Preface of "Roses for English Gardens"

The preface to "Roses for English Gardens" in which Miss Jekyll thanks the great English gardener Ellen Willmott (1854-1934), the garden innovator William Robinson (1838-1935) and others.

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PREFACE

One of the surest signs of the great and ever-growing interest in gardening is to be seen in the remarkable improvement in the kinds of flowers that are now to be had. New plants are being constantly introduced; good old plants, of late forgotten, are again brought forward, and a lively and wholesome competitive industry has increased among growers in the improvement of garden flowers. In no class of plant is this more apparent than among the Roses. The increasing desire to deck our gardens pictorially has been met by a truly surprising and successful series of efforts on the part of raisers, so that now, in addition to the older classes of Roses that have been available for the last forty years, namely, the Hybrid Perpetuals and Teas, there are already, in great variety, quantities of beautiful new Roses of mixed parentage for every possible use and purpose.

The time having come when there is a distinct need for a book that shall not only show how Roses may best be grown, but how they may be most beautifully used, and that will also help the amateur to acquire some idea of their nature and relationships, the present volume, with its large amount of illustration, is offered in the hope that it will fit usefully into a space as yet unfilled in garden literature.

In order that the book may be a complete Rose manual, I have had the pleasure of working in concert with Mr. Edward Mawley, who, in the second part, gives the result of his long experience as a practical rosarian.

I have to offer grateful acknowledgment to Miss Willmott for a considerable number of excellent photographs, and for valuable help in compiling the list of Rose species as garden plants ; to Mr.W. Robinson for permission to reproduce some Rose portraits from former coloured plates in The Garden; to Mr. Edward Woodall for the chapter on Riviera Garden Roses ; to Mr. E. T. Cook for frequent advice and assistance, and to the owners of The Garden and Country Life for a number of the illustrations.

Lists of Roses for special purposes are given at the end of some of the chapters where it appeared that they would be most of use. At the end of the book are also descriptive lists, and an alphabetical list of the best Roses in all classes. A note of the abbreviations used against the Rose names appears at p. 149. It will be understood that the lists of the Roses given are not complete lists of all the Roses known, but careful and well-proved selections of the best.

G.J.