ROSES FOR DECORATION.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 2, 13 July 1910, Page 38

ROSES FOR DECORATION.

As becomes the queen of flowers, the rose holds pre-eminence for the decoration and adornment of the home, and. with a welcome tendency nowadays towards the simpler forms of arrangement, the beauty of the flower itself is shown to the best advantage. While awarding due honour to many old favourites, it cannot be denied that a number of roses of recent introduction lend themselves. particularly well to decoration, their beautiful colouring at once arresting attention.

It is not so much among the exhibition varieties that this adaptability for decorations is to be found; for instance, Frau Karl Druschki, the most beautiful snow white rose in cultivation, can scarcely be called a good decorator’s rose, though a bold group of this variety, cut with sufficiently long stems, may be arranged against a dark background with great effect. The chief points of a rose for decorative purposes are colour, perfume, and a certain amount of staying power. This latter attribute is rather wanting in such a fleeting flower as Comtesse du Cayla, and also in that pretty and delicatelytinted Rose Lady Waterlow, charming as they both are in the bud state.

All the qualities of a perfect decorative variety may be seen in Liberty and its improved form Richmond, an added point, which will appeal to decorators with tender fingers, being that they have smooth stems with few thorns, so different from, for instance, 'Marquis of Salisbury, which, equally charming as regards colour, is a most trying rose to handle by reason of its excessive thorniness. Another great favourite for the adornment of rooms, dinner tables, baskets, etc., is Mme. Abel Chatenay, equally lieautiful in all stages, from the bud to the expanded flower. For bowls, La France and Caroline Testout are very effective. Killarney makes a beautiful basket rose, provided it is cut early in the season before mildew has attacked the growth; so also does the semidouble Hybrid Tea Dawn. Dorothy Page-Roberts, Mrs. W. J. Grant, Lady Ashtown, Viscountess Folkestone, Lady Roberts, Catherine Mermet, Mme. Ravary, and the new and beautiful Melanie Soupert are all good roses for decoration, and Prince de Bulgarie, with brown foliage, is very pretty in the autumn. The recently introduced Lyon rose is very beautiful, but needs to be used quite by itself to be seen to advantage. Its peculiar shades of shrimp pink, with the golden base of the petals, are so unusual that they almost need a white background to be seen to full perfection. This lovely rose is certainly one of the best of the new varieties. In roses for table decoration there seems a tendency to return to the use of the garden varieties, instead of the cluster ramblers which were so much in vogue for this purpose a year or two ago. These undoubtedly needed a skilled hand to attain the juste-milieu between a poor effect, the result of using too few blooms in an endeavour for lightness, and an overcrowded mass, by

. using too many; but some of the newer wichuraianas are undoubtedly very lovely. When visiting a nursery in Sussex . laitely some new varieties were shown me which seemed particularly well suited for decoration. Joseph Lamy (a delicate blush pink with deeper cen-

tie, of most artistic colouring) and Leontine Gervais (an apricot yellow tinged with rose), both with pretty foliage, were charming. So also were C’repuscule (Noisette), tinted yellow and salmon, Francois Juranville and Francois Guillot, and a paler sport from

Dorothy ’Perkins was also worthy of notice. Turning to the single- roses, none are more beautiful: for a light decora-, tion than Irish Elegance and Gottfried Keller, the latter a variety which 1 am surprised is not more used; its golden tints, combined With its orange buds and bronzy foliage, are very taking. Tausendschon (a bright pink) and the new Rose Entente Cordiale (a charming combination of colouring) are sure to

become established favourites, while the pretty little yellow (anarien Vogel, With its dainty buds, is also worthy of men', ion. Every year there seems to In* a growing .tendency to use their own foliage exclusively in arranging roses, and surely this is a step in the right direction. In few private gardens are then* the best varieties in sufficient numbers to admit of the foliage of any particular rose

chosen for the adocnment of the house being to go with it: but the more luxuriant ramblers amply supply this deficiency, those with sprays of • mill, shining green foliage, such as Alberie Barbier, mixing well with many kinds, and the brown foliage of Sunset is also most valuable. A little care and thought in the judicious mingling of colour/ ami disposition of the materials at command are always needed to ensure the best results; but with

the improvements of modern cultivation and the varied tints and kinds now to select from, there should be no difficulty in finding beautiful roses to harmonise with any and every scheme of the decorative art. One of the most beautiful Howers for the garden is («. Xabonnand, which gives its flowers freely in the autumn as well as the summer. EMILY E. WILLIAMSON. W’ilste.id. (’anterburv.