A rose garden now holds much more delight than a rose garden twenty years ago, because our roses are now much better and their variety is greater.

The old rose garden was a place set aside for growing the finicky and, at most seasons, unlovely hybrid perpetuals, and its object was not only to give the roses a place where soil and situation were the best, but also to keep them out of the flower garden, where they were in competition with other flowers when in bloom and where their own presence was undesirable after they had bloomed.

A rose garden now, however, should look well at any season, and should be full of roses from June to October.

The formal rose garden should be enclosed by a lattice fence or by a pergola on which to grow climbing roses. If it is a lattice fence, let the strips of wood in the lattice work be stout, say, 3/8×2 inches, and let them be not set closer than 5 inches for the vertical slats and 8 inches for the upright ones. This gives about the minimum space for weaving the roses in and out as they grow. This is far the prettiest way of growing them. It is much better than tying to a wire. The fence should be high; 8 feet would be good, but better, 10.

The climbing roses are perhaps the most notable recent addition to the rose family. They are in every shade, from the crimson rambler to the pure white Wichuraiana.

The following are good varieties: Dorothy Perkins, Lady Gay, Daybreak, Wedding Bells, Hiawatha, Flower of Fairfield, Tausendschön Tausandscho , South Orange Perfection, Gardenia, Debutante, Minnie Dawson, W. C. Egan and Dawson. All are perfectly hardy without protection.

Other climbing roses are Climbing Clotilde Soupert, Climbing Belle Seibrecht, Devoniensis, and many others having tea blood and being, therefore, slightly tender.

As a border inside the trellis I should like to have many of the best species of roses. Multiflora for its pure white flower and delicious fragrance fragranec ; setigera for its late pink bloom and graceful stem; rugosa for its brilliant color, and rugosa alba for its delicate whiteness. The Lord Penzance hybrids of the sweetbriar would have a larger space. They are wonderful in color, and no fragrance is so sweet. With these could be planted some of the old-fashioned roses, among them the damask rose, the moss roses, the cinnamon rose, Harrison’s yellow and Persian yellow, and, of course, Mme. Plantier.

This would be the place too for the hybrids of rugosa and, if the garden is a large one, for all the beautiful native roses which prolong the season of bloom and are beautiful flowers. The white variety of rosa lucida should not be omitted. Inside this border I should have a white gravel path, enclosing in turn a number of beds devoted to the tea roses and the hybrid teas.

Tea roses bloom all summer, their colors are superb and their fragrance unsurpassed, except by the sweetbriar. They are easy to grow, they do not suffer in dry weather, and they can be protected in the winter by throwing earth around them eight or ten inches high. There are hundreds of varieties, and all, I suppose, have some merit. At any rate, one can choose by color and not make a mistake.

Any good soil will do for these roses, and they will grow and bloom without coddling.

Whether the hybrid perpetuals should be included in this garden or not I cannot say. Personally, I would leave them out, because the hybrid teas have the same size and substance and are better bloomers and in every way as satisfactory. A rose garden of this modern sort should be at least fifty feet square: a hundred would be better. It will be very easy to care for, because after the first two years it will be impossible to cultivate the border, and the only labor will be that of spraying and of keeping the paths and hoeing the tea rose beds. Tea roses should be planted in beds four feet wide, with three rows of roses alternating in the rows. Each plant will then be about eighteen inches from its nearest neighbor, and the narrow beds make it easy to take care of each plant.

Our garden in winter will be almost as beautiful as in the summer. The rose hips are brilliant in color, and the warm tones of the branches, in contrast with evergreen trees at the back and the snow, perhaps on the ground, make a very cheering winter scene.

I know a lovely informal rose garden planted among the rocks and cedars of a New England hillside, with the climbing roses in the tops of old apple trees and the tea roses nestling beside a boulder. It is a bird-paradise at all seasons. With this material there is no end to the beautiful things one can do.