1. Modern Rose - The origin of the rose is quite prehistoric; geologists tell us of evidence of its existence more than thirty-five million years ago. It is mentioned in many of the earliest writings, and it has been found indigenous to almost every part of the Northern Hemisphere, even to Iceland and Lapland, but never south of the Equator.

2. Garden Design - There are always the few in every community who strive to excel. When these folk apply their diligence to gardening, either they have a superlative generalized garden or they specialize in one type of plant. This is not so with the vast majority of home-dwellers. They have a garden of many types of plants, but, almost invariably, roses are the most highly prized. It is often said that roses will not thrive in beds with other plants, but some of the finest blooms I have ever seen have been on rose plants surrounded by small annuals or vegetables.

3. Rose Gardens - Although roses will adapt themselves to most conditions of soil, climate, and environment, they will not give their best results unless their needs are met in some degree. In any rose garden there are certain general requirements, such as availability of water, adequate exposure to sun, and avoidance of long narrow funnels for draughts between buildings, fences, or hedges. Further, the roses must be kept away from hungry surface-rooting trees, among the worst of which are wattles (acacias) and privet (ligustrum). If a wind-break is considered advisable, deep-rooting trees are to be preferred.

4. Selection Of Varieties - Even if one should choose to have a whole area devoted only to roses, there is usually at least one side of it that is too shaded for roses to give of their best. The shade is most often thrown by an unsightly fence or a brick wall. Climbing roses will never do well in such a position, and one should not plant trees or shrubs that will send long roots out into nearby beds of roses. Rhododendrons, camellias, and azaleas are ideal for these places. By being evergreen they hide the fence or wall constantly; their small root-spread leaves the roses without interference; they add very little to the work in the garden, and camellias, in particular, provide blooms when roses are most scarce.

5. Selection Of Varieties #2 - Polyantha Roses (Orleans type) make very fine edgings, low borders, or massed effects, but in many climates they are so subject to mildew as to be not worth while. They sport freely, and so have become quite numerous. The best twelve have been chosen in the following list. The sports will often revert to the original colours.

6. Producing New Varieties - New roses come into existence in two ways by a process known as mutation, or sporting, and from seed. The vast majority come in the latter way, and many hundreds of people are employed in widely scattered countries in an industry that has grown up around the raising of rose seedlings.

7. Propagation - Many plants can be raised from seed with a degree of certainty that they will be the same as the parents. This applies to types of simple breeding rather than to those of complex hybridization. Rose species can be reproduced from seed, especially when self-pollinated, but not so modern hybrids. New plants can be produced true to type from either species or hybrids by several methods known collectively as vegetative propagation budding, cutting, grafting and layering.

8. Australian Roses - The Australian and New Zealand gardener is just as discerning as any other. He accepts and rejects almost the same roses as do his oversea confreres, except that he knows and grows, in addition, many Australian-raised varieties. He does so, not because of any sense of patriotism or nationalism, but because these roses earn their place in his garden by sheer merit, and the climate allows him a wide range of choice.

9. Soils - Geologists tell us that in the very beginning of the Earth's existence there was no such thing as soil. There was an outer crust made up of rock, which varied from place to place in texture and chemical composition. Colour varied with mineral content. As the millions of years have passed many influences have acted on that crust, the most powerful being temperature variation.

10. Drainage - Very few plants will grow on wet swampy soils. Most plants need soil conditions that give free movement of water and air. Their roots will not penetrate into soil where the minute spaces between soil particles are filled with stagnant water. Should their roots be planted in such a layer, they will soon perish.

11. Preparation of Beds - Roses, shrubs, and trees can be grown well in almost any soil, but most soils will be improved by treatment of some sort before planting. The most important part of any preparation is digging.

Some gardeners advocate trenching to a depth of two feet or even more, and others say that simple digging to a depth of eight to ten inches is sufficient. Good and bad results are obtained by both advocates.

12. Planting - Roses can be planted successfully at any time of the year provided suitable precautions and more trouble are taken in certain seasons. Early April to late June is the most favoured time in the tropical parts of Australia. This is because of the seasonal rainfall. Growth is so continuous in those areas that there is no dormant period. Even in our coldest climates, roses never become as dormant as in the colder parts of Europe, Canada, and the northern parts of the United States of America.

13. Old Rose Gardens - Crops of any type of plant grown on virgin soil almost always do well for at least two or three years, for that soil contains the necessary foods. Continued cropping, even if varied in type, reduces the humus content of the soil and, with it, the plant foods.

Plants are very selective in their feeding. Each type of plant needs plant-food elements in slightly different proportions, and each soil contains those elements in a different ratio.

14. Womter Pruning - Skill in pruning rose plants is acquired by personal experience and observation. Every rose-grower will derive more satisfaction and enjoyment from his garden if he prunes his own plants.

The advisability of pruning is obvious from the manner in which a rose grows. Unlike a tree, which goes on from year to year adding to its size, the rose grows by a process of replacement. Strong shoots flower well in their first, second, and possibly third years, but then become weaker at their uppermost parts.

15. Summer Treatment - In the long hot days of December and January we get fast growth and many blooms. In coastal areas the hotter the climate the greater will be the growth, provided there is ample water available to the plants. Most plants will be throwing up watershoots; they should be very carefully guarded. Try, if necessary, to train each of them to take up a good position in the structure of the plant. A stake should be driven in near the shoot and two or three ties placed round them.

16. General Care - Roses and rose gardens need never be an extravagance, or be regarded as a luxury to be indulged in only by the wealthy members of a community. Actually, it seems that these people enjoy their roses in almost inverse ratio to the amount of money they lavish on them, and the results seldom persuade others to plant large areas under roses. Any garden can be almost a reflection of its owner. A garden of trees can be restful, peaceful, and almost lazy, but still very beautiful.

17. Climatic Difficulties - Except in the heart of the continent, where evaporation rate greatly exceeds any possible supply of water, Australia has the best climate in the world for out-of-doors rose-growing. Dry-ness, sandy soil, and tropical conditions in the north are our only obstacles, except in fairly cold climates, such as parts of the South Island of New Zealand, southern Tasmania, and the towns near the Australian Alps, where minor difficulties may occur due to the low temperatures.

18. Plant Foods - Roses, like most other plants, derive their food from the air and the soil. By far the greatest amount of food taken up is water, which consists of hydrogen and oxygen. Next, in both quantity and importance, comes carbon dioxide, a gaseous compound of carbon and oxygen.

When plant tissues are burnt in a crucible all the hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon are reconverted to water and carbon dioxide, and driven off. The non-volatile minerals of the plant remain as ash.

19. Plant Foods #2 - Until quite recently it was believed that almost all plants were incapable of absorbing, through their leaves, any food except carbon dioxide. It has been demonstrated, however, by means of radioactive particles that inorganic chemicals can be ingested within fifteen seconds of their having been sprayed on to the foliage.

20. Diseases - Ranked in order of relative importance, the greatest factors in the incidence of disease in plants and animals are feeding, environment, heredity, and infection. Consideration of the first, second, and third helps in prevention; consideration of the fourth involves treatment. Rather than being forced into the position of needing to fight disease, every possible preventive measure should be adopted. Each rose plant has some degree of inherent resistance to every disease.

21. Diseases #2 - Sooty mould, due to Dimerosforium, Aposporium, or Capnodium, cannot exist without aphides and their honey-dew. It is a disease of late summer and autumn. This fungus not only disfigures the plants with its black coating of the leaves and branches, but it blocks the stomata. No direct treatment is of any use; aphides must be controlled.

22. Garden Friends - Today we have not only intensive cultivation and lowered disease-resistance of most plants, but many other factors contributing to a lessening of what might be termed biological control of diseases. The balance of nature is being disturbed. There is less smoke from factories than in former years, but buildings of greater height and in greater numbers particularly blocks of flats have brought more shade and draughts. Man and his domestic cat have reduced the garden-dwelling birds by killing and fright.

23. Why Roses Fail - With all the rose's hardiness and adaptability to extremely diverse conditions of soils and climates some varieties do not thrive. In the case of new plants this is usually due to the grower's lack of knowledge; in established plants it results much more commonly from over-attention than from neglect.

24. Showing Roses - There is no community that will not place high value on rose shows. Only a small percentage of its people may choose to stage blooms at a show, but large numbers will attend and appreciate the flowers. In Melbourne each year over ten thousand people attend the two shows held by the National Rose Society of Victoria. Add to this figure those people who attend country and suburban shows and you will realize that the public appreciates the spectacle of well-grown roses.

25. Showing Roses #2 - Inefficient packing of blooms for transport from home to the show can cause serious damage. The roses must be sufficiently firm in their container to avoid movement and rubbing. Many exhibitors have contrived excellent boxes, usually of plywood for the sake of lightness, with several false "floors", and so can carry large numbers of blooms in one case. They are particularly useful if one is obliged to travel by public transport. When the exhibitor has a car at his disposal a number of suitcases may be used.

26. Indoor Decoration - Gladioli will last for over a week indoors, and chrysanthemums and orchids may last for nearly a month. Roses will last for two to seven days, depending on the stage at which they are cut and on the season other flowers have only one season, but roses are available throughout the year. Yet, despite their relatively short-lasting properties, the whole world still regards the rose as possessing everything that goes to make the perfect flower. It is the flower demanded for all special occasions; it always has been so. Some of the exotic types of flowers almost suggest opulent lack of taste, but the rose is always appropriate.

27. Perfume - The rose is the first flower whose perfume has been recorded. Undoubtedly many other scented flowers existed before those records were made, but, being inferior, they were disregarded. The historians of perfumery tell us also that the rose was the first flower from which any form of perfume was made, and that Avicenna, an illustrious Arabian doctor, discovered the art of extracting perfume from flowers by distillation.

28. Rose Calender - In setting out a year's programme for work in the rose garden, it must be borne in mind that, firstly, most amateur growers have a daily calling that limits the time available for gardening; secondly, weather conditions govern our activities; and thirdly, rose-growing should be a pleasure and not a burden. The work must be fairly evenly distributed week by week.

29. Roses History - For four thousand years and more the world has extolled the rose as Nature's superb floral creation. Dean Hole said "Her supremacy has been acknowledged, like Truth itself, always, everywhere, by all." From Sappho to modern times all poets have lauded the beauty and perfume of the rose; their highest praise of beauty has often been expressed by comparison with it.

30. Rose Societies - The main purpose of any Rose Society is to help people to grow better roses. It is seldom realized that this assistance is available to all members of the community, irrespective of whether they are members of the Rose Society or not. Members will learn more of rose-growing, new varieties, and all the other aspects of rose culture than other people, and this is by virtue of their constant contact with the many activities of their Society.

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