Wild Rose growing on a Pollard Ash in Orchardleigh Park, Somerset.
“We have,” says a correspondent, “a pretty extensive collection of Roses, but one of the most attractive specimens on the place is an old double white Ayrshire Rose, growing in a group of common Laurel in the shrubberies. We cannot tell how old the plant may be, but it has probably been in its present situation for thirty years, struggling the best way it could to keep its place among the tall–growing Laurels, sometimes sending out a shoot of white flowers on this side and sometimes on that side of the clump of bushes, and sometimes scrambling up to the tops of the tallest limbs and draping them with its blossoms throughout June and July. Nearly three years ago we had the Laurels headed down to within six feet of the ground, leaving the straggling limbs of the Rose which were found amongst them, and since then it has grown and thriven amazingly, and now fairly threatens to gain the mastery. We had the curiosity to measure the plant the other day, and found it rather over seventy feet in circumference. Within this space the plant forms an irregular undulating mound, nearly in all parts so densely covered with Roses that not so much as a hand’s breadth is left vacant anywhere, and the Laurel branches are quite hidden, and in fact are now dying, smothered by the Rose. A finer example of luxuriant development we never saw. The plant has been a perfect sheet of bloom for a month or more, and there are thousands of buds yet to expand, and hundreds of bunches of buds have been cut just at the opening stage—when they are neater and whiter than a Gardenia—to send away. The tree has never received the least attention or assistance with the exception of the removal of the Laurel tops before mentioned, to let the light into it. It is growing in a tolerably deep and strong dry loam, and this, together with head room, seems to be all it requires. We record this example simply to show of what the Rose is capable without much cultural assistance. No doubt, in order to produce fine individual blooms certain restricted culture is necessary; but almost any variety of Rose will make a good–sized natural bush of itself, and as for the climbing or pillar Roses, the less they are touched the better. Of course we are not alluding to the Rosery proper, but of Roses in their more natural aspect, as when planted to hide fences, cover rockeries, or as striking objects on lawns. Except against walls, and in similar situations, there is no occasion to prune climbing Roses. Left to themselves, they make by far the grandest display, and to insure this it is only necessary to provide them with a good, deep, strong soil at the beginning, and to let them have a fair amount of light on all sides. Whether planting be carried out with the object above described, or for the purpose of covering naked tree stumps or limbs, or for draping any unsightly object whatever, liberal treatment in the first instance is the main thing. A good soil makes all the difference in time and in the permanent vigour of the tree, and were we desirous of having a great Rose tree (whether it be a common Ayrshire or a Gloire de Dijon, that we expected to produce thousands of blooms in a few years), we should, if the soil were not naturally strong and deep, provide a well–drained pit and fill it with two or three good cartloads of sound loam and manure; thus treated, the result is certain, provided an unrestricted growth be permitted.”
White Climbing Rose scrambling over old Catalpa Tree.
Roses on grass are a pleasant feature of the wild garden. No matter what the habit of the rose, provided it be free and hardy, and growing on its own roots, planting on the grass will suit it well. So treated, the more vigorous climbers would form thickets of flowers, and graceful vigorous shoots. They will do on level grass, and be still more picturesque on banks or slopes.
The following description, by Mr. E. Andre, of Roses in the Riviera is suggestive of what we may obtain in our own climate later, by using the free kinds on their own roots, or on stocks equally hardy and not less vigorous, as in the case of the Banksian Roses mentioned below:—
On my last excursion from Marseilles to Genoa, I was greatly struck, as any one seeing them for the first time would be, with the magnificence of the Roses all along the Mediterranean shores. The Rose hedges, and the espalier Roses, especially, offer an indescribably gorgeous sight. Under the genial influence of the warm sun of Provence, from the Corniche to the extremity of the Riviera di Ponente, that is as far as the Gulf of Genoa, and protected to the north by the mountains, which gradually slope down to the sea–coast, Roses attain the size of Pæonies, and develop a depth and brilliancy of colour and fragrance of unusual intensity. But this is in part due to another cause, or rather two other causes, which lead to the same result, the main point being the choice of suitable subjects for stocks to graft upon. These stocks are, Rosa Banksiæ and Rosa indica major. The Banksian Rose presents three varieties, namely, White Banksian, producing a profusion of small white flowers, scarcely so large as those of the double–flowered Cherry, and of a most delicious fragrance; Yellow Banksian, with still larger clusters of small nankeen–yellow scentless flowers; Chinese Thorny Banksian, flowers less numerous and about three times as large as in the two preceding, and of the most grateful odour. These three forms attain an unsurpassable vigour in this region. In two years one plant will cover an immense wall, the gable of a house, or climb to the top of a tall tree, from which its branches hang like flowery cascades, embalming the air around with a rich perfume during the months of April and May. Now, if these be taken for stocks upon which to bud some of the choicer Teas, Noisettes, and Bourbons, the growth of the latter will be prodigious. The stock should be two years old, having well ripened, though still smooth, wood. In this way such varieties as Gloire de Dijon, Maréchal Niel, Lamarque, Safrano, Chromatella, Aimée Vibert, le Pactole, and all the Teas, attain such dimensions as to be no longer recognisable.
Rosa indica major is almost naturalised throughout the whole of this region. It possesses the additional claim to favour of flowering nearly all the winter, forming beautiful hedges of dark green shining foliage, from which thousands of clusters of lovely flowers rise, of a tender delicate transparent pink, or almost pure white, with a brighter tinge in the centre and at the tips of the petals. This Rose is an evergreen, and makes an excellent stock for grafting or budding. It is either planted in nursery beds, where it quickly throws up a stem suitable for standards in the same way as we employ the Dog Rose, or in hedges, and left to its naturally luxuriant growth to produce its own charming flowers in rich profusion, or rows of cuttings are put in where it is intended to leave them, and subsequently budded with some of the varieties of the diverse tribes we have named.