SCRAP YOUR OLD ROSES

Evening Star, Issue 22086, 20 July 1935, Page 23

SCRAP YOUR OLD ROSES

Let no one be alarmed or indignant at this invitation. Those dear old roses. —you ...would not give them u.p lor worlds. Of course you wouldn’t! They are the sweetest, the richest-coloured, the most free flowering roses you have ever seen (writes “ Dhmthus,” in the ‘ Auckland Star ’). That is the right and proper protest. Old friends are best, and do not be off with the old before you are on with the new. Nevertheless, do scrap your old roses. Don’t tell.'me you haven’t any. We are a very sentimental fraternity, we flower lovers, especially those of us who are rose lovers, which means everybody. Only in the new garden still to make can* there be no old roses. Those worn out old friends; how we hang on to them, how they still tug at our hearts, how we continue secretly, to hope for their miraculous rejuvenation. How long it takes us, grudgingly to admit that their day is done, that they are down and out. Believe me, ray heart still remains impressionably responsive to the roses tna't ought to be scrapped. Nevertheless, there is the room they occupy. Do they adequately fill the space;' 1 Seriously, are they a paying proposition from the point of view of flowers? Do they redound to the credit of the garden, or are they just the black spot that mars the whole? Black spot! Ever heard of black spot on roses? Ever heard of mildew or maggot? Ever wondered why your neighbours’ roses are clean and your own dirty? Ever thought of old worn out roses perpetuating disease and fungi and insect troubles? Well, they do And that is why J suggest you' should think serioUslv about scrapping them,; sentiment-with old roses may be carried too far. Now is the time' to plant roses. Weather and soil permitting the earlier the better.