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All About Roses - C. Simone
GIVEN
a writer with a willing pen, a day of June, a garden
across which the soft wind comes full of the mingled
scent of rose blossom-the delicate fragrance of the
Teas, the deep scent of the full colored Hybrid Perpetual's
and the old garden roses such as Cabbage, Provence and
Sweetbriar, and the aromatic odor of the Musk Rose,
as sweet as in far Himalaya-these, and an arbor with
its face to the flowers and leaves and its back to the
sunshine, and what realms of romance are not readily
conjured up! One's thoughts are carried to the early
years of the rose, to the lands of its youth, even to
the Garden of Gethsemane, where, now as then, the rose
blooms on sacred soil. To ancient Greece and Rome, where
the rose was ever cherished by the people, " in their
joys and in their sorrows the rose was their favorite
flower." Nero is said to have expended at one feast
30,000 Pounds in roses; 11 a nice little order for the
nurseryman " is Dean Hole's characteristic comment.
Our thoughts are carried to' far China and Japan, home
of the lovely creeping wichuraiana Roses that have given
us such a favorite as Dorothy Perkins; to Syria and
Persia, even to the lands of the midnight sun. What
tales the rose could tell had I space to act as spokesman!
It
would seem as though the entire world and his wife was
growing roses nowadays; and how better can spare time
are spent? Rose growing brings fresh beauty into sordid
lives, and intensifies the interest of those that are
already full. Chance moments snatched from busy days,
long hours from those of leisure, all are repaid in
full and with compound interest, not in coin of the
realm, but in an increased appreciation of the beautiful,
brought home, perhaps, to those who have never felt
the magic attraction of flowers, and in steps directed
to a closer communion with Nature. For is it not true
that many can trace their love of gardening, which,
rightly regarded is no more, no less, than a practical
demonstration of a real abiding love for flowers, from
the time when the rose, the queen of flowers, made her
first appeal? With some, indeed, the rose was not only
the first, but is still, the last and only love. When
the late Dean Hole, whom. we may regard as one of the
most ardent and constant of rose lovers, first fell
under the spell of the flower, he tells us that, " I
dreamed about roses that summer's night, and next morning
hurried over my early breakfast that I might canter
to the nearest nursery." Many of us have been equally
fascinated, and while nothing else has been able to
drag us from our beds at six o'clock in the morning,
the rose has done it, and many of us now regard it as
the most natural thing in the world that our roses should
be the first care at the beginning of each new day.
In
rose growing, as in growing everything else, one has
to begin at the soil, for it is the soil that nourishes
the roots, the roots that feed the leaves, the leaves
that support the blossoms. "Take care of the soil,"
might I say, " and the flowers will take care of themselves,"
if you " take care of " that unwelcome little grub that
comes with the coming of spring! But let us. write of
pleasant things first, though not counting our roses
before they bloom. Why should not soil preparation and
planting be considered among the pleasant things of
gardening ? The gardener who approaches these prosaic
tasks with a mind rightly attuned will dream dreams
of bursting buds and wide-opening blossoms; there will
be soft showers and bright sunshine for him, even though
a pall of gray obscures the heavens and a chill wind
makes face and fingers tingle. For whatever may be the
actual conditions that obtain, they will but serve to
heighten the contrast between the real and the unreal,
and render anticipation still more delightful. The gardener
has an advantage over many practical workers, if he
is an enthusiast, in that the pleasant shadow of the
future hovers always over the present, the glamour of
the unseen veils with a rose-colored cloak the trials
and difficulties of the moment. And if the reader would
like to have these pleasant dreams without the sharp
contrast (though this, I assure him, makes them all
the more real), then let him have the digging and planting
done by a jobbing gardener who, whatever his qualifications
for the work, and they vary greatly, may occasionally
be trusted to do it with some appreciation of its importance
if not of its possibilities. For the reader's own sake
I trust if he is able he will do his own planting, for
the gardener who entrusts his planting to another is
likely, sooner or later, to form, one of that already
fairly large number of people who find gardening disappointing.
And why? Simply because they leave to others that which
they should do themselves. Everyone must have felt a
pride in homeraised cuttings or seedlings; and what
is pride but the outcome of love, fond and real ? Only,
as a mother with her children, does the gardener come
to know and to love his plants and flowers when, from
planting to blossoming, he and he alone has tended them.
The longer he gardens the greater will be his love for
the flowers he grows. Let us, then, plant our own roses
and for a time relapse into the prosaic and practical,
for in plant growing, full flower beauty waits only
on those who till the soil.
Additional article and "How To" about rose gardening:
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