"Sweetest flower that blows—everybody knows"

The more intimate one becomes with the rose, the more certain he becomes that it is one species not to be done without. For it yields more genuine delight per flower, I am sure, than anything else that grows—not excepting the orchid. If you doubt me, entertain a rose throughout a season, cutting its just-opening buds in the dew of the morning and looking into their mysteriously expanding hearts often as the day wears on. Then you will understand!

The rose is not to be judged, however, by any single variety or type alone. For, in addition to the exquisite beauty—mysterious and baffling!—of the flower, there are garden virtues that make the species unique. For there are actually four types of roses, adapted to four distinct planting effects, which is true of no other garden material.

These four types are the shrubby (the "old-fashioned" roses that overrun old dooryards are good representatives of this), the climbing, the bedding, and the type we all commonly have in mind when we say "Roses," which is difficult to place with exactness, but which I am going just once to call the cutting type, since it is preëminently as cut flowers brought into the house and intimately known that we enjoy them. Rosarians, however, call these roses generally "hybrids," inasmuch as they are hybrids in cultivation by rose fanciers working to produce certain definite results. And so, after differentiating them in my own way (as "cutting" roses) in order to place them accurately, I shall hereafter refer to them by their accepted class name of "hybrids," asking you to remember that, though there are great numbers if hybrids, the term has become, through usage, practically a generic appellation designating roses of the Killarney, "Jack," or American Beauty type.

Everyone is always more interested in this type, in the beginning at any rate, than in any other. So it is with them that we shall begin here. And, first, where can they be grown? Practically anywhere except in sections having very rigorous winters, and even then they may be successfully attempted if one is willing to house them during the winter—which is after all, no more trouble than the tender bulbs involve.

They are, unquestionably, best grown in beds, these hybrids—beds that are never so wide that it will be necessary to step on them in order to reach the plants. This class of rose, indeed, is as exacting as the onion (which is the greatest tyrant I know) with regard to exclusive possession of its allotted home; hence, it should be given undisputed ownership, and be cultivated as assiduously as ever the kitchen garden is cultivated, with a mellow surface dust (mulch) perpetually maintained above its roots.

Make your rose beds, therefore, as long as you like, but never more than three to five feet wide—and the latter only if you can walk along both sides of them. This allows for two and three rows of plants respectively, set ten inches back from the edge of the bed and eighteen to twenty-four inches apart. They may be set zigzag (gardeners call it "staggered" ), and gain a little in the number accommodated within a given length of bed; but the appearance of beds in which they are directly opposite each other is so much better that I prefer this system of placing them.

The red rose enthusiast will measure off the bed upon the ground exactly, take all of the earth out of this space to a depth of at least two feet, possibly thirty inches if drainage is poor, cover the bottom of the excavation with four to six inches of cinders or coarse gravel to insure perfect drainage, tramp this down, and then fill in, so that after settling the surface of the bed is an inch or two below the ground around, with a prepared soil mixture consisting of two-thirds top soil from an old pasture or meadow, and one-third cow manure that is thoroughly rotten; which sounds like a lot of trouble, but there is no doubt it pays, immediately, and in all the future. Roses will grow and often thrive if planted in any good, rich, not too light, but well-drained ground; but as the grafted plants must be planted deep to start with, and the "own-root" plants will send their roots downward if properly encouraged to do so by constant surface tillage, rich, deep soil means a great advantage in feeding area. Not that I would go without roses, if by any means thorough preparation of a bed were impossible, but I would try to make it possible.

In the hybrid class there are two divisions, tagged respectively H. P. (Hybrid Perpetual) and H. T. (Hybrid Tea). The Hybrid Perpetuals are the older group, and to be remembered as not perpetual in bloom. The name applies to their hardiness, not to their period of flower production. The Hybrid Teas are the offspring of this hardy H. P. group, and the true, all-summer-blooming tea rose, which is not hardy in the North. Many of them, however, inherit the hardiness of one parent as well as the continuous blooming quality of the other; and in the crossing many lovely colors unknown to either have come into existence; so the H. T. Roses are to-day justly the favorites with everyone, practically everywhere. The invariable rule for best results with them is severe pruning, which means cutting the weak and thin branches out altogether, while the strong ones—usually from two to five in number—are cut back to from eight to twelve inches high, before growth starts in the spring.

Watch all hybrids for shoots coming from the root stock below the graft. These will usually be very thorny all over the stem, with leaves having more leaflets and of a different green from the leaves of the proper growth. Such shoots grow with astonishing rapidity, frequently seeming to spring up overnight and overtop the rest of the plant. If left they will soon kill it out (this accounts for an expected beauty "turning out" to be something totally different and ordinary, of which complaint so often occurs), so one must be on guard against them. Cut them off always as far below the surface of the ground as you can. They are the sole claim to superiority of the "own-root" roses, and not a sufficient one to outweigh the many points in favor of budded or grafted plants. For you cannot fail to spot these shoots if they appear, providing you are on the watch for them. They look obviously the interlopers and imposters that they are! Prune H. P. roses less severely than H. T.’s, simply cutting out their weak branches, and cutting the others back to stand from twenty to thirty inches high.

Set grafted roses with the point of graft three or four inches below the ground surface. The H. T. group may go eighteen inches apart, but the H. P. need to be separated by twenty-four inches. Dress each plant twice during the summer with a handful of bone meal worked into the surface soil, cultivate lightly twice a week, or every other day in very dry weather and locations, and cut the buds as fast as they reach the opening stage. All roses bloom on the new wood; cutting promotes the growth of new wood. Do not feel misgivings, therefore, about keeping every bush stripped of its flowers. It is the best possible thing for them.

For winter protection in all but the very coldest regions it will suffice to mound earth up about each plant to a depth of ten inches, then cover the entire bed with litter—autumn leaves are good, held down with corn stalks, or branches. In order to keep these in place it is well, also, to set up eighteen-inch chicken wire fencing around the bed, making a sort of box into which they are put. Depending on the climate, this will need filling from half-way to all the way.

Where this protection is not enough the plants may be bent down and covered under a foot to eighteen inches of earth or taken up, bunched closely, set in a box, the roots covered in earth, and the box stored in any frost-proof cool cellar, and watered just often enough to keep the earth from drying out altogether.

Of the roses in the other classes not enough attention is paid generally to the shrubby kinds. Here, indeed, are flowering shrubs that will furnish lovely garden effects while in bloom, shrubby masses when not in bloom, and in many cases highly decorative fruits and rich color of branch during the winter. When to these features and profusion of bloom during the height of the season, is added the characteristic of scattered late summer and fall blossoms, some idea of the generosity of this material as well as its garden possibilities may be formed. The Wild Rose of Japan unquestionably leads here in its original single and later semi-double forms. Rosa Rugosa is its name, and its colors are white and various pinks. The Austrian Brier Roses are also good, the old Persian Yellow being one easily obtainable. From these a group known as Pernetiana Roses—or, better, Hybrid Austrian Briers—has been developed, late blooming and in gorgeous sunset and copper tones. And then there is the Michigan or Prairie Rose (Rosa Setigera) spreading in branch and richly laden with heavy panicles of single pink blossoms. To face down the taller masses of Rosa Rugosa or the Hybrid Austrian Briers it is exceptional—or to overhang a bank of sloping space. Prune all of these roses by removing annually the weak branches at the ground and keeping dead wood cleared out. Rosa Rugosa may be planted as a hedge if desired, and sheared.

The Climbing Roses will grow where all others fail, and in one Climbing American Beauty there is almost as much satisfaction as in a whole garden of H. P.’s, since its deep rose-pink flowers are similar in form even though a bit smaller, and produced by the thousands. The pure white, semi-double flowers of Silver Moon, so sensational for their great cups, are sometimes over four inches across and half full of golden stamens. In place of the ubiquitous Crimson Rambler there is now Excelsa, identical in flower effect and with excellent foliage. And there is Aviateur Bleriot, in yellow, and Dr. W. Van Fleet in exquisite flesh-pink, this last exceptional for cutting; because the flower stems are twelve to fifteen inches long.

The bedding roses are dwarf ramblers mostly, and are planted one foot apart all on their allotted space, and not pruned save to remove old flower heads. They bloom all summer, bearing small flowers like the Crimson Rambler, in trusses. A good selection is Cecile Brunner, which is pale rosy-pink: Clothilde Soupert, a blush-white; Mrs. Cutbush, cerise; Mme. Norbert Levavasseur, crimson; and George Elger, copper to pale yellow.

Of H. P. roses a good choice is Mrs John Laing, pink; Prince Camille de Rohan, velvet-crimson; Magna Charta, pink; Baron de Bonstetten, very dark crimson; Mrs. R. G. Sharman Crawford, rosy-pink; and Frau Karl Druschki, pure white. Of these the reds are fragrant, and generally speaking all red roses are richer in this respect than any others. They are also less attacked by rose bugs than the paler flowers.

Among the great numbers of H. T. roses I would suggest General MacArthur, crimson; Edward Mawley, crimson; La France, palest pink; Harry Kirk, yellow; My Maryland, salmon-pink; Laurent Carle, carmine; Los Angeles, golden-pink; Queen of Fragrance, shell-pink; Killarney Queen, pink; and Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, creamy white.