19-4 



JOURNAL OF THE EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Hybrid Bourbons gain in Madame Isaac Pereire (1880), a 

 probably prolific parent of a grand new race of large autumn 

 roses. 



The total gains in all classes during the 80 years are great. 

 They are the Hybrid Perpetuals, virtually perfected ; a large and 

 fine class of Teas have been made ; two new species have been 

 developed as garden flowers ; whilst good culture everywhere is 

 now the rule rather than the exception. 



DECORATIVE ROSES. 



By Mr. T. W. Gibdlestoxe, F.L.S. 



It is a curious thing how few people seem to consider the value 

 or beauty of a rose as a growing plant in the garden. Nearly 

 everyone, when supposed to be describing some particular variety 

 of rose, in reality merely describes an individual blossom. In 

 almost every rose catalogue it is just the same ; the individual 

 flower is described, and it is only as a cut flower that its beauty 

 is dilated upon. The reason of this may be easy to find, but 

 hardly the justification. Xo doubt the rose has always been the 

 most popular of all flowers for cutting for the decoration of our 

 rooms and houses, a position from which it is never likely to be 

 deposed, and from this it has probably come about that the value 

 of the rose is so generally estimated only in its capacity as a cut 

 flower. But this is restricting the Queen of Flowers to a limited 

 monarchy with a vengeance, and it is high time that her right 

 to reign out of doors should be better recognised, and that more 

 attention should be paid to the capabilities of the rose as a deco- 

 rative garden plant. 



One sees sometimes offered in catalogues collections of (say) 

 100 rose trees in as many varieties ; and such a miscellaneous 

 assortment planted all together would certainly not be likely to 

 make an effective rose-bed, nor at all a decorative display ; and 

 one is tempted to think that it is from rose-growing of this kind 

 that those who declare roses to be always ineffective and untidy, 

 and deserving only of cultivation in the kitchen garden to supply 

 cut flowers for the house, must have gathered their experience. 



A great source of failure in making a decorative display with 



