A rose garden,

"I have a great many rose bushes which are now planted in a bed in the lawn and at one side of the house. They are fine varieties, but I must say they look pretty ragged most of the season. What can I do with them to make the place look better?"

I should certainly advise you to have a special rose garden, where all the bushes can be segregated and enjoyed by themselves.

Rose busges are not an ornament to the lawn. Their foliage is poor and their growth straggling and untidy. Even when in full bloom they do not look well in the landscape, and all their beauty is lost when seen from any distance.

The flowers themselves are their only beauty, and these, if they are to be enjoyed, must be picked and worn or used in the house. If left to decorate the bushes they open too wide. A rose wide open is an ugly thing and should never be seen in that condition.

Roses in a special garden are more easily cared for, and at the best they are the most difficult of all flowers to grow in perfection. They must be cultivated, manured, sprayed, and watered constantly. Every day one must look each bush over carefully and pick off worms and beetles. For people who enjoy growing roses this work is not hard, but it is nice to have all the bushes collected in a secluded spot, where one may work at ease.

The rose garden should be small, intimate, and with a simplicity befitting the glory of the flower. Comfortable paths, but not too wide, should be provided, and many seats. It should be a garden without long vistas, so that one never sees the bushes in mass, but always near at hand and in minute detail.

A jar of water constantly overflowing, in which the long stems may be plunged for a time, a table on which they may be arranged for the house, complete the furnishings of the garden, unless one can have a sun-dial on a beautifully carved pedestal, or some small faun in bronze to smile and sympathize with the things that happen not only among the roses, but, perhaps, also sub rosa.

In such a garden one may pass many hours of delightful occupation and many hours of thoughtful worship of the queen of flowers.

The rose garden should be protected from high winds, and it will be all the better if it gets sunshine for only eight hours in the middle of the day. Before eight to nine the sun perhaps will not reach it, and then is the time for work and for picking the flowers while still dew covered and just beginning to open. The colors of the rose are more brilliant in the morning light or after four in the afternoon, when the long shadows from the west come creeping over them; toward night their fragrance seems to float in the air, more delicate and more entrancing.

After the first prodigality of bloom in June, there comes a pause when there are few flowers and then one is quite willing to have the rose bushes out of sight and to forget all about them, except the necessity for cultivation and watching.

There is a quick recovery and for the remainder of the summer there should be plenty to gather every day.