pink and red, the Microphyllas, both Rubra and Alba odorata; of the bush Noisettes and of Rose d'Amour. Soon she is considering roses for shrubbery and the edges of woods, making notes about the height and spread of Damasks and Centifolias and other Junes, as well as some Hybrid Chinas which show such dash and confidence. Her active mind runs to period planting, and what roses she would choose for old Virginia and Maryland gardens about old houses with great chimneys. Now, she is writing things down about Musk and Ayrshire climbers and the climbing Tea-Noisettes, visualizing them, with their long shoots and panicles of bloom, in possession of old porches and those lyre-shaped structures for supporting flouncing pillar roses, as accents in old gardens. What a superb sense of delicately and perfectly conceived effect she shows! Training has had something to do with that, but natural taste, gentleness, and a love of the growing plant have a part. Such a sound lesson in planting has-been contributed to our winter hours by this visitor who gave the best of herself to us so freely; a lesson full of the meaning of complete beauty of the growing thingflower, leaf, form, growth, refinement, fragrance; a beauty attained by using a plant in the best way to give its entire loveliness to a garden. We hope this charming visitor, this artist in gardens, will come again. She has already made herself permanent with us whether she makes the long trip to the garden again, or only lives on in winter recollections.
     Late in the autumn, a bit too late for the best of the autumn show, another sedan comes up the road and we go out to greet our visitors. This is another visit by arrangement. Our rose visitor is an expert rose-man, accompanied by his wife and a dear friend of theirs and ours, through whom this visit has come about. This is a great day for, so far, this is the first and only visit to our garden of a trained, professional rose horticulturist who in his day's work breeds new roses. No cock-sure attitudes this day! We are timid; half afraid to say anything about our old roses, for fear he would consider them of no significance and would prove indifferent to our hobby. Naturally, we feel that a man who can grow such roses as he can, and can breed such new roses as he has bred, all of which we had already seen in their magnificence on our visit to the wonderful
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garden under his care, is so far beyond us that the graceful thing to do would be to turn him loose and let him go alone, thereby doing nothing to frustrate his pleasure, if he could find any pleasure in our garden. That does not work. He refuses to go alone; we must go with him. We must tell him things. We go with him. We never leave him, we keep him overtime. What a fine tour among roses it proves to be! The feeling of a bending back, the fragrance of roses, is present today as we smell and touch this and snip a bloom of that.
     In the language of his own art, he speaks about color, its depth, translucence, value; about form of the flower, its arrangement of petals, its balance and weight; about foliage, its quality and manner of growing, its color, shape, and character; about growth of the plant, its attainment and healthy progress; about rose-hips and the tendency of certain sorts to set seed. He knows his Bourbons, Teas, Chinas, and their hybrids by leaf and bush as well as bloom. He is the only visitor, so far, who runs a leaflet through his fingers to get its texture by a sense of touch. Truly, he knows how to gather his rose-facts. Very important to this visitor is health in roses, and the healthy character of roses of southern Maryland, free of smoke and gases, deep in clay and sandy loam, strikes him and brings forth his approval. Soil and free, pure air are subjects for thinking about, as are sunshine and protection from wind and moisture from near-by water.
     Being very knowing himself, he asks many questions, according to a tendency which may be observed, that the more one knows about anything, the more one asks questions. This lively rose-talk is a banquet for us. Our visitor evolves his preferences slowly. They are based upon trained evaluations. In particular he admires the Tea-Noisettes. To us this seems an exhibition of exquisite taste, as we think the Tea-Noisettes are the finest among all roses of their time-and are not alone in so thinking.
     We offer him anything he wants. He wants very little. As we remember now, Safrano and Duchesse de Brabant, both Tea roses; Faded Pink Monthly an early bush Noisette, the yellow Tea-Noisette which we think to be Jaune Desprez, and the carmine,and purple Damask Perpetual, Rose du Roi à Fleurs Pourpres, were all he wanted.


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