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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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