class="l5 c1">Perpetual Briers

Rugosa

Lucida

Microphylla

Berberidifolia

Scotch

2. Foliage more or less persistent.

Evergreen

Macartney

Wichuraiana

LOCATION AND SOIL

If there is any secret in connection with the growing of beautiful roses in abundance, it lies in the strict observance of a few fundamental principles through which the rose plants, or bushes if you will, are given a location and soil which they will find congenial and nourishing. If for one moment you may have thought that success depends upon some particular insecticide for the annihilation of the aphis, or some hard-and-fast rule for pruning, or the use of a fertilizer having magical attributes, dismiss that thought from your mind, once and for all time. Insecticides, judicious pruning and suitable manuring have each an important part in the campaign, but transcending all of these is the first choice of location and the preparation of the garden in which the roses are to grow. Warfare against the rose's enemies can be but a one-sided, hopeless struggle if we are working against nature all the way through. Far easier and more certain in effect will be our first efforts to establish the rose plants themselves so firmly in healthful, congenial surroundings that they, rather than we, will bear the brunt of the battle against the insect pests.

In China I am told that a custom once prevailed whereby the emperor paid his physician a good salary as long as the ruler kept his good health. If he fell ill the physician's pay stopped; if he died, off came the practitioner's head.

Be generous in the amount of thought and care you give in providing health, food and strength for your rose plants, and as a result you will have to give very little thought and care to curing disease and killing off the rose-bugs and slugs.

In the first place let us take up the matter of situation. Unfortunately most of us will have little leeway in this, for the average suburban place is not one that will offer hill and valley, windswept open space and warm shelter. The ideal location is to be found neither on a hilltop where the winter winds would play havoc with our winter protection, nor in a low hollow where frosts are always more frequent. A gentle slope to the south, well above nearby low spots into which the cold air will drain, sheltered in some way from the north, would be all that we could ask. In the matter of this shelter, however, we meet a further difficulty, for our rose garden must be kept well away from any trees. It is a matter of common knowledge that the root system of a tree will, as a rule, extend as far out from the base as the tree rises about the ground. Obviously it would be merely a waste of time and effort to locate the rose garden where the hungry roots of trees would rob it of the food supply furnished the roses. In general, therefore, we shall have to use the wall of a house or a garden wall for our needed protection, though in case of necessity we could sink a masonry wall or an iron plate as a barrier between the upper rich soil of our rose beds and the roots of the sheltering trees.

Killarney, the comparatively new Hybrid Tea rose, having a beautiful shell-pink color, has achieved a wide popularity. The Hybrid Tea combines in a measure the hardiness of the Hybrid Perpetual with the continuous flowering habit of the Tea.

Sun, it is perhaps unnecessary to say, is essential, though it will be found that if the beds are in shade for the first part of the morning one will have greater opportunity of enjoying the roses at their best—before the dew has been drunk from their petals by the thirsty midsummer rays.

The matter of the size and design of the rose bed is of comparatively little importance; what really is vital, however, is that the roses be permitted to have the beds to themselves—absolutely. But recently I read a magazine article purporting to be good advice for the rose-growing amateur. Therein appeared words of regret that the rose must needs have such bare, gaunt stalks, and suggesting as a remedy the growing of some vine about the base of the bush—I am not sure, indeed, that the honeysuckle was not specifically named for the place. I can well imagine that the result might be a very beautiful honeysuckle, but we should look there for the rose in vain.

Keep the roses by themselves; they will not only thrive better, but their beauty seems not to be increased by comparison with other flowers.

The Queen of Flowers will brook no liberties of this kind. She insists upon reigning alone in her glory, and anyone who dares presume to introduce even a low-growing, shallow-rooted ground cover with the intention of making the rose bed seem less bare, will never see his roses at their best. Personally I have never felt that a rose garden need be in the least unattractive. There is one type of beauty that might be represented by a carpet of creeping phlox; there is another that belongs to the rose garden, bearing its single blooms here and there, sparsely, among the green foliage and thorny stems. In the former instance one looks at the mass effect without a thought of the beauty of individual flowers; in the latter case one's glance seeks out instinctively the single bloom to drink in its beauty and fragrance. Ah, but you say, how about the time when there is not a single rose in sight? There need be no such time between spring and fall if you plant your rose garden to best advantage. There is no need nor reason to put all the June-blooming roses together, with the Teas and Hybrid Teas off by themselves in another place. If the remontant types are interspersed throughout your garden you need never, between May and October, look for a rose in vain.

The shape of the beds, too, may be such as to avoid an appearance of "too much dirt" in the rose garden. For my own part I would have a rectangular garden and simple parallelograms for the beds, although the rose garden about a central feature has its strong attractions. But if you arrange the beds in long narrow units—four feet wide for a double row of plants or twenty inches wide for a single row, and as long as your purse will allow, having the paths between the rows of turf rather than gravel or brick, and the beds slightly sunk below this turf, the rose garden need never be less than most attractive. Avoid beds wider than will accommodate two rows of plants, for it is essential that every rose bush in the garden be immediately accessible from a path.

A suggestion for a rectangular rose garden with paths of turf. The beds are about forty inches wide, the paths four feet, excepting the center one, which is five feet in width. A hedge, which might be of rugosa, contributes a desirable air of seclusion.

To those intensely practical persons who object to walking through dew-wet paths in the morning tour of the rose garden, let me point out the obvious impossibility of having gravel paths immediately adjacent to the rose beds, and the continued care required to keep in a presentable condition a narrow strip of sod between path and bed.

Now as to the preparation of the rose bed itself. First of all, dig the soil out to a depth of two feet at least, keeping the top soil and sods and the subsoil in separate piles