While many of the beautiful roses enumerated in the last chapter are indispensable in our gardens for covering pillars, arches, screens, walls, fences and pergolas, an end comes all too soon to their flowering season. And when it comes we feel the need of other climbers to carry on the succession of blossom until the frosts cut all off. A pergola, for instance, planted with nothing but summer flowering roses, is but a sorry sight in August and September. While if we have been wise, and have made a judicious mixture of these and perpetual roses, it remains a delight till November.

For vigorous climbers of this second section none excel

This invaluable race was originated by M. Philippe Noisette in America, by fertilizing the Musk rose, R. Moschata, with the Common Blush China, R. Indica (not the Blush Tea rose, R. Indica Odorata). In 1817 he sent the "Blush Noisette" to his brother M. Louis Noisette, a well-known nurseryman in Paris. And its advent was hailed with enthusiasm by all rose-lovers in France; for it was recognized as a new break in climbing roses. In this, and in many of the seedlings which were raised from it, the influence of its Musk rose parent was very strong, the flowers being borne in large clusters, and fragrant with its delicious musky scent. But as time went on, crossings with Tea roses somewhat changed one of the early characteristics of the Noisette, and it approached more closely to the Tea rose—bearing flowers singly—instead of in the large clusters characteristic of the Musk rose.

AimÉe Vibert (Vibert, 1828) is one of those early Noisettes which holds its own everywhere. But how seldom do we see that most vigorous and most fragrant of all, Jaune Desprez (Desprez, 1828). Grown against a west wall here, it covered a space some 20 × 20 feet in three years, throwing laterals, five feet and more long every summer; and from the ends of these in late autumn the great heads of bloom hang down, filling the whole air with fragrance; in one cluster alone I have counted seventy-two blossoms, soft sulphur, salmon, and red. This variety, and the beautiful white Lamarque (MarÉchal, 1830), both need the shelter of a wall in a warm, dry position.

That singularly beautiful rose Fortune's Yellow or Beauty of Glazenwood (Fortune, 1845), which is classed among the Noisettes, though it has nothing but its beauty in common with them—for it is not perpetual, and its foliage is quite different from theirs—also requires a very dry, warm situation, when, if it is never pruned, it will flower abundantly. I have a plant on a very dry border at the S.W. corner of my house, which has scrambled up to the eaves and is now making efforts to reach the chimneys. The reason that this rose so often fails to bear blossoms is, that being an untidy grower it is pruned. And any one who has once tried to do so should be glad to know that pruning is as fatal to the rose as to the unhappy pruner, for it is armed with the most cruel prickles, like small fish-hooks, of any member of the rose tribe. The flowers, like those of the Banksia roses, being borne on the small twigs growing from the laterals of the second year, any pruning which destroys these destroys all chance of blossom. And this rule holds good with most of the Noisettes.

Ophirie (Goubault, 1841), with its rather small nankeen and copper-red flowers and glossy leaves, is also glad of a little shelter. While the delightful CÉline Forestier (Trouillard, 1842) will flourish in almost any situation, though it prefers a wall.

Later on, the influence of crossings between the Noisette and the pure Tea instead of the China rose, is very evident in such superb roses as MarÉchal Niel, L'IdÉal, Wassily Chludoff—an admirable rose, by the way—the invaluable RÊve d'Or, which seldom bears a cluster of more than three flowers, and others. But though that universal favourite, William Allen Richardson, is, alas! scentless, its habit has more in common with the Noisettes. RÊve d'Or is one of the most useful and hardy of the race, a rampant grower, with buff yellow blossoms borne in immense numbers both in summer and autumn, while its rich red shoots and reddish-green foliage make it a beautiful object before and after it blooms. It strongly resents any pruning beyond shortening its vigorous summer shoots.

Among the Hybrid Noisettes—i.e. those crossed with the Hybrid perpetual—Boule de Neige, a dwarf, and Madame Alfred CarriÈre, a rampant climber, are the best. The latter is certainly one of the best white climbing roses we have, its white blossoms, which some liken to the porcelain roses manufactured abroad, are borne singly on the stalks, and last long in water, while it is never out of flower from June to November.

The original Musk rose bearing large bunches of single white flowers, is now seldom seen except in very old gardens where it attains a great size. Mr. Rivers, in the Amateur's Rose Guide, 1843, says that "Olivier who travelled in the first six years of the French Republic, mentions a rose tree at Ispahan, called the 'Chinese Rose Tree,' fifteen feet high, formed by the union of several stems, each four or five inches in diameter. Seeds from this tree were sent to Paris, and produced the common Musk Rose." But wherever it can be found it should be cherished for the sake of its scent, which is strongest in the evening, especially after rain, filling the whole air with its fragrance.

Himalayica is a fine single white form of Moschata; and so is Nivea, a large single variety from Nepaul, white, tinged with pink. Of the double and semi-double hybrids, the Fringed Musk, a very old favourite still in cultivation, Rivers' Musk, pink, shaded buff, and the charming Princesse de Nassau, straw colour and very sweet, are all good roses, coming into flower very late in the season, and lasting on through the autumn. For pillars they are excellent subjects.

Madame d'Arblay and The Garland are hybrids of the Musk rose, which only bloom in summer.

With the Noisettes, Musk, and Macartney roses, we have only touched the fringe of autumn flowering climbers. And three most important classes remain to be noticed. These are—

Among the Hybrid Perpetuals there are several line climbing roses, as well as climbing sports of well-known dwarfs, which are valuable to this class. While roses of specially vigorous growth, but not usually counted as climbers, such as Magna Charta, Margaret Dickson, Pierre Notting, and others, make admirable pillars.

But it is among the Tea and Hybrid Tea roses that we find our richest harvest of autumn flowering climbers. Some of these are pure climbers, such as the noble Gloire de Dijon and its descendants; and Cheshunt Hybrid, Reine Marie Henriette, Reine Olga de Wurtemberg, Belle Lyonnaise, etc. Many of these and others do grandly as tall standards, making fine heads covered with bloom. And many more can be grown as isolated bush roses, planted out singly with plenty of space round them. Gruss an Teplitz, Gustave RÉgis, Mme. Jules Gravereaux, the exquisite Lady Waterlow, and Cooling's Apple Blossom, are specially suited to this form of growth.

In the following lists of these three groups of roses, I have, for convenience sake, placed Teas and Hybrid Teas together.

Note.—Where no colours are indicated, the climbing sports are exactly like the dwarf roses of the same name.