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Planning Your Garden
The Rose Garden
IN A small garden there is nothing to be gained by providing a separate place for the roses; on the contrary, they may be freely associated with the other flowers in bed and border with the best effect.
Just why it became the practice in days gone by to give the roses a department to themselves is not clear, though there seems to have been some idea that the rose standard did not harmonize with plants of bushy habit. In the present day no such consideration prevails, and gardeners do not hesitate to admit the rose into every part of the garden.
We cannot have too many roses, and there is no position where they are out of place. The walls and fences deserve their share. The house walls are never so beautiful as when clothed with healthy and prolific climbers. In the shrubbery they help to redeem the masses of monotonous green foliage. On the lawn, as standards or pillars, they add a welcome note of color, and in beds and borders they contribute their quota to the general effect. Even as hedges, roses have their use, and for arches, pergolas, and festoons no more charming climbers are available. Pegged down, or trained over the beams of a pergola, they make glorious masses of flower and foliage.
I have written enough to show that the rose has no claim to be kept in a place by itself, yet this does not imply that the rose garden is necessarily a superfluity where ample space exists. Indeed, there is something extremely attractive in a well-planned rose garden. It is a practical token of homage to the queen of flowers, and it demonstrates that the rose, before all other flowers, can be grown in a place by itself without producing a monotonous effect. This follows from its variety in form, color, and foliage.
A sunny site should be selected for the rose garden, and, following ancient usage, we cannot do better than lay it out formally. I am no advocate of a formal garden in its severest mood, but formality is not the product of shape alone in the garden details, as I have elsewhere shown. I can conceive of beds and borders of informal outline treated quite formally in the planting and accessories. I cannot imagine any benefit to the roses from planting them anyhow. We know little of the rose in a state of nature, for our garden roses are mostly a product of the nurseryman's art. They are perhaps the most artificial of all flowers.
We shall not therefore be in danger of outraging good taste if we make our rose garden on formal lines, by which I mean if we plan it on a symmetrical basis.
