Beds of Roses

It is useless to stick a rose tree into any sort of bed or border, without first ascertaining whether the soil is good, and the conformation likely to please.

The lines of beds of roses should be bold, niggling curves and twists with no meaning in them should be avoided, as should long narrow beds so often seen.  A good square or oblong shape looks good, ovals and crescents also look well under certain circumstances.  Round beds of roses and stars look less dignified, and are difficult to set out successfully.

How to form them

If the beds are cut out on a lawn, see that the soil is not raised too high.  

This is a common fault, and the cause of many failures.  The rain runs off too soon, and no amount of artificial watering will properly moisten the roots when the soil is raised unduly.

Standards on lawns

Rose Standards too often look like broomsticks, whereas if they were planted in groups of three, the effect would be more relaxed. Holes must be dug for them, and the grass kept well away from the trees. 

Each tree if planted singly should have a hole as large across as an ordinary wash-hand basin, and about eighteen inches or two feet deep. There is no need for the soil around to be quite bare, various ways of treating it will be found in the section headed Ground Cover Plants.

Roses in borders

Roses often look their best in borders.  Backed by an old wall, with various climbing plants, including varieties of the rose itself, growing up it, and with a pretty edging between them and the gravel path, there is something old-world and informal about these borders that is sure to charm the eye. 

They must be arranged with care, however, or the good effect will be lost.

Avoid straight lines

Many gardeners can plant a bed out in the open well enough, but when they come to a border nothing will content them but rows of straight lines! We cannot do better than learn more from Nature, she never goes wrong, and always abhors a straight line.  Of course a garden is not intended to be wild, and a few formal lines have their proper place in landscape gardening.

The best soil

The best soil for roses is composed of two-thirds loam and one-third manure, the whole being well mixed and stamped down so as to be fairly firm, with the manure not too near the surface unless it is very well decayed.  The depth of good soil should be at least a foot and a half, or a little more, if possible.  If it is resting on clay so much the better.

Preparing beds and borders in wet weather should not be attempted.  The soil should be fairly crumbly, if it is sticky delay the matter for a few days.