Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-30
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACERE ELL.

Recently we read an article some
where stating how easy 1t is TO grow roses
| The writer said that there had been a
great deal of tommy-rot written about
how difhcult 1t was to raise the queen
of flowers" that, as a matter of fact, no
| flower was easier for the homeowner to
handle.
We beg to disagree. In our opinion
there is no plant more difficult for the
amateur to grow with satisfaction, none
more likely to result in failure. This
does not mean that thousands of home
gardeners will not secure good results
with roses.
Nor does it mean that any one will
fail with such reliable, hardy varieties
as Radiance and Red Radiance. These
are almost as easy to grow as zinnias
They are, however, but foretaste OF
the beauties of Roseland. No one who
grows them can rest content with them
He will want to grow other roses
and that is where the trouble comes in
No sooner does he begin to branch out
than he finds that the writers who
have proclaimed the rose a difficult
flower to grow are very much in the
right in their proclamations.
The very fact that the rose is not an
easy flower to handle makes it an APP
pealing one. It calls for the exercise OF
intelligence, as we'll as of vigilance. One
must study and understand his roses
perhaps more than most flowers.
There are many simple posies which
grow of themselves. Let them alone
and they will come home, wagging their
flowers behind them. The rose, on the
other hand, may or may not produce
successful blossoms. Between the grow
er's catalogue and the vase there is
many slip-up.
X X x *
To dismiss the trouble and worries OF
rose growing as If they did not exist is
not to play fair with amateurs, eSpe-
cially with those persons who have re-
Gently purchased homes, and who want
TO plant rosebusheS the first thing of all
A word of pertinent advice to Such
might run as follows: Don't. Instead
of putting in roSebusheS the tlrSt thing,
save them until the last. Grow an
nuals, or perennialS, or plant shrubs or
evergreens. Make good lawn. All
these are needful matters, without
which a home is somehow lacking.
Let the roses go until you are sure
you like gardening, for itself and in
itself. Every year there are hundreds
of men and women who take up home
gardening hopefully, feeling that so far
in life they have been cheated out OF
something that belongs TO them, and
which now they will possess. Some of
them will be right in that belief.
Others, and perhaps the majority, will
discover that the habits of many years
cannot be uprooted.
These latter struggle manfully to love
gardening. They roll up their sleeves
in the Spring, rake the lawn furiouSly,
plant flower and vegetable seeds weeks
too early, wilt with the first touch Of
hot weather, and refuse to weed the
garden when that exercise is the very
thing it needs.
Many of them keep up the-to them
--distasteful work for several years, I'M
til finally they come to the rightful
conclusion that gardening is not for
them. Then they do either one of two
things; they turn the work over to a
paid gardener, or they give 1t up al
together.
Thus we have, in the main, three
classes of amateur gardeners: Those
who love the work, those who do not
and pay others to do it for them, and
those who neither love 1t nor are will
ing to pay for 1t. The last class may
be called gardeners because they hoped
to be such, and even hope, in so beauti-
full a work, is something.
The person who actually likes gar
dening, or who cares for the result
enough to pay some one else to do it
for him, will some time or other come