Gardening in Town and Suburb (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V. EOSES. How inexhaustible is the subject of Eoses How much has been written, is written, and still remains to be written about the Eose My excuse for devoting a chapter to the rose is that no gardening book could be considered complete without some reference to it, and secondly, that it is a good plant for the town and suburban garden. Here it loses perhaps a little fragrance, or some of its rich and delicate colouring, as the case may be, but what of that The home-grown blooms are as precious to the city man as the sweetest rose that ever blossomed in a country garden. What they actually lack in colour and fragrance they more than gain by their mere presence amid bricks and mortar. The suburban gardener might do worse than make his tiny garden solely one of roses: he would miss many good things, it is true, but it is questionable whether he would not gain as much as he lost. The rose is a plant of many parts; none is more accommodating; none can be used in so many ways. You may cover walls, fences, poles, pillars, pergolas, arches, arbours, and even make hedges with the rose, while you cannot fill bed or border with any more lovely flower. Dwarfs and standards may be grown with a full measure of success, but to my mind the climbing rose is the rose for the town and suburban garden. It sets at defiance all artificial limits, and sends upwards its long and vigorous growths as if to seek a purer air and sunnier atmosphere. Who can watch and not admire the lank shoots, red-crimson as they pierce the soil, that reach the top of pole or pillar in an incredibly short space of time, developing and strengthening, and changing from crimson to red, from red to green as they rise. To mark the progress of a vigorous climbing rose is one of the joys of th...