentation of the garden. It may be vain to say with George 

 Eliot : 



I wish 



The sky would rain clown Roses, as they rain 

 From off the shaken bush. Why will it not? 

 Then all the valley would be pink and white 

 And soft to tread on. They would fall as light 

 As feathers, smelling sweet ; and it would be 

 Like sleeping and yet waking, all at once ! 



It would be a delightful sensation to see the Roses in their varied hues falling 

 " as light as feathers," provided— and this is an important provision — 

 Nature is not so generous with its showers of Roses as was the Roman 

 emperor Heliogabalus, who, it will be remembered, so developed Nero's 

 idea of causing showers of Roses to fall upon his guests from openings in 

 the ceiling that on one occasion several were suffocated owing to their 

 inability to extricate themselves from the profusion of blossoms showered 

 down upon them by their host. Truly this was to 



Die of a Rose in aromatic pain. 



