ROSE GARDENS AND PERGOLA 
IOI 
Rambler 
Roses. 
centuries of cultivation and selection. Here, too, are roses whose 
associations awaken many thoughts, whose very names, indeed, are 
poems : the Damask rose, the rose from Omar Khayj^am’s grave, 
the York and Lancaster roses, the rose of Provence. 
Passing from these borders to the east of the Pagoda, we reach 
another phase of rose culture. Here is what is known in Kew as the 
Sunk Rose Garden. This is an attempt to cultivate the 
rose in a picturesque way. The spot is one of the several 
pits which furnished the walks with gravel in earlier times. 
In the autumn of 1895 it was decided to put it to its present use. 
The hollow was enlarged, and its depth increased by throwing up 
soil from the bottom on to the sides. These sides were held up by 
tree-stumps, and a sufficient depth of rich soil was provided. The 
work was finished and the whole planted in the spring of 1896. The 
nature of the site, with its mounds and steep banks, precludes the 
cultivation of the common dwarf, stiff roses. Fortunately a race has 
been largely developed in recent times commonly known as “ ram- 
blers.” Many of them are descendants of such species as multiflora, 
arvensis, and moschata, and all are of free, vigorous growth. The 
leading characteristic of this race is their graceful, luxuriant habit, 
which fits them admirably for such a position as this, where their 
long branches can hang over the banks or clamber over various sup- 
ports. Here they have been largely planted. A few pure species 
find a place, but the majority are of garden and hybrid origin. Some 
of them commence to flower in the last days of May, but in June — 
the month of roses — this garden attains its greatest beauty. A few 
flower in July ; the most remarkable of them is “ Crimson Rambler,” 
the rose whose advent to cultivation was one of the most notable 
horticultural events of the early ’nineties. Here there is a large 
breadth of it. 
The lover of roses who desires to study them further at Kew must 
now turn his steps towards the Palm House. In the neighbourhood 
of this house, especially within the area enclosed by 
the clipped holly hedge, there are numerous beds de- 
voted to the best-known and most popular types of 
roses. In gardener’s parlance they are the hybrid perpetuals (H.P.s), 
tea roses, and hybrid tea roses. Of these types the named varieties 
can now be numbered by the thousand. In their production the 
French have predominated, but English cultivators, such as the Pauls, 
Tea Roses, 
etc. 
