How to Grow Roses

Chapter 1

ROSES! The very word is fragrant. It is a caress, a magic incantation. Exquisite memories lie in its gift. This five-petaled word, it is safe to say, enshrines more mental pictures of pure and enduring beauty than any other in the garden of speech. Life admits no word to more tender intimacies. As children we dance to its nod down sunny aisles of laughter; as young men and maidens we seal with it the betrothal kiss; and at our journey's end we call upon its living fragile loveliness to breathe denial of death itself.
Since history was first written the rose has been associated with the most important and vital, as well as the tenderest, events in the life of man. For centuries it has been fully recognized as the Queen of Flowers, honored alike by poet and by king. Yet such varieties as Ophelia, Sunburst, and Frau Karl Druschki the ancients never knew. What would have been their ecstasies if they could have been privileged to enter the gorgeous Roseraie de l'Hay of M. Jules Gravereaux, near Paris, with little doubt the finest rose-garden in the world!
This permanent garden includes among its thousands of varieties specimens said to have originated in the sixth century, B.C., thus providing an antiquarian interest which is embellished by the addition of hundreds of varieties quite unknown to that epoch of history. Roses from every continent are arranged and trained in all conceivable styles, from borders of Baby Ramblers to giant Tree roses, 15 feet high and 10 feet spread. Tunnels completely covered with climbing roses pierce the garden, with here a bit of statuary, there a fountain flashing in the sunshine.
And everywhere, roses! From the broad-petaled, deep red Lion climber to the magnificent M. Gravereaux, named for the originator of this "bower of bliss," they smile up at one naively from their box-bordered beds or salute with decorum from their climber trellises. Spellbound, one stands and gazes down the long vista of color-shot beds, back-bordered with still other climbers in tumultuous bloom; or absorbs the bewildering prospect of cloistered arbors and festooned balustrades, of quaint archway entrances and artistic screens; or dallies along disappearing pathways so well planned that every turn offers a fresh surprise, each one more entrancing than the other!
Hidden by an encircling temple of trees deep in the heart of this paradise is an open-air theater with turf seats, and, along the front of the stage, for footlights, a brilliant row of blooming roses. Here, in charming French fashion, the host was wont to entertain his guests with music—literally making this most eloquent of gardens vocal!* (See illustration on page 158.)
In England, before the war, nearly everyone grew roses. Dazzling vistas of roses were to be seen in the hedge-rows, along the country roads and lanes. Gardens fairly teemed with flowers, and each person seemed to be striving in friendly rivalry with his neighbor. What induced this extraordinary enthusiasm for the rose? Simply the fact that it is without a peer among all the flowering plants. The rose presents nearly every floral shade, in combination far more seductive than exotic orchids; and, above all, its delicious fragrance gives us the enjoyment of another sense—the crowning feature, in which no other flower can compete with it.
When the French mystic, Constant, said, "Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vecu avec elle (I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose)," he phrased happily the satisfied yearning of many a heart for this incomparable comradeship. But it is especially for those whose desire to "live with the rose" has never been realized that this little book has been written. The author's aim has been very practically and simply to show how anyone, with no more than a sliver of ground, may grow roses; and at the same time to ignite other hearts with the ardor of his own enthusiasm, with that latent passion for beauty that rose-growing so surely releases.
For "living with the rose" is something more than the mechanical operations involved in growing it, indispensable as those operations are. This book deals succinctly and dispassionately with those operations; striving to omit no item of interest or importance, and, once launched on the technique of rose-culture, "sticks to its last." But it is less than just to this matchless flower to ignore altogether the refining, and even ennobling, influences of rose-culture. Let us merely hint at that! No true lover of roses ever rants. But, if you want proof, study the face and deportment of your friend who grows roses: see if there is not a particular stamp of serenity, a certain sober poise, about him; deny if you can that he has been touched by something a little saner than the ordinary concerns of life, something a little sweeter, something that is visibly emancipating!
But enough! That's the kind of thing over which the rose-grower himself would be the last one to wax assertive; indeed, perhaps but dimly realizes it in himself. When he fraternizes with other rose-culturists, however, ah, then—then is the truth made manifest. The unmistakable "garden-look" spiritualizes these faces that have exchanged intimate glances with the rose. Perhaps as good a way as any to state the miracle would be to transpose that cynical epigram from the Sanskrit, "He that plants horns must never expect to gather roses," and read, "He that plants roses never will gather frowns."
What is the formula? Well, there's no magic in it! Just a little patch of ground; just a little daily loving care; just a little cost; and the result to you and your neighbors will be the glory of the Queen of Flowers. Amateurs are now able to have an all-summer "feast of roses" as well as the skilled professional, and it is the amateur's rose- garden, especially, that we have had in mind when writing the following pages.
A large garden is not required. Two or three dozen good plants, of the modern and greatly improved sorts, properly selected, will yield much enjoyment; while a garden of roses with somewhat greater variety and extent can readily be made a summer-long delight.
In spring, one can have the pleasure of building air-castles about the plants. When the warm days of June arrive, these air-castles will have taken substantial form. You may now go from plant to plant, giving each a little daily attention, contrasting one proud beauty with another equally queenly, and, best of all, gathering an abundance of lovely roses. Half an hour of such tonic- toil each day is a superb nerve-restorer, and, as many of those who have tried it realize, it is also food for the soul.
But this is fundamentally a practical book. It is a treatise on bow to grow this Queen of Flowers. It is designed, sym- pathetically and simply, to initiate the beginner into this culture of beauty as well as to confirm the more advanced amateur in his technique. It is planned, in short, to show that by setting out the right plants of the right sort this spring, cut-flowers may be had from these self-same plants during the last days of May, and thereafter a continuity of bloom almost unbroken until the frosts of late autumn herald the approaching winter.
If it does no more than this, it will have caused pleasure to many who have never yet shared this creative experience—and thus will have justified its existence. If, however, those spiritualizing and refining overtones which the rose inaudibly sounds to those who love it shall be transmitted by these pages, then the author will know that his message
In England, before the war, nearly everyone grew roses. Dazzling vistas of roses were to be seen in the hedge-rows, along the country roads and lanes. Gardens fairly teemed with flowers, and each person seemed to be striving in friendly rivalry with his neighbor. What induced this extraordinary enthusiasm for the rose? Simply the fact that it is without a peer among all the flowering plants. The rose presents nearly every floral shade, in combination far more seductive than exotic orchids; and, above all, its delicious fragrance gives us the enjoyment of another sense—the crowning feature, in which no other flower can compete with it.
When the French mystic, Constant, said, "Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vecu avec elle (I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose)," he phrased happily the satisfied yearning of many a heart for this incomparable comradeship. But it is especially for those whose desire to "live with the rose" has never been realized that this little book has been written. The author's aim has been very practically and simply to show how anyone, with no more than a sliver of ground, may grow roses; and at the same time to ignite other hearts with the ardor of his own enthusiasm, with that latent passion for beauty that rose-growing so surely releases.
For "living with the rose" is something more than the mechanical operations involved in growing it, indispensable as those operations are. This book deals succinctly and dispassionately with those operations; striving to omit no item of interest or importance, and, once launched on the technique of rose-culture, "sticks to its last." But it is less than just to this matchless flower to ignore altogether the refining, and even ennobling, influences of rose-culture. Let us merely hint at that! No true lover of roses ever rants. But, if you want proof, study the face and deportment of your friend who grows roses: see if there is not a particular stamp of serenity, a certain sober poise, about him; deny if you can that he has been touched by something a little saner than the ordinary concerns of life, something a little sweeter, something that is visibly emancipating!
But enough! That's the kind of thing over which the rose-grower himself would be the last one to wax assertive; indeed, perhaps but dimly realizes it in himself. When he fraternizes with other rose-culturists, however, ah, then—then is the truth made manifest. The unmistakable "garden-look" spiritualizes these faces that have exchanged intimate glances with the rose. Perhaps as good a way as any to state the miracle would be to transpose that cynical epigram from the Sanskrit, "He that plants horns must never expect to gather roses," and read, "He that plants roses never will gather frowns."
What is the formula? Well, there's no magic in it! Just a little patch of ground; just a little daily loving care; just a little cost; and the result to you and your neighbors will be the glory of the Queen of Flowers. Amateurs are now able to have an all-summer "feast of roses" as well as the skilled professional, and it is the amateur's rose- garden, especially, that we have had in mind when writing the following pages.
A large garden is not required. Two or three dozen good plants, of the modern and greatly improved sorts, properly selected, will yield much enjoyment; while a garden of roses with somewhat greater variety and extent can readily be made a summer-long delight.
In spring, one can have the pleasure of building air-castles about the plants. When the warm days of June arrive, these air-castles will have taken substantial form. You may now go from plant to plant, giving each a little daily attention, contrasting one proud beauty with another equally queenly, and, best of all, gathering an abundance of lovely roses. Half an hour of such tonic- toil each day is a superb nerve-restorer, and, as many of those who have tried it realize, it is also food for the soul.
But this is fundamentally a practical book. It is a treatise on bow to grow this Queen of Flowers. It is designed, sym- pathetically and simply, to initiate the beginner into this culture of beauty as well as to confirm the more advanced amateur in his technique. It is planned, in short, to show that by setting out the right plants of the right sort this spring, cut-flowers may be had from these self-same plants during the last days of May, and thereafter a continuity of bloom almost unbroken until the frosts of late autumn herald the approaching winter.
If it does no more than this, it will have caused pleasure to many who have never yet shared this creative experience—and thus will have justified its existence. If, however, those spiritualizing and refining overtones which the rose inaudibly sounds to those who love it shall be transmitted by these pages, then the author will know that his message

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