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The Garden, You, and I by Mabel Osgood Wright
page 98 of 311 (31%)
protecting a particularly fine quantity of buds, needed for some special
occasion, with a tentlike umbrella, such as one sees fastened to the
seat in pedlers' wagons. A pair of these same umbrellas are almost a
horticultural necessity for the gardener's comfort as well, when she
sits on her rubber mat to transplant and weed.

Given your location, consideration of soil comes next, for this can be
controlled in a way in which the sun may not be, though if the ground
chosen is in the bottom of a hollow or in a place where surface water is
likely to settle in winter, you had better shift the location without
more ado. It was a remark pertinent to all such places that Dean Hole
made to the titled lady who showed him an elaborately planned rose
garden, in a hollow, and waited for his praise. She heard only the
remark that it was an admirable spot for _ferns_!

If your soil is clayey, and holds water for this reason, it can be
drained by porous tiles, sunk at intervals in the same way as meadow or
hay land would be drained, that is if the size of your garden and the
lay of the land warrants it. If, however, the roses are to be in
separate beds or long borders, the earth can be dug out to the depth of
two and a half or three feet, the good fertile portion being put on one
side and the clay or yellow loam, if any there be, removed. Then fill
the hole with cobblestones, rubbish of old plaster, etc., for a foot in
depth (never tin cans); mix the good earth thoroughly with one-third its
bulk of well-rotted cow dung, a generous sprinkling of unslaked lime and
sulphur, and replace, leaving it to settle for a few days and watering
it thoroughly, if it does not rain, before planting.

One of the advantages of planting roses by themselves is that the
stirring of the soil and giving of special fertilizers when needful may
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