Rose Georgina Kingsley

“ The Boursault Roses, R. Alpina,
are hardy, vigorous climbers, flowering in large clusters. They were raised from the single red Alpine rose. This, by the way, might be more generally cultivated for its own sake; its smooth red stems and handsome reddish foliage, which turns a fine colour in autumn, and its single deep pink flowers with long green bracts, succeeded by small brilliant hips, make it a charming object both in summer and autumn. M. Boursault, a famous Parisian rose amateur, gave his name to the group, the first variety, a double red, being called after him. ”

“ Every gentleman's garden ought to have a large bed of Crimson Perpetual Roses, to furnish bouquets during August, September, and October; their fragrance is so delightful, their colour so rich, and their form so perfect. ”

“ The Soil,—which is far more important than even the position of our garden. If we are so lucky as to be able to choose the soil as well as the position, then let us choose a rich brown loam; for that is the soil roses revel in and need but little else to nourish them. Such a soil as this we find in the famous rose-gardens of Essex, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, and Kent. I have even seen roses growing superbly, without manure of any kind, in an open field of this rich loam on one of the most exposed ridges of Warwickshire. ”

“ Of all the many toils and anxieties that beset the path of the amateur rosarian, I think we may safely say pruning is the chief. The rules to be observed are few. The idiosyncrasies of each rose are many. And the demands upon one's own judgment and initiative are constant.
Two things have to be considered before we begin the puzzling task. Are we growing our roses for exhibition, or at all events for a very few very perfect blooms? ”

“ Rêve d'Or is one of the most useful and hardy of the race, a rampant grower, with buff yellow blossoms borne in immense numbers both in summer and autumn, while its rich red shoots and reddish-green foliage make it a beautiful object before and after it blooms. It strongly resents any pruning beyond shortening its vigorous summer shoots. ”

“ Among roses that are little known in English gardens are Baronne de Hoffmann, a vigorous grower, vivid copper-red, with yellow base; and the invaluable M. Tillier, which I first saw in the Paris Exhibition of 1900. I have grown it largely since, and every one is attracted by the bushes, set thickly with medium-sized imbricated flowers of carmine and brick-red, borne on upright stems in such numbers that they make a brilliant mark in the garden from a distance. It is perfectly hardy, and I have gathered good blooms at Christmas. ”

“ The older gardeners of the fifties would look in amaze on our glorious beds of Tea roses, flowering in some cases up to Christmas, and beginning again as happily as ever the next June. While to us of the present day, a rose garden without Tea roses would be no garden at all. [81]
It is not that the modern Tea rose is hardier than its ancestors; for some of the old ones, such as Souvenir d'un Ami, grow as cheerfully in the garden as a Hybrid Perpetual. ”

“ The reason that this rose so often fails to bear blossoms is, that being an untidy grower it is pruned. And any one who has once tried to do so should be glad to know that pruning is as fatal to the rose as to the unhappy pruner, for it is armed with the most cruel prickles, like small fish-hooks, of any member of the rose tribe. The flowers, like those of the Banksia roses, being borne on the small twigs growing from the laterals of the second year, any pruning which destroys these destroys all chance of blossom. And this rule holds good with most of the Noisettes. ”

“ But of late these faint shades have been successfully fought against; and while size has been preserved the colours are growing deeper and richer each year. So that we are surely drawing nearer the not impossible day when we may get Hybrid Tea roses as brilliant a red or yellow as Duke of Edinburgh or Maréchal Niel, as large as Frau Karl Druschki, and as fragrant, let us hope, as La France. As it is, it is difficult to imagine anything much more vivid than the orange, deep salmon-pink, copper-red, and rosy-apricot of some of the novelties of 1906-7-8. ”

“ Hermosa, which is constantly mistaken for a very full, globular pink China, is an excellent rose for massing in the garden, as it is in continuous bloom from spring till late autumn, the dwarf, bushy plants being covered with flowers. The charming hybrid Tea rose, Camoëns, which resembles it in habit, but is a rather larger flower of a rich China pink, may also be used in the same way. A group of small beds arranged in a simple geometrical pattern, and planted with either or both these roses, is an extremely pretty feature in the garden. ”

“ Or are we growing them for quantity, for mere enjoyment, on the "cut and come again" principle, which enables one not only to fill the house without robbing the garden, but to fill the hands of every one who comes into the garden and looks at the masses of blossom with longing eyes? ”

“ CLIMBING ROSES—AUTUMN FLOWERING
While many of the beautiful roses enumerated in the last chapter are indispensable in our gardens for covering pillars, arches, screens, walls, fences and pergolas, an end comes all too soon to their flowering season. And when it comes we feel the need of other climbers to carry on the succession of blossom until the frosts cut all off. A pergola, for instance, planted with nothing but summer flowering roses, is but a sorry sight in August and September. ”

“ Prune weak-growing roses much harder than strong-growing roses. As the object of pruning is to throw the sap into the young shoots which will start from the dormant buds or "eyes," in order to make them flower, a weak-growing rose must be pruned hard so as to concentrate all the vigour of the plant on the few dormant buds we leave. While if we prune a strong-growing rose very hard we only make it throw yet longer shoots, which soon [19] get out of all bounds, and run to wood and not to blossom. ”

“ For instance, I have tried in vain for eight years to make it flourish in my garden, while in a cottage garden by the roadside a quarter of a mile away it flowers so profusely that during its short-lived season of beauty the passers-by stop to gaze at its brilliant single blossoms of satiny-yellow lined with vivid copper red. ”

“ CLIMBING ROSES—SUMMER FLOWERING
Many are the races to which our summer gardens owe an almost endless variety of climbing roses; and each season adds to the bewildering number. The older types are the Ayrshire, the Evergreen, the Banksia, the Boursault, the Prairie rose, the Multiflora. ”

“ In pruning we have to keep two objects ever in view. In the first place we must prune in order to get rid of all dead wood, and weak, unripe and useless shoots, thus enabling the young healthy wood to take their place. And secondly we must prune so as to keep the plant in good shape and good health, by cutting back the strong and healthy wood we leave to a suitable length.
If the winter has been mild, we shall find many buds on the upper part of strong shoots of last year's growth, which are already bursting into leaf and even showing a flower bud. ”

“ This odious disease, though more or less always present in the garden, appears generally in marked strength twice in the season—first in spring, when the foliage is just fully developed, and secondly after the midsummer shoots are grown.
It must be attacked early before it gets any hold, in fact, before it actually shows, if we have reason to suspect its presence. Flowers of Sulphur is the most usual and effective preventive. It is blown over the plants with bellows made specially for the purpose. Floating like a fine cloud all over the garden it settles on every part of the plant. ”

“ We thus have a bed five feet by twelve, but some fifteen inches below the ground. Over the surface of this bed we now spread a coating of good rotten manure; if we can get it from a cow yard so much the better, as cow manure is cooler than horse droppings to the roots of the roses. This must be thoroughly incorporated with the soil already dug in, with a fork, not a spade, as our object is to keep the earth as friable as we can. ”

“ Amabilis is a useful china pink rose for decorative purposes, either in the garden [85] or to cut for the house; it is strong and hardy. So is Marquise de Querhoent, a strong grower, of vivid coppery salmon and china red. Ducher's Coquette de Lyon is another admirable bedding rose, which is not much grown in England. The flowers which cover the plant are full, well-shaped, of medium size, a pale canary yellow, and last long in water.
I would also call attention to other roses which, though well known to collectors and exhibitors, might be more generally cultivated by the ordinary amateur. ”

“ And it seems so brutal to destroy these, that I know one is often tempted to leave some to take their chance, instead of hardening one's heart and sternly cutting down to just above the first dormant bud. ”

“ But let no one persuade us that the newly planted beds would look better if raked smooth instead of being left quite rough. A smooth rose bed means that the soil cakes hard, preventing the rain penetrating in summer, and the frost mellowing the ground in winter. And from early spring to late autumn the hoe should be kept constantly at work between the plants; not merely to keep down weeds, but to keep the surface of the ground open to the influences of rain, sun, and the watering-pot. ”

“ For a white and pale blush bed we have the pure white Boule de Neige, Coquette des Blanches (both Dwarf Hybrid Noisettes) , Frau Karl Druschki, and Marchioness of Londonderry, which is very beautiful when it does well, though this is not always the case.
And for white with a faint blush, Margaret Dickson and Merveille de Lyon, though these are sadly given to mildew. But for sheer effect and mass of bloom, a bed of Frau Karl Druschki is unequalled. If the long shoots are pegged down [116] every bud upon them will throw a flower-shoot, producing a sheet of blossom throughout the whole season. ”

“ Brunner, its well-shaped flowers blush with a deeper pink centre?
In one or two we get an example of the double strain. For the velvety crimson flowers of Perle des Rouges are borne in clusters, though in substance and foliage the plant appears to take after the Tea rose.
But I deprecate the tendency which I see among some varieties, to produce much larger flowers such as those of Clothilde Soupert and Georges Pernet. This quite alters the character of the pretty little plants; giving us a rose that is neither one thing or another, neither a fine bedding rose or a miniature edging rose. ”

“ For whether the soil be light or heavy, it is absolutely essential that a rose garden should be well drained; as roses so deeply resent wet about the roots, that they promptly show their [3] displeasure by dying. If, therefore, on low-lying land—and unfortunately we cannot always avoid this—there is any suspicion of water within three feet of the surface, broken crocks, clinkers, wood ashes, and such-like materials, must be placed at the bottom of the beds to keep the subsoil free in times of heavy rain and floods ”

“ Some have roots of a spreading nature; others are deep rooting. And the idiosyncrasy of each individual rose must be studied, if we wish it to be [10] happy. In an old bed it is well to break the ground all about the hole with a fork; as the roots can then penetrate the surrounding soil with ease. And I would repeat that when the hole is made ready for its occupant, we should see that no manure is on the surface upon which the roots will lie.
Planting, to be well done, needs two persons. ”

“ These all turn to pupæ among the leaves instead of in the soil; and any left in the foliage must be picked out and burnt. If we wait until the shoots and buds are eaten and the foliage spoilt—nay, till often the whole of our early flowers are ruined—the only remedy is to pinch the leaves which conceal the maggot, if we have courage to do so, or to hand-pick every one we see. But happily a way exists of preventing these loathsome pests from destroying our roses. And this is to spray the plants from the middle of April to early in May with arsenate of lead. ”

“ The foliage of the common Sweet Briar, however, remains the most fragrant of all, with a clean, wholesome sweetness that is unsurpassed by its more showy children, always excepting Lord Penzance, which, if possible, excels it. Therefore let no one discard the old friend, and let them plant it beside a walk, so that they may give it a friendly pinch as they pass, to be rewarded by its delicious scent. [45]
Scots Briar. ”

“ The enemies of the rose are many. They are of two classes; the insect foes, and diseases caused by Fungi. And their prevention and destruction are tasks, as every rose-grower knows only too well, which call for ceaseless vigilance and constant work, more especially in the early months of the season. For if remedies are applied in good time, the pests of both kinds give comparatively little trouble after May and June until the early autumn, when a fresh crop of both appears. ”

“ In those remarkable shades of apricot, salmon, coppery-pink and carmine, upon a yellow or orange base, the choice is very considerable. And although it is as yet almost unknown in England, having only been sent out this spring (1908) , I venture to predict a leading position in the near future for MM. Soupert et Notting's grand salmon-pink novelty, Mme. Segond Weber, which, for shape, size, colour and delicious fragrance is perhaps the finest rose I know. Betty is one of those vivid modern roses whose colour, coppery-rose shaded gold, is as hard to describe as it is beautiful. ”

“ Position.—First of all I would say, avoid a draughty spot; for nothing is so bad for roses as a draught. Even an exposed garden, if it is quite flat and open, is preferable to a draughty one, however picturesquely shaded it may be. The perfect position should be sheltered from the north and east: but not closely surrounded by trees. For roses are lovers of [2] light and sun; and while they enjoy a little shade for a few hours in the day, they will not flourish in stuffy, closely shadowed places, where they cannot get enough light and air. ”

“ For let it be remembered that if we intend to grow good roses, we must be prepared to do our very best for them, and to spend a little time, a little money, and a good deal of thought, on preparing the ground they are to grow in, before we dream of planting them. Far better to begin our garden with a dozen roses well planted in properly prepared ground, than with a hundred put in anywhere and anyhow. ”

“ He then fills up the hole gradually, pressing down the soil firmly at first with the hand, and when all is on treading it down with the foot, thus making the plant absolutely firm in its place before number one lets go his hold on it.
If their roots have been thoroughly soaked and swelled before planting, the roses need not be watered. But if the weather is dry, yet mild, it is well to give them a good syringing when they are all in place, especially if they have come a long journey. ”