My roses are scattered here, there, and everywhere.
But this is the time and hour that one gardener, on a very modest scale, may be excused if she overrates the charms of rose possessing, for it is a June morning, both bright and overcast by turns. A wood thrush is practising his arpegios in the little cedar copse on one side, and a catbird is hurling every sort of vocal challenge and bedevilment from his ancestral syringa bush on the other, and all between is a gap filled with a vista of rose-bushes—not marshalled in a garden together, but scattered here, there, and everywhere that a good exposure and deep foothold could be found.
As far as the arrangement of my roses is concerned, "do as I say, not as I do" is a most convenient motto. I have tried to formalize my roses these ten years past, but how can I, for my yellow brier (Harrison's) has followed its own sweet will so long that it makes almost a hedge. The Madame Plantiers of mother's garden are stalwart shrubs, like many other nameless bushes collected from old gardens hereabout, one declining so persistently to be uprooted from a particularly cheerful corner that it finds itself in the modern company of Japanese iris, and inadvertently sheds its petals to make rose-water of the birds' bath.
An English sweetbrier of delicious leafage hobnobs with honeysuckle and clematis on one of the wren arbours, while a great nameless bush of exquisite blush buds, quite destitute of thorns (one of the many cuttings sent "the Doctor's wife" in the long ago), stands an unconscious chaperone between Marshall P. Wilder and Mrs. John Lang.
I must at once confess that it is much better to keep the roses apart in long borders of a kind than to scatter them at random. By so doing the plants can be easily reached from either side, more care being taken not to overshadow the dwarf varieties by the more vigorous.
Lavinia Cortright has left the old-fashioned June roses that belonged to her garden where they were, but is now gathering the new hybrids after the manner of Evan's little plan. In this way, without venturing into roses from a collector's standpoint, she can have representatives of the best groups and a continuous supply of buds of some sort both outdoors and for the house from the first week in June until winter.
To begin with, roses need plenty of air. This does not mean that they flourish in a draught made by the rushing of north or east wind between buildings or down a cut or roadway. If roses are set in a mixed border, the tendency is inevitably to crowd or flank themby some succulent annual that overgrows the limit we mentally set for it, thereby stopping the circulation of air about the rose roots, and lo! the harm is done!
If you want good roses, you must be content to see a little bare, brown earth between the bushes, only allowing a narrow outside border of pansies, the horned bedding violets (cornuta), or some equally compact and clean-growing flower. To plant anything thickly between the roses themselves prevents stirring the soil and the necessary seasonal mulchings, for if the ground-covering plants flourish you will dislike to disturb them.
The first thing to secure for your rosary is sun—sun for all the morning. If the shadow of house, barn, or of distant trees breaks the direct afternoon rays in July and August, so much the better, but no overhead shade at any time or season. This does not prevent your protecting a particularly fine quantity of buds, needed for some special occasion, with a tentlike umbrella, such as one sees fastened to the seat in pedlers' wagons. A pair of these same umbrellas are almost a horticultural necessity for the gardener's comfort as well, when she sits on her rubber mat to transplant and weed.
Given your location, consideration of soil comes next,for this can be controlled in a way in which the sun may not be, though if the ground chosen is in the bottom of a hollow or in a place where surface water is likely to settle in winter, you had better shift the location without more ado. It was a remark pertinent to all such places that Dean Hole made to the titled lady who showed him an elaborately planned rose garden, in a hollow, and waited for his praise. She heard only the remark that it was an admirable spot forferns!
If your soil is clayey, and holds water for this reason, it can be drained by porous tiles, sunk at intervals in the same way as meadow or hay land would be drained, that is if the size of your garden and the lay of the land warrants it. If, however, the roses are to be in separate beds or long borders, the earth can be dug out to the depth of two and a half or three feet, the good fertile portion being put on one side and the clay or yellow loam, if any there be, removed. Then fill the hole with cobblestones, rubbish of old plaster, etc., for a foot in depth (never tin cans); mix the good earth thoroughly with one-third its bulk of well-rotted cow dung, a generous sprinkling of unslaked lime and sulphur, and replace, leaving it to settle for a few days and watering it thoroughly, if it does not rain, before planting.
One of the advantages of planting roses by themselvesis that the stirring of the soil and giving of special fertilizers when needful may be unhampered.
In the ordinary planting of roses by the novice, the most necessary rules are usually the first violated. The roses are generally purchased in pots, with a certain amount of foliage and a few buds produced by forcing. A hole is excavated, we will suppose, in a hardened border of hardy plants that, owing to the tangle of roots, can be at best but superficially dug and must rely upon top dressing for its nutriment. Owing to the difficulty of digging the hole, it is likely to be a tight fit for the pot-bound ball of calloused roots that is to fill it. Hence, instead of the woody roots and delicate fibres being carefully spread out and covered, so that each one is surrounded by fresh earth, they are jammed just as they are (or often with an additional squeeze) into a rigid socket, and small wonder if the conjunction of the two results in blighting and a lingering death rather than the renewal of vitality and increase.
Evan, who has had a wide experience in watching the development of his plans, both by professional gardeners and amateurs, says that he is convinced more and more each day that, where transplanting of any sort fails, it is due to carelessness in the securing of the root anchors, rather than any fault of the dealer who supplies theplants, this of course applying particularly to all growths having woody roots, where breakage and wastage cannot be rapidly restored. When a rose is once established, its persistent roots may find means of boring through soil that in its first nonresistant state is impossible. While stiff, impervious clay is undesirable, a soil too loose with sand, that allows the bush to shift with the wind, instead of holding it firmly, is quite as undesirable.
In planting all hardy or half-hardy roses,—whether they are of the type that flower once in early summer, the hybrid perpetuals that bloom freely in June and again at intervals during late summer and autumn, or the hybrid teas that, if wisely selected and protected, combine the wintering ability of their hardy parents with the monthly blooming cross of the teas,—it is best to plant dormant field-grown plants in October, or else as early in April as the ground is sufficiently dry and frost free.
These field-grown roses have better roots, and though, when planted in the spring, for the first few months the growth is apparently slower than that of the pot-grown bushes, it is much more normal and satisfactory, at least in the Middle and New England states of which I have knowledge.
All roses, even the sturdy, old-fashioned damasks, Madame Plantier, and the like, should have some covering in winter, such as stable litter of coarse manure with the straw left in. Hybrid perpetuals I hill up well with earth after the manner of celery banked for bleaching, the trenches between making good water courses for snow water, while in spring cow manure and nitrate of soda is scattered in these ruts before the soil is restored to its level by forking.
Pillar for Corners of Rose Bed.PillarforCorners ofRose Bed.
The hybrid teas, of which La France is the best exponent, should be hilled up and then filled in between with evergreen branches, upland sedge grass, straw or corn stalks, and if you have the wherewithal, they may be capped with straw.
I do not care for leaves as a covering, unless something coarse underlies them, for in wet seasons they form a cold and discouraging poultice to everything but the bob-tailed meadow mice, who love to bed and burrow under them. Such tea roses as it is possible to winter in the north should be treated in the same way, but there is something else to be suggested about their culture in another place.
The climbing roses of arbours, if in very exposed situations, in addition to the mulch of straw and manure, may have corn stalks stacked against the slats, whichmakes a windbreak well worth the trouble. But the more tender species of climbing roses should be grown upon pillars, English fashion. These can be snugly strawed up after the fashion of wine bottles, and then a conical cap of the waterproof tar paper used by builders drawn over the whole, the manure being banked up to hold the base firmly in place. With this device it is possible to grow the lovely Gloire de Dijon, in the open, that festoons the eaves of English cottages, but is our despair.
Not long ago we invented an inexpensive "pillar" trellis for roses and vines which, standing seven feet high and built about a cedar clothes-pole, the end well coated with tar before setting, is both symmetrical and durable, notburning tender shoots, as do the metal affairs, and costing, if the material is bought and a carpenter hired by the day, the moderate price of two dollars and a half each, including paint, which should be dark green.
Rose Garden. With outside Border of Gravel and Grass.
Evan has made a sketch of it for you. He finds it useful in many ways, and in laying out a new garden these pillars, set at corners or at intervals along the walks, serve to break the hot look of a wide expanse and give a certain formality that draws together without being too stiff and artificial.
For little gardens, like yours and mine, I think deep-green paint the best colour for pergola, pillars, seats, plant tubs, and the like. White paint is clean and cheerful, but stains easily. If one has the surroundings and money for marble columns and garden furniture, it must form part of a well-planned whole and not be pitched in at random, but the imitation article, compounded of cement or whitewashed wood, belongs in the region of stage properties or beer gardens!
The little plan I'm sending you needs a bit of ground not less than fifty feet by seventy-five for its development, and that, I think, is well within the limits of your southwest lawn. The pergola can be made of rough cedar posts with the bark left on. Evan says that there are any quantity of cedar trees in your river woods thatare to be cleared for the reservoir, and you can probably get them for a song.
The border enclosing the grass plots is four feet in width, which allows you to reach into the centre from either side. Two rows of hybrid perpetuals or three of hybrid tea or summer roses can be planted in these beds, according to their size, thus allowing, at the minimum, for one hundred hybrid perpetuals, fifty hybrid teas, fifty summer roses, and eighteen climbers, nine on either side of the pergola, with four additional for the corner pillars.
The irregular beds in the small lawns should not be planted in set rows, but after the manner of shrubberies. Rugosa roses, if their colours be well chosen, are best for the centre of these beds. They are striking when in flower and decorative in fruit, while the handsome leaves, that are very free from insects, I find most useful as green in arranging other roses the foliage of which is scanty. The pink-and-white damask roses belong here, and the dear, profuse, and graceful Madame Plantier,—a dozen bushes of this hybrid China rose of seven leaflets are not too many. For seventy years it has held undisputed sway among hardy white roses and has become so much a part of old gardens that we are inclined to place its origin too far back inthe past among historic roses, because we cannot imagine a time when it was not. This is a rose to pick by the armful, and grown in masses it lends an air of luxury to the simplest garden.
Madame Plantier at Van Cortland Manor
Personally, I object to the rambler tribe of roses for any but large gardens, where in a certain sense the personality of flowers must sometimes be lost in decorative effect. A scentless rose has no right to intrude on the tender intimacies of the woman's garden, but pruned back to a tall standard it may be cautiously mingled with Madame Plantier with good effect, lending the pale lady the reflected touch of the colour that gives life.
For the pergola a few ramblers may be used for rapid effect, while the slower growing varieties are making wood, but sooner or later I'm sure that they will disappear before more friendly roses, and even to-day the old-fashioned Gem of the Prairies, Felicité Perpetual, and Baltimore Belle seem to me worthier. Colour and profusion the rambler has, but equally so has the torrent of coloured paper flowers that pours out of the juggler's hat, and they are much bigger.
No, I'm apt to be emphatic (Evan calls it pertinacious), but I'm sure the time will come when at least the crimson rambler, trained over a gas-pipe arch,except for purely decorative purposes, will be as much disliked by the real rose lover as the tripod with the iron pot painted red and filled with red geraniums!
The English sweetbrier is a climbing or pillar rose, capable of being pruned into a bush or hedge that not only gives fragrance in June but every time the rain falls or dew condenses upon its magic leaves. This you must have as well as some of its kin, the Penzance hybrid-sweetbriers, either against the pergola or trained to the corner pillars, where you will become more intimate with them.
You may be fairly sure of success in wintering well-chosen hybrid perpetual roses and the hybrid teas. If, for any reason, certain varieties that succeed in Lavinia Cortright's garden and ours do not thrive with you, they must be replaced by a gradual process of elimination. You alone may judge of this. I'm simply giving you a list of varieties that have thriven in my garden; others may not find them the best. Only let me advise you to begin with roses that have stood a test of not less than half a dozen years, for it really takes that long to know the influence of heredity in this highly specialized race. After the rose garden has shown you all its colours, it is easy to supplement a needed tint here or a proven newcomer there withoutspeculating, as it were, in garden stock in a bull market. Too much of spending money for something that two years hence will be known no more is a financial side of theGarden-Goozlequestion that saddens the commuter, as well as his wife. It is a continual proof of man's, and particularly woman's, innocency that such pictures as horticultural pedlers show when extolling their wares do not deter instead of encouraging purchasers. If the fruits and flowers were believable, as depicted, still they should be unattractive to eye and palate.
The hybrid perpetuals give their great yield in June, followed by a more or less scattering autumn blooming. It is foolish to expect a rose specialized and proven by the tests climatic and otherwise of Holland, England, or France, and pronounced a perpetual bloomer, to live up to its reputation in this country of sudden extremes: unveiled summer heat, that forces the bud open before it has developed quality, causing certain shades of pink and crimson to fade and flatten before the flower is really fit for gathering. Americans in general must be content with the half loaf, as far as garden roses are concerned, for in the cooler parts of the country, where the development of the flower is slower and more satisfactory, the winter lends added dangers.
Good roses—not, however, the perfect flowers of the connoisseur or even of the cottage exhibitions of England—may be had from early June until the first week of July, but the hybrid tea roses that brave the latter part of that month and August are but short lived, even when gathered in the bud. Those known as summer bedders of the Bourbon class, chiefly scentless, of which Appoline is a well-known example, are simply bits of decorative colour without the endearing attributes of roses, and garden colour may be obtained with far less labour.
In July and August you may safely let your eyes wander from the rosary to the beds of summer annuals, the gladioli, Japan lilies, and Dahlias, and depend for fragrance on your bed of sweet odours. But as the nights begin to lengthen, at the end of August, you may prepare for a tea-rose festival, if you have a little forethought and a very little money.
You have, I think, a florist in your neighbourhood who raises roses for the market. This is my method, practised for many years with comforting success. Instead of buying pot-grown tea roses in April or May, that, unless a good price (from twenty-five cents up) is paid for them, will be so small that they can only be called bushes at the season's end, I go to our floristand buy fifty of the bushes that he has forced during the winter and being considered spent are cast out about June first, in order to fill in the new stock.
All such roses are not discarded each season, but the process is carried on in alternate benches and years, so that there are always some to be obtained. These plants, big, tired-looking, and weak in the branches, I buy for the nominal sum of ten dollars per hundred, five dollars' worth filling a long border when set out in alternating rows. On taking these home, I thin out the woodiest shoots, or those that interfere, and plant deep in the border, into which nitrate of soda has been dug in the proportion of about two ounces to a plant.
After spreading out the roots as carefully as possible, I plant firmly and water thoroughly, but do not as yet prune off the long branches. In ten days, having given meanwhile two waterings of liquid manure, I prune the bushes back sharply. By this time they will have probably dropped the greater part of their leaves, and having had a short but sufficient nap, are ready to grow, which they proceed to do freely. I do not encourage bloom in July, but as soon as we have dew-heavy August nights it begins and goes on, increasing in quality until hard frost. Many of these bushes havewintered comfortably and on being pruned to within three inches of the ground have lasted many years.
As to the varieties so treated, that is a secondary consideration, for under these circumstances you must take what the florist has to offer, which will of course be those most suitable to the winter market. I have used Perle des Jardins, Catherine Mermet, Bride and Bridesmaid, Safrano, Souvenir d'un Ami, and Bon Silene (the rose for button-hole buds) with equal success, though a very intelligent grower affirms that both Bride and Bridesmaid are unsatisfactory as outdoor roses.
I do not say that the individual flowers from these bushes bear relation to the perfect specimens of greenhouse growth in anything but fragrance, but in this way I have roses all the autumn, "by the fistful," as Timothy Saunders's Scotch appreciation of values puts it, though his spouse, Martha Corkle, whose home memories are usually expanded by the perspective of time and absence, in this case speaks truly when she says on receiving a handful, "Yes, Mrs. Evan, they're nice and sweetish and I thank you kindly, but, ma'am, they couldn't stand in it with those that grows as free as corn poppies round the four-shillin'-a-week cottages out Gloucester way, andnodisrespec' intended."
The working season of the rose garden begins thefirst of April with the cutting out of dead wood and the shortening and shaping of last year's growth. With hardy roses the flowers come from fresh twigs on old growth. I never prune in the autumn, because winter always kills a bit of the top and cutting opens the tubular stem to the weather and induces decay. Pruning is a science in itself, to be learned by experience. This is the formula that I once wrote on a slate and kept in my attic desk with my firstBoke of the Garden.
April 1.Uncover bushes, prune, and have the winter mulch thoroughly dug in. Place stakes in the centre of bushes that you know from experience will need them. Re-tie climbers that have broken away from supports, but not too tightly; let some sprays swing and arch in their own way.
May.As soon as the foliage begins to appear, spray with whale-oil soap lotion mixed hot and let cool: strength—a bit the size of a walnut to a gallon of water. Do this every two weeks until the rosebuds show decided colour, then stop. This is to keep the rose Aphis at bay, the little soft green fly that is as succulent as the sap upon which it feeds.
If the spring is damp and mildew appears, dust with sulphur flower in a small bellows.
June.The Rose Hopper or Thrip, an active littlepale yellow, transparent-winged insect that clings to the under side of the leaf, will now come if the weather is dry; dislodged easily by shaking, it immediately returns.Remedy, spraying leaves from underneath with water and applying powdered helebore with a bellows.
IfBlack Spot, a rather recent nuisance, appears on the leaves, spray with Bordeaux Mixture, bought of a horticultural dealer, directions accompanying.
Meanwhile the leaf worm is sure to put in appearance. This is also transparent and either brownish green, or yellow, seemingly according to the leaves upon which it feeds.Remedy, if they won't yield to helebore (and they seldom do unless very sickly), brush them off into a cup. An old shaving brush is good for this purpose, as it is close set but too soft to scrape the leaf.
June 15.When the roses are in bloom, stop all insecticides. There is such a thing as the cure being worse than the disease, and a rose garden redolent of whale-oil soap and phosphates and encrusted with helebore and Bordeaux Mixture has a painful suggestion of a horticultural hospital.
Now is the time for the Rose Chafer, a dull brownish beetle about half an inch long, who times his coming up out of the ground to feast upon the most fragrant and luscious roses. These hunt in couples and are whollyobnoxious. Picking into a fruit jar with a little kerosene in the bottom is the only way to kill them. In one day last season Evan came to my rescue and filled a quart jar in two hours; they are so fat and spunky they may be considered as the big game among garden bugs, and their catching, if not carried to an extreme, in the light of sport.
July.See that all dead flowers are cut off and no petals allowed to mould on the ground. Mulch with short grass during hot, dry weather, and use liquid manure upon hybrid teas and teas every two weeks, immediately after watering or a rain. Never, at any season, allow a rose to wither on the bush!
August.The same, keeping on the watch for all previous insects but the rose beetle; this will have left. Mulch hybrid perpetuals if a dry season, and give liquid manure for the second blooming.
September.Stir the ground after heavy rains, and watch for tendencies of mould.
October.The same.
November.Begin to draw the soil about roots soon after black frost, and bank up before the ground freezes, but do not add straw, litter, or manure in the trenches until the ground is actually frozen, which will be from December first onward, except in the caseof teas, which should be covered gradually until the top is reached.
By this you will judge, Mary Penrose, that a rosary has its labours, as well as pleasures, and that like all other joys it is accompanied by difficulties. Yet you can grow good roses if youwill, but the difficulty is that most peoplewon't. I think, by the way, that remark belongs to Dean Hole of fragrant rose-garden memory, and of a truth he has said all that is likely to be spoken or written about the rose on the side of both knowledge and human fancy for many a day.
Modern roses of the hybrid-perpetual and hybrid-tea types may be bought of several reliable dealers for twenty-five dollars per hundred, in two conditions, either grown on their own roots or budded on Manette or brier stock. Personally I prefer the first or natural condition, if the constitution of the plant is sufficiently vigorous to warrant it. There are, however, many indispensable varieties that do better for the infusion of vigorous brier blood. A budded rose will show the junction by a little knob where the bud was inserted; this must be planted at least three inches below ground so that new shoots will be encouraged to spring fromabovethe bud, as those below are merely wild, worthless suckers, to be removed as soon as they appear.
A Convenient Rose Bed.
How can you tell wild suckers from the desired growth? At first by following them back to the root until you have taken their measure, but as soon as experience has enlightened you they will be as easily recognized at sight as the mongrel dog by a connoisseur. Many admirable varieties, like Jacqueminot, Anne de Diesbach, Alfred Colomb, Madame Plantier, and all the climbers, do so well on their own roots that it is foolish to take the risk of budded plants, the worse side of which is a tendency to decay at the point of juncture. Tea roses, being of rapid growth and flowering wholly upon new wood, are perfectly satisfactory when rooted from cuttings.
Of many well-attested varieties of hybrid perpetuals, hybrid China, or other so-called June roses, you may at the start safely select from the following twenty.
Pink, of various shades1. Anne de Diesbach.One of the most fragrant, hardy, and altogether satisfactory of hybrid perpetual roses. Forms a large bush, covered with large deep carmine-pink flowers. Should be grown on own root.2. Paul Neyron.Rose pink, of large size, handsome even when fully open. Fragrant and hardy.3. Cabbage, or Rose of 100 Leaves.The Provence rose of history and old gardens, supposed to have been known to Pliny. Rich pink, full, fragrant, and hardy. Own roots.4. Magna Charta.A fine fragrant pink rose of the hybrid China type. Not seen as often as it should be. Own roots.5. Clio.A vigorous grower with flesh-coloured and pink-shaded blossoms.6. Oakmont.Exquisite deep rose, fragrant, vigorous, and with a long blooming season.White7. Marchioness of Londonderry.Free, full, and fragrant. Immense cream-white flowers, carried on long stems. Very beautiful.8. Madame Plantier (Hybrid China).A medium-sized, pure white rose, with creamy centre; flowers so profusely as to appear to be in clusters. Delicately fragrant, leaves deep green and remarkably free from blights. Perfectly hardy; forms so large a bush in time that it should be placed in the rose shrubbery rather than amid smaller species.9. Margaret Dickson.A splendid, finely formed, fragrant white rose, with deep green foliage.10. Coquette des Blanches.One of the very hardy white roses, an occasional pink streak tinting the outside petals. Cup-shaped and a profuse bloomer.11. Coquette des Alps.A very hardy bush, coming into bloom rather later than the former and lasting well. Satisfactory.Red and Crimson12. General Jacqueminot.Bright velvety crimson. The established favourite of its colour and class, though fashion has in some measure pushed it aside for newer varieties. May be grown to a large shrub. Fragrant and hardy. Best when in bud, as it opens rather flat.13. Alfred Colomb.Bright crimson. Full, sweet. A vigorous grower and entirely satisfactory. If you can grow but one red rose, take this.14. Fisher Holmes.A seedling of Jacqueminot, but of the darkest velvety crimson; fragrant, and blooms very early.15. Marshal P. Wilder.Also a seedling of Jacqueminot. Vigorous and of well-set foliage. Full, large flowers of a bright cherry red. Very fragrant.16. Marie Bauman.A crimson rose of delicious fragrance and lovely shape. This does best when budded on brier or Manette stock, and needs petting and a diet of liquid manure, but it will repay the trouble.17. Jules Margottin.A fine, old-fashioned, rich red rose, fragrant, and while humble in its demands, well repays liberal feeding.18. John Hopper.A splendid, early crimson rose, fragrant and easily cared for.19. Prince Camille de Rohan.The peer of dark red roses, not large, but rich in fragrance and of deep colour.20. Ulrich Brunner.One of the best out-of-door roses, hardy, carries its bright cerise flowers well, which are of good shape and substance; has few diseases.Moss Roses1. Blanch Moreau (Perpetual).A pure, rich white; the buds, which are heavily mossed, borne in clusters.2. White Bath.The most familiar white moss rose, sometimes tinged with pink. Open flowers are attractive as well as buds.3. Crested Moss.Rich pink, deeply mossed, each bud having a fringed crest; fragrant and full.4. Gracilis.An exquisite moss rose of fairylike construction, the deep pink buds being wrapped and fringed with moss.5. Common Moss.A hardy pink variety, good only in the bud.The moss roses as a whole only bloom satisfactorily in June.Climbers1.1. English Sweetbrier.Single pink flowers of the wild-rose type. Foliage of delicious fragrance, perfuming the garden after rain the season through.Penzance Hybrid Sweetbriers,Having Fragrant Foliage and Flowersof Many Beautiful Colours2. Amy Robsart.Pink.3. Anne of Geierstein.Crimson.4. Minna.White.5. Rose Bradwardine.Deep rose.2.1. Climbing Jules Margottin.Rosy carmine, very fragrant and full, satisfactory for the pergola, but more so for a pillar, where in winter it can be protected from wind by branches or straw.2. Baltimore Belle.The old-fashioned blush rose, with clean leaves and solid flowers of good shape. Blooms after other varieties are over. Trustworthy and satisfactory, though not fragrant in flower or leaf.3. Gem of the Prairie.Red flowers of large size, but rather flat when open. A seedling from Queen of the Prairie, and though notas free as its parent, it has the desirable quality of fragrance.4. Climbing Belle Siebrecht (Hybrid Tea).Fragrant, vigorous, and of the same deep pink as the standard variety. Grow on pillars.5. Gloire de Dijon.Colour an indescribable blending of rose, buff, and yellow, deliciously fragrant, double to the heart of crumpled, crêpelike petals. A tea rose and, as an outdoor climber, tender north of Washington, yet it can be grown on a pillar by covering as described on page 126.Hybrid Tea Roses1. La France.The fragrant silver-pink rose, with full, heavy flowers,—the combination of all a rose should be. In the open garden the sun changes its delicatecolour quickly. Should be gathered in the bud at evening or, better yet, early morning. Very hardy if properly covered, and grows to a good-sized bush.2. Kaiserin Augusta Victoria.White, with a lemon tint in the folds; the fragrance is peculiar to itself, faintly suggesting the Gardenia.3. Gruss an Teplitz.One of the newer crimson roses, vigorous, with well-cupped flowers. Good for decorative value in the garden, but not a rose of sentiment.4. Killarney.One of the newer roses that has made good. Beautiful pointed buds of shell-pink, full and at the same time delicate. The foliage is very handsome. If well fed, will amply repay labour.5. Souvenir de Malmaison.A Bourbon rose that should betreated like a hybrid tea. Shell-pink, fragrant flowers, that have much the same way of opening as Gloire de Dijon. A constant bloomer.6. Clothilde Soupert.A polyantha or cluster rose of vigorous growth and glistening foliage, quite as hardy as the hybrid tea. It is of dwarf growth and suitable for edging beds of larger roses. The shell-pink flowers are of good form and very double; as they cluster very thickly on the ends of the stems, the buds should be thinned out, as they have an aggravating tendency to mildew before opening.7. Souvenir de President Carnot.A charming rose with shadows of all the flesh tints, from white through blush to rose; sturdy and free.8. Caroline Testout.Very large, round flowers, of adelicate shell-pink, flushed with salmon; sturdy.Teas1. Bon Silene.The old favourite, unsurpassed for fragrance as a button-hole flower, or table decoration when blended with ferns or fragrant foliage plants. Colour "Bon Silene," tints of shaded pink and carmine, all its own.2. Papa Gontier.A rose as vigorous as the hybrid teas, and one that may be easily wintered. Pointed buds of deep rose shading to crimson and as fragrant as Bon Silene, of which it is a hybrid. Flowers should be gathered in the bud.3. Safrano.A true "tea" rose of characteristic shades of buff and yellow, with the tea fragrance in all its perfection.Best in the bud. Vigorous and a fit companion for Papa Gontier and Bon Silene.4. Perle des Jardins.An exquisite, fragrant double rose of light clear yellow, suggesting the Marechal Niel in form, but of paler colour. Difficult to winter out of doors, but worth the trouble of lifting to cold pit or light cellar, or the expense of renewing annually. One of the lovable roses.5. Bride.The clear white rose, sometimes with lemon shadings used for forcing; clean, handsome foliage and good fragrance. Very satisfactory in my garden when old plants are used, as described.6. Bridesmaid.The pink companion of the above with similar attributes.7. Etoille de Lyon.A vigorous, deep yellow rose, full and sweet. Almost as hardy as a hybrid tea and very satisfactory.8. Souvenir d'un Ami.A deliciously fragrant light pink rose, with salmon shadings. Very satisfactory and as hardy as some of the hybrid teas.Miscellaneous Roses for the Shrubbery1. Harrison's Yellow.An Austrian brier rose with clear yellow semi-double flowers. Early and very hardy. Should be grown on its own roots, as it will then spread into a thicket and make the rosary a mass of shimmering gold in early June.Damask RosesShould be grown on own root, when they will form shrubs five feet high.2. Madame Hardy.Pure white. Very fragrant, well-cupped flower, Time tried and sturdy.3. Rosa Damascena Triginitipela.Rose colour.RugosaThe tribe of Japanese origin, conspicuous as bushes of fine foliage and handsome shape, as well as for the large single blossoms that are followed by seed vessels of brilliant scarlet hues.4. Agnes Emily Carman.Flowers in clusters, "Jacqueminot" red, with long-fringed golden stamens. Continuous bloomer. Hardy and perfect.5. Rugosa alba.Pure white, highly scented.6. Rugosa rubra.Single crimson flowers of great beauty.7. Chedane Guinoisseau.Flowers, satin pink and very large. Blooms all the summer.
Now, Mary Penrose, having made up your mind to have a rosary, cause garden line and shovel to be set in that side lawn of yours without hesitation. Do not wait until autumn, because you cannot plant the hardy roses until then and do not wish to contemplate bare ground. This sight is frequently wholesome and provocative of good horticultural digestion. You need only begin with one-half of Evan's plan, letting the pergola enclose the walk back of the house, and later on you can add the other wing.
If the pergola itself is built during the summer, you can sit under it, and by going over your list and colour scheme locate each rose finally before its arrival. By the way, until the climbers are well started you may safely alternate them with vines of the white panicled clematis, that will be in bloom in August and can be easily kept from clutching its rose neighbours!
By and by, when you have planted your roses, tucked them in their winter covers, and can sit down with a calm mind, I will lend you three precious rose books of mine. These are Dean Hole'sBook about Roses, for both the wit and wisdom o't;The Amateur Gardener's Rose Book, rescued from the German by John Weathers, F.R.H.S., for its common sense, well-arranged list of roses, and beautiful coloured plates, and H.B. Ellwanger's little treatise onThe Rose, a competent chronology of the flower queen up to 1901, written concisely and from the American standpoint. If I should send them now, you would be so bewildered by the enumeration of varieties, many unsuited to this climate, intoxicated by the descriptions of Rose-garden possibilities, and carried away by the literary and horticultural enthusiasm of the one-time master of the Deanery Garden, Rochester, that, like the child turned loose in the toy shop, you would lose the power of choosing.
Lavinia Cortright lost nearly a year in beginning her rosary, owing to a similar condition of mind, and Evan and I long ago decided that when we read we cannot work, andvice versa, so when the Garden of Outdoors is abed and asleep each year, we enter the Garden of Books with fresh delight.
Have you a man with quick wit and a straight eye to be the spade hand during the Garden Vacation? If not, make haste to find him, for, as you have had Barney for five years, he is probably too set in his ways to work at innovations cheerfully!
(Mary Penrose to Barbara Campbell)
June 21.The rosary has been duly surveyed, staked according to the plan, and the border lines fixed with the garden line dipped in whitewash, so that if we only plant a bed at a time, our ambition will always be before us. But as yet no man cometh to dig. This process is of greater import than it may seem, because with the vigorous three-year-old sod thus obtained do we purpose to turf the edges of the beds for hardy and summer flowers that border the squares of the vegetable garden. These strips now crumble earth into the walks, and the slightest footfall is followed by a landslide. We had intended to use narrow boards for edging, but Bart objects, like the old retainer in Kipling's story ofAn Habitation Enforced, on the ground that they will deteriorate from the beginning and have to be renewed every few years, whereas the turf will improve, even if it is more trouble to care for.
At present the necessity of permanence is one of thethings that is impressing us both, for after us—the Infant! Until a year ago I had a positive dread of being so firmly fixed anywhere that to spread wings and fly here and there would be difficult, but now it seems the most delightful thing to be rooted like the old apple tree on the side hill, the last of the old orchard, that has leaned against the upland winds so many years that it is well-nigh bent double, yet the root anchors hold and it is still a thing of beauty, like rosy-cheeked old folk with snowy hair. I do not think that I ever realized this in its fulness until I left the house and came out, though but a short way, to live with and in it all.
You were right in thinking that Barney would not encourage innovations,—he does not! He says that turf lifted in summer always lies uneasy and breeds worms.
This seems to be an age for the defiance of horticultural tradition, for we are finding out every day that you can "lift" almost anything of herbaceous growth at any time and make it live, if you are willing to take pains enough, though of course transplanting is done with less trouble and risk at the prescribed seasons.
The man-with-the-shovel question is quite a serious one hereabouts at present, for the Water Company has engaged all the rough-and-ready labourers for a longseason and that has raised both the prices and the noses of the wandering accommodators in the air. Something will probably turn up. Now we are transplanting hardy ferns; for though the tender tops break, there is yet plenty of time for a second growth and rooting before winter.