11 OCTOBER 1940, Page 11

Late Roses

It is one of the tasks of a gardener to sprinkle his garden with late-flowering plants or shrubs ; and perhaps the date of flowering is particularly important in the class of roses. Its fondness for the edge of winter is not the smallest virtue of that queen of climbers, Mermaid ; and a like quality belongs to Moonlight, a small-flowered but rampant rose, how at its best. Among bedding roses; Dame Edith Helen is now in perfection my' garden. It is sometimes regarded as cabbagy and does boast more petals to the blossom than perhaps any other rose, but it keeps its form and it is as sweet as Etoile de Hollande Itself. Perhaps its perfection this October is an accident.