garden form of the wild Meadow-sweet of our damp meadow-ditches. Then
the tall Bocconia, with its important bluish leaves and feathery
flower-beads, which shows in the picture in brownish seed-pod; and the
Thalictrums, pale yellow and purple, and Canterbury Bells, and Lilies
yellow and white, and the tall broad-leaved Bell-flowers.
All these should be in these good gardens, besides the many kinds of
Scotch Briers, and big bushes of the old, almost forgotten garden Roses
of a hundred years ago, many of which are no longer to be found, except
now and then in these old gardens of Scotland. For here some gardens
seem to have escaped that murderously overwhelming wave of fashion for
tender bedding plants alone, that wrought such havoc throughout England
during three decades of the last century.
Here, too, are Roses trained in various pretty simple ways. Our garden
Roses come from so many different wild plants, from all over the
temperate world, that there is hardly an end to the number of ways in
which they can be used. Some of them, like the Scotch Briers, grow in
close bushy masses; some have an upright habit; some like to rush up
trees and over hedges; others again will trail along the ground and even
run downhill. Some are tender and must have a warm wall; some will
endure severe cold; some will flower all the summer; others at one
season only. So it is that we find in various gardens, Roses grown in
many different ways. In one as small bushes in beds, or budded on
standards, in another as the covering of a pergola, or as fountain
roses, throwing up many stems which arch over naturally. Some of the
oldest garden Roses, such as _The Garland_, _Dundee Rambler_ and
_Bennett’s Seedling_ are the best for this kind of use.
The Himalayan _R. polyantha_ will grow in this way into a huge bush,
sometimes as much from thirty to forty feet in diameter, and many of the
beautiful modern garden Roses that have _polyantha_ for a near ancestor,
will do well in the same way, though none of them attain so great a
size. Roses grown like this take a form with, roughly speaking, a
semi-circular outline, like an inverted basin. If they are wanted to
take a shape higher in proportion they must be trained through or over
some simple framework. This is called balloon-training. Some roses are
grown in this fashion at Kellie, the framework being a central post from
which hoops are hung one above the other. The Rose grows up inside the
framework and hangs out all over. If this kind of training is to be on a
larger scale, long half-hoops have their ends fixed in the ground, and
pass across and across one another at a central point, where they are
fixed to a strong post, thus forming ten or twelve ribs. Horizontal
wires, like lines of latitude upon a globe, pass all round them at even
intervals. Then Roses can be trained to any kind of trellis, either a
plain one to make a wall of roses or a shaped one, whose form they will
be guided to follow. Then again, there may be rose arches, single,
double or grouped; or in a straight succession over a path; or alternate
arches and garlands, a pretty plan where paths intersect; the four
arches kept a little way back from the point of intersection, with
garlands connecting them diagonally in plan. Then there are Roses, some
of the same that serve for several of these kinds of free treatment, for
making bowers and arbours.
And there are endless possibilities for the beautiful treatment of Rose
gardens, though seldom does one see them well done. There are many who
think that a Rose garden must admit no other flowers but Roses. This may
be desirable in some cases, but the present writer holds a more elastic
view. Beds and clumps of Roses where no other flower is allowed, often
look very bare at the edges, and might with advantage be under-planted
with Pinks and Carnations, Pansies, London Pride, or even annuals. And
any Lilies of white and pink colouring such as _candidum_,
_longiflorum_, _Brownii_, _Krameri_, or _rubellum_ suit them well, also
many kinds of Clematis. The gardener may perhaps, object that the usual
cultivation of Roses, the winter mulch and subsequent digging in and the
frequent after-hoeing precludes the use of other plants; but all these
rules may be relaxed if the Rose garden is on a fairly good rose soil.
For the object is the showing of a space of garden ground made beautiful
by garden Roses--not merely the production of a limited number of blooms
of exhibition quality.
The way the bushes of garden Roses grow and bloom in close companionship
with other strong-growing plants, at Kellie and in thousands of other
gardens, shows how amicably they live with their near neighbours; and
often by a happy accident, they tell us what plants will group
beautifully with them.
The Roses that are best kept out of the Rose garden, are those
delightful ones of the end of June; the Damasks, and the Provence, the
sweet old Cabbage Rose of English gardens. These, and the Scotch Briers
of earlier June, bloom for one short season only. Of late years the
possibilities of beautiful Rose gardening have been largely increased by
the raising of quantities of beautiful Roses of the Hybrid Tea class
that bloom throughout the summer, and that, with the coming of autumn,
seem only to gain renewed life and strength.