NATIONAL ROSE CONFERENCE. 



195 



roses has, undoubtedly, been the frequent and perverse employ- 

 ment, for particular purposes, of varieties utterly unsuited 

 thereto. For instance, the number of roses really suitable for 

 cultivation as standards is comparatively small, yet people per- 

 sist in attempting to grow all varieties in this form ; and when, 

 instead of handsome trees, an army of gawky scarecrows is the 

 result, the unlucky roses are blamed. Similarly, effective rose- 

 pillars can only be made with a limited number of sorts, amongst 

 which few of the ordinary hybrid perpetuals are included ; yet 

 who has not seen innumerable attempts made with varieties of 

 this class of which the outcome has been, after unremitting pains 

 on the part of the misguided cultivator, the production of a soli- 

 tary shoot a foot or two taller than the rest of the plant, which is 

 carefully tied to the stake, and looks as though it were longing 

 to hide behind the great larch post it so vainly essays to cover ? 



Again, it has often been urged that although roses are gay 

 enough just while they are in full bloom, that afterwards, for 

 the rest of the season, they are dull and unsightly ; but, apart 

 from this being only half true, and becoming annually less so, as 

 more and more thoroughly perpetual roses are raised, if the 

 objection were to be admitted in the case of roses, it must apply 

 equally to a great majority of herbaceous and bulbous plants ; 

 and our gardens, hardly emancipated from the dreary tyranny of 

 " bedding-out," must again relapse into the inane monotony of 

 ribbon borders and carpet beds, in the latter of which especially 

 the enforced primness of the poor little plants, that are never 

 allowed to grow as they please or to have a leaf awry, is as 

 unnatural as children that never have grubby fingers or rumpled 

 collars. It is said that there are some people so oddly consti- 

 tuted as to dislike children, and so also there must presumably 

 be some folk whose sympathies are so strangely arranged as to 

 cause them to love carpet-bedding ; such are not likely to admit 

 the claim of roses to be considered as decorative plants ; but it 

 may be hoped that those who are disposed to underrate the 

 attractions of the royal rose in the garden will eventually be 

 found to be in a small and constantly decreasing minority, for it 

 can hardly be doubted that loyalty to the Queen of Flowers in 

 her every capacity will outlive the mere fashion of transferring 

 the patterns of the drawing-room carpet to the flower garden. 



There are four ways in which roses may be employed to make 



