UNIVERSITY OF
DAVIS

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

THE

WELL-CONSIDERED
GARDEN

BY

MRS. FRANCIS KING

ILLUSTRATED

WITH PREFACE BY

GERTRUDE JEKYLL

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK :: :: :: MCMXVH

0 ART

ALIFORNIA
DAVIS

COPTBIGHT, 1915, BT

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published May, 1915
Reprinted October, 1915
May, 1916; April, 1917

TO

THE DEAR MEMORY

OP
A RARE GARDENER

A. R. K

NOTE

To the publishers and editors of The Garden
Magazine my thanks are due for kind permission
to reprint here those portions of this book which
originally appeared in the columns of that peri-
odical. To the Massachusetts Horticultural Soci-
ety and to The Garden Club of America I am
indebted for the use of passages written for those
organizations. And to the several amateur gar-
deners, known and unknown to me, whose writing
or whose photographs grace these pages, I offer
here most hearty appreciation of their friendly

aid.

LOUISA YEOMANS KING.

ORCHARD HOUSE,

MICHIGAN.

PREFACE

THE wide-spread interest in gardening that is
steadily growing throughout the land will have
prepared a large public for the reception of such
stimulating encouragement as will be found in
the following pages. One thinks of a great and
fertile field ready ploughed and sown, and only
waiting for genial warmth and moisture to make
it burst forth into life and eventual abundance.
The book will come as these vivifying influences.
The author's practical knowledge, keen insight,
and splendid enthusiasm, her years of labor on
her own land and her constant example and en-
couragement of others — combine to make her one
of those most fitted to direct energy, to suggest
and instruct — to communicate her own thought
and practise to willing learners.

Many are those who love their gardens, many
who know their plants, many who understand their
best ways of culture. All these qualities or accom-
plishments are necessary, but besides and above
them all is the will or determination to do the best
possible — "to garden finely" — as Bacon puts it.

ix

PREFACE

Such a desire is often felt, but from lack of ex-
perience it cannot be brought into effect. What
is needed for the doing of the best gardening is
something of an artist's training, or at any rate
the possession of such a degree of aptitude — the
God-given artist's gift — as with due training may
make an artist; for gardening, in its best expres-
sion, may well rank as one of the fine arts. But
without the many years of labor needed for
any hope of success in architecture, sculpture, or
painting, there are certain simple rules, whose
observance, carried out in horticulture, will make
all the difference between a garden that is utterly
commonplace and one that is full of beauty and
absorbing interest.

Of these one of the chief is a careful considera-
tion of color arrangement. Early in her garden-
ing career this fact impressed itself upon the
author's mind. A study of the book reveals the
method and gives a large quantity of applied
example. A few such lessons put in practise will
assuredly lead on to independent effort; for the
learner, diligently reading and carefully following
the good guidance, will soon find the way open to
a whole new field of beauty and delight.

GERTRUDE JEKYLL.

CONTENTS

CHAPTEB PAGB

I. COLOR HARMONY 1

II. COMPANION CROPS 25

III. SUCCESSION CROPS 39

IV. JOYS AND SORROWS OF A TRIAL GARDEN . . 51
V. BALANCE IN THE FLOWER GARDEN ... 63

VI. COLOR HARMONIES IN THE SPRING GARDEN . 75

VII. THE CROCUS AND OTHER EARLY BULBS . . 89

VIII. COLOR ARRANGEMENTS FOR DARWIN TULIPS

AND OTHER SPRING-FLOWERING BULBS . 101

IX. NOTES ON SPRING FLOWERS 115

X. A SMALL SPRING FLOWER BORDER .... 129

XI. NOTES ON SOME OF THE NEWER GLADIOLI . 143

XII. MIDSUMMER POMPS 157

XIII. GARDEN ACCESSORIES 179

XIV. GARDENING EXPEDIENTS 191

XV. THE QUESTION OF THE GARDENER .... 205

XVI. NECESSITIES AND LUXURIES IN GARDEN BOOKS 219

XVII. VARIOUS GARDENS 239

APPENDIX 269

INDEX . 283

ILLUSTRATIONS

Sea Lavender and Delphinium in a Nantucket Garden Frontispiece

FACING PAQB

Tulip Kaufmanniana with Scilla Sibirica 16

Tulips Reverend H. Ewbank and Clara Butt, below Blooming

Lilac 16

Sea-holly and Phlox Pantheon 22

Phlox Aurore Boreale, Sea-holly, and Chrysanthemum Maxi-
mum 22

Muscari Heavenly Blue, Tulipa Retroflexa, and Myosotis

along Brick Walk 28

Arabis and Tulip Cottage Maid 28

Double Gypsophila and Shasta Daisy 28

Gypsophila and Lilies in the Garden 32

The Time of Lilies and Delphiniums 36

Borders of Pale Blue, Blue-Purple, and Pale Yellow ... 42

Tulip Cottage Maid with Arabis Alpina 42

Munstead Primrqse and Tulip White Swan on Slope below

Poplar and Pine 46

Peonies and Canterbury Bells 48

Discreet Use of Rambler Rose, Lady Gay 48

xiii

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACIHQ PAGE

Heuchera Sanguinea Hybrids 56

Rambler Rose Lady Gay over Gate 56

Hybrid Columbines below Briar Rose Lady Penzance . . CO

Narcissus Barri Flora Wilson CO

The Time of Gypsophila C8

Hardy Asters in September 72

Puschkinia below Shrubs 80

Tulip Kaufmanniana in Border 80

Crocus Mont Blanc 86

Darwin Tulips at the Haarlem (Holland) Jubilee Show, 1910 86

Hyacinthus Lineatus, Var. Azureus 98

Tulip Kaufmanniana 98

Tulip Vitellina, Phlox Divaricata 104

Tulip Gesneriana Elegans Lutea Pallida above Phlox Divari-
cata Laphami 104

Pink Canterbury Bells, Stachys Lanata 110

Bellis Perennis and Narcissus Poeticus 110

Darwin Tulips with Iris Germanica 122

A Spring Flower Border in Pale Blue, Yellow, and Mauve . 132

Gladiolus America below Buddleia 150

Delphinium La France, Campanula Persicifolia, Digitalis Am-

bigua, and Pyrethrum 160

xiv

^ItLUSTRATIONS

PACING PAGE

Delphiniums the Alake and Statuaire Rude 164

Buddleia Variabilis Magnifica, White Zinnia below . . . 172

The Trowel, the Label, and Various Baskets 186

Baptisia Australia £26

Garden at London Flower Show of 1912 242

Detail of another Garden at London Flower Show, 1912 . 242

Terrace Planting, Garden on Nantucket 244

Phlox Time, Garden at Gates Mills, Ohio ...... 244

At Swampscott, Massachusetts 254

Fernbrook, Lenox, Massachusetts 254

Fancy Field, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania 258

Rustic Arbor and Pergola in Tacoma Garden — First Year . 262

Thornewood, American Lake, Tacoma , 264

Glendessary, Santa Barbara, California . .^3 . . . . 264

Planting Plans for Color End of Volume

Color Arrangement of Late Tulips

Suggestion for Spring Planting before Shrubbery

Parterre of Spring Flowers (City)

Section of Simple Planting against Brick Wall

I

COLOR HARMONY

"The simple magic of color for its own sake can never
be displaced, yet a garden in the highest sense means more
than this."— E. V. B.

COLOR HARMONY

THE broadest consideration of color in gar-
dening would turn our minds to the gen-
eral color effect of a garden in relation to its large
setting of country. Was it not Ruskin who, in
spite of his rages at the average mid- Victorian
garden, said that gardens as well as houses should
be of a general color to harmonize with the sur-
rounding country — certain tones for the simple
blue country of England, others for the colder
gray country of Italy ? Never was sounder color
advice given than that contained in the following
lines from one of the Oxford Lectures: "Bluish
purple is the only flower color which nature ever
used in masses of distant effect; this, however,
she does in the case of most heathers — with the
rhododendron (ferrugineum), and less extensively
with the colder color of the wood hyacinth; ac-
cordingly, the large rhododendron may be used
to almost any extent in masses; the pale varieties
of the rose more sparingly, and on the turf the

3

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

wild violet and the pansy should be sown by
chance, so that they may grow in undulations of
color, and should be relieved by a few prim-

roses."

There never was so rich a time as the present
for the great quantity of material available for use
in the study of garden color. The range of tones
in flowers to-day is almost measureless. Never be-
fore were seen pinks of such richness, such deep
velvetlike violets, delicate buffs and salmons,
actual blues, vivid orange tones, pale beautiful
lavenders. Through the magic of the hybridizers
we are to-day without excuse for ugliness in the
garden. The horticultural palette is furnished
forth indeed. Take perennial phloxes alone: for
rich violet-purple we have Lord Rayleigh; for
the redder purple, Von Hochberg; for the laven-
ders which should be used with these, E. Dan-
zanvilliers and Antonin Mercie; for whites, the
wondrous von Lassburg and the low but effec-
tive Tapis Blanc; while in the list of vivid or
delicate pinks not one of these is unworthy of a
place in the finest gardens: T. A. Strohlein,
Gruppen, Konigin, General von Heutz, Selma,
Bridesmaid, General Chanzy, Jules Cambon, and
Elizabeth Campbell (already an established favor-

4

COLOR HARMONY

ite in England and now offered in America) ; Ellen
Willmott, too, a pale-gray phlox, should be im-
mensely useful.

I have to confess to a faint prejudice against
stripes, flakes, or eyes in phloxes, principally be-
cause, as a rule, the best effects in color group-
ings are obtained by the use of flowers of clear,
solid tones — otherwise one cannot count upon the
result of one's planning. With the eye, an unex-
pected element enters into our composition.

Among irises what a possible range of color
pictures in lavenders, blues, bronzes, yellows,
springs up to the mind's eye with the very men-
tion of the flower's musical name! The immense
choice of species and varieties, the difference in
form and height, and more notably the unending
number of their lovely hues, make the iris family
a true treasure-house for the good flower gardener.
The first-comer of our spring iris festival is the
shy, stiff Iris reticulata of four inches; the last of
the lovely guests is the great white English iris
of four feet; and those showing themselves be-
tween the opening and closing days of iris time
are of many nations — German, Japanese, Siberian,
English, Dutch.

Tulips, so highly developed in our day, present

5

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

a wonderful field of color from which to choose;
so does the dahlia tribe. It is easy to see that the
glaring faults in color planting in our gardens are
not due to lack of good material.

The question of absolute color is a very nice
question indeed, and reminds one of the old prov-
erb of one man's meat being another man's poison.
We cannot say that a given color is ugly. Its
beauty or lack of beauty depends upon its rela-
tion to other colors. To announce that one dis-
likes mauve is not to prove mauve unbeautiful.
Most of us who have prejudices against a certain
color would be amazed at the effect upon our color
sense of the offensive hue when judiciously used
with correlated tones. For instance, what com-
moner than to hear this exclamation as one wan-
ders in an August garden where a clump of tall
phloxes have reverted to the magenta, despised
of most of us, and where the hostess's shears have
been spared, to the spoiling of the garden: "What
a horrible color has that phlox taken on!" But
take that same group of flowering stems another
year, back it by the pale spires of Physostegia
Virginica rosea, see that the phlox Lord Rayleigh
blooms beside it, that a good lavender like Antonin
Mercie is hard by, let some masses of rich purple

6

COLOR HARMONY

petunia have their will below, with perhaps the
flat panicles of large-flowered white verbena, a few
spikes of the gladiolus Baron Hulot, and some
trusses of a pinkish-lavender heliotrope judiciously
disposed, and lo ! the ugliness of the magenta phlox
has been transmuted into a positive beauty and
become an active agent toward the loveliness of
the whole picture.

What a lucky thing for us delvers into plant
and seed lists if the color tests of railways — on a
more elaborate and delicate scale, to be sure —
could be applied to the eyes of the writers of color
descriptions for these publications! The only
available guide to the absolute color of flowers of
which I happen to know is the "Repertoire de
Couleurs," published by the Chrysanthemum
Society of France. Of this there is soon to be
published a pocket edition; and the American
Gladiolus Society has a somewhat similar proj-
ect under consideration. Here we have in the
French publication a criterion, a standard; and
if this were oftener consulted the gardening world
of this country would be working on a much
higher plane than is the case to-day.

So much for the range of color in our flower
gardens, for the relative and absolute values of

7

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

flower colors; but what of the abuse of these
things? May I give an instance? Not long
since there came to my eye that which it is always
my delight to see, the landscape architect's plan
of a fine Italian garden. For the spring adorn-
ment of this garden such hyacinths and tulips
were specified as at once to cause, in my mind at
least, grave doubts concerning color harmonies,
periods of bloom. Were certain ones early, would
certain ones be late? — as, to secure a brilliantly gay
effect, two or three varieties should surely flower
together. For my own pleasure, I worked out
a substitute set of bulbs and sent it to an au-
thority on color in spring-growing things in this
country, who thus wrote of the original plan:
"In regard to the color combinations upon which
you asked my comment, I can only say that they
are a fair sample of how little most folks know
about bulbs. In the bed of hyacinths, King of
the Blues will prove quite too dark for the other
colors; Perle Brillante or Electra would have been
much better. In the two tulip combinations I
can see no harmony at all. Keizerkroon, in my
opinion, should never be planted with any other
tulips. Its gaudiness is too harsh unless it is seen
by itself. Furthermore, both Rose Luisante and

8

COLOR HARMONY

White Swan will bloom just enough later not to be
right when the others are in their prime."

Now, what is the good of our finest gardens if
they are to be thus misused and the owners' taste
misdirected in this fashion? We spend our money
for that which is not bread.

I have a new profession to propose, a profession
of specialists: it should be called that of the gar-
den colorist. The office shall be distinct from
that of the landscape architect, distinct indeed
from those whose office it already is to prescribe
the plants for the garden. The garden colorist
shall be qualified to plant beautifully, according
to color, the best-planned gardens of our best
designers. It shall be his duty, first, to possess a
true color instinct; second, to have had much
experience in the growing of flowers, notably in
the growing of varieties in form and color; third,
so to make his planting plans that there shall be
successive pictures of loveliness melting into each
other with successive months; and last, he must
pay, if possible, a weekly visit to his gardens, for
no eye but his discerning one will see in them
the evil and the good. This profession will doubt-
less have its first recruits from the ranks of women;
at least, according to Mr. W. C. Egan, the color

9

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

sense is far oftener the attribute of women than
of men. Still, there is the art of painting to refute
this argument.

Color as an aid to garden design is a matter
ever present to my mind where a plan of high
beauty has been adopted and already carried
out. One occasionally sees a fine garden which,
due to the execrable color arrangement, must of
necessity be more interesting in winter than in
summer. Sir William Eden's plea for the flower-
less garden comes to mind:

"I have come to the conclusion that it is flowers
that ruin a garden, at any rate many gardens:
flowers in a cottage garden, yes, hollyhocks
against a gray wall; orange lilies against a white
one; white lilies against a mass of green; aubrietia
and arabis and thrift to edge your walks. Del-
phiniums against a yew hedge, and lavender any-
where. But the delight in color, as people say,
in large gardens is the offensive thing: flowers
combined with shrubs and trees, the gardens of
the Riviera, for instance, Cannes, and the much-
praised, vulgar Monte Carlo — beds of begonias,
cinerarias at the foot of a palm, the terrible crim-
son rambler trailing around its trunk. I have
never seen a garden of taste in France. Go to

10

COLOR HARMONY

Italy, go to Tivoli, and then you will see what I
mean by the beauty of a garden without flowers:
yews, cypresses, statues, steps, fountains — sombre,
dignified, restful."

But when planting is right, when great groups
of, say, white hydrangea, when tall rows of holly-
hocks of harmonious color, when delicate gar-
lands of such a marvellous rambler as Tausend-
schon, low flat plantings of some fine verbena like
Beauty of Oxford or the purple Dolores — when
such fine materials are used to produce an effect
of balanced beauty, to heighten the loveliness of
proportion and of line already lying before one
in stone or brick, in turf or gravel, in well-devised
trellis or beautifully groomed hedge, what an emi-
nence of beauty may then be reached!

The form and color of flowers, in my opinion,
should be considered as seriously for the formal
garden as the soil about their roots.

Effects with tall flowers, lilies, delphiniums; with
dwarf flowers, hardy candytuft, for instance; with
lacelike flowers, the heucheras, the gypsophilas;
with round-trussed flowers, phloxes; with massive-
leaved flowers, the funkias or Crambe cordifolia ;
with slender flowers, gladiolus, salpiglossis; with
low spreading flowers, statice, annual phloxes;

11

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

with delicately branching flowers, the annual lark-
spurs— what an endless array in the matter of
form and habit ! The trouble with most of us is
that we try to get in all the flowers, and also we
often go so far as to insist on using all the colors
too — with a result usually terrific.

On the other hand, according to a capital Eng-
lish writer, "the present taste is a little too timid
about mixtures and contrasts of color. Few of
those who advise upon the color arrangements of
flowers seem to be aware that nearly all colors go
well together in a garden, if only they are thor-
oughly mixed up. It is the half-hearted con-
trasts where only two or three colors are em-
ployed, and those the wrong ones, that are really
ugly. The Orientals know more about color than
we do, and in their coloring they imitate the au-
dacity and profusion of nature."

Those who lead us in these matters will, I am
sure, gradually and gently conduct us to an aus-
terer taste, a wish for more simplicity of effect in
our gardens — the sure path, if the narrow one, to
beauty in gardening.

The stream of my horticultural thought runs
here a trifle narrower, and I see the charm of
gardens of one color alone — these, of course, with

12

COLOR HARMONY

the varying tones of such a color, and with the
liberal or sparing use of white flowers. It is, I
think, a daughter of Du Maurier whose English
garden is one lovely riot, the summer through, of
mauve, purple, cool pink, and white. I can fancy
nothing more lovely if it receive the artist's touch.
A garden of rich purples, brilliant blues and their
paler shades, with cream and white, could be a
masterpiece in the right hand.

Such was, a summer or two since, the garden at
Ashridge, Lord Brownlow's fine place in England,
the following brief description of which was sent
me by the hand that planted it: "Purple and
blue beds at Ashridge (very difficult to get enough
blue when tall blue delphiniums are over). Blue
delphinium, blue salvia (August and September),
purple clematis, single petunia, violas, purple
sweet peas, salpiglossis, stocks, blue nemesia, blue
branching annual delphinium, purple perennial
phloxes, purple gladiolus."

The past mistress of the charming art of color
combination in gardening is, without doubt, Miss
Jekyll, the well-known English writer; and to
the practised amateur, I commend her "Colour
in the Flower Garden" as the last word in truly
artistic planting, and full of valuable suggestion

13

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

for one who has worked with flowers long enough
to have mastered the complications of his soil
and climate.

Miss Jekyll's remarks on the varying concep-
tions of color I must here repeat, in order to make
the descriptions below as well understood as pos-
sible. "I notice," she writes, on page 227 of
"Wood and Garden," "in plant lists, the most
reckless and indiscriminate use of the words purple,
violet, mauve, lilac, and lavender; and, as they
are all related, I think they should be used with
greater caution. I should say that mauve and
lilac cover the same ground. The word mauve
came into use within my recollection. It is French
for mallow, and the flower of the wild plant may
stand as the type of what the word means. Lav-
ender stands for a colder or bluer range of pale
purples, with an inclination to gray; it is a useful
word, because the whole color of the flower spike
varies so little. Violet stands for the dark gar-
den violet, and I always think of the grand color
of Iris reticulata as an example of a rich violet-
purple. But purple equally stands for this, and
for many shades redder."

In an earlier paragraph the same writer refers
to the common color nomenclature of the average

14

COLOR HARMONY

seed or bulb list as "slip-slop," and indeed the
name is none too hard for the descriptive mis-
takes in most of our own catalogues. Mrs. Sedg-
wick in "The Garden Month by Month" provides
a valuable color chart; so far as I know, she is
the pioneer in this direction in this country. Why
should not books for beginners in gardening af-
ford suggestions for color harmony in planting, a
juxtaposition of plants slightly out of the ordi-
nary routine, orange near blue, sulphur-yellow near
blue, and so on ? A well-known book for the ama-
teur is Miss Shelton's "The Seasons in a Flower
Garden." This little volume shows charming
taste in advice concerning flower groupings for
color. I look forward to the day when a serious
color standard for flowers shall be established by
the appearance in America of such a publication
as the "Repertoire de Couleurs" sent out by the
Societe Frangaise des Chrysanthemistes. To this
the makers of catalogues might turn as infallible;
and on this those who plant for artistic combina-
tion of color might rely.

In the groupings for color effect given below
there has been no absolute copying of any one's
suggestions. To work out these plantings my
plan has always been, first to make notes on the

15

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

same day of each week of flowers in full bloom.
Then, by cutting certain blooms and holding them
against others, a happy contrast or harmony of
color is readily seen, and noted for trial in the
following year.

BLUE AND CREAM- WHITE — MARCH

The earliest blooming color combination of
which I can speak from experience is illustrated on
the facing page. Here, backed by Mahonia, and
blooming in one season as early as late March,
thrives a most lovely group of blue and cream-
white spring flowers. Tulipa Kaufmanniana, open-
ing full always in the sun, spreads its deep creamy
petals, while below these tulips a few hundred
Scilla Sibirica show brilliantly blue. To the right
bloodroot is white with blossoms at the same mo-
ment, while behind this the creamy pointed buds
of Narcissus Orange Phoenix carry along the tone
of the cream-white tulip. Narcissus Orange Phoe-
nix is a great favorite of mine; leader of all the
double daffodils, I think it, with the exception of
Narcissus poeticus, var. plenus, the gardenia nar-
cissus, with its true gardenia scent and full ivory-
white blooms; with me, however, this narcissus
so seldom produces a flower that I have given

16

TULIP KAUFMANNIANA WITH SCILLA SIBIRICA

TULIPS REVEREND H. EWBANK AND CLARA BUTT, BELOW
BLOOMING LILAC

COLOR HARMONY

up growing it. Where this does well, the most
delicious color combinations should be possible.

As for Tulipa Kaufmanniana, earliest of all
tulips to bloom, it is such a treasure to the lover
of spring flowers that the sharp advance in its
price made within the last two or three years by
the Dutch growers is bad news indeed for the
gardener. A tulip of surprising beauty, this, with
distinction of form, creamy petals, with a soft
daffodil-yellow tone toward the centre, the out-
side of the petals nearly covered with a very nice
tone of rich reddish-pink. Its appearance when
closed is unusually good, and its color really ex-
cellent with the blue of the Scillas.

BLUE AND PURPLE — APRIL

A very daring experiment this was, but one
which proved so interesting in rich color that it
will be always repeated. It consisted of sheets
of Scilla Sibirica planted near and really running
into thick colonies of Crocus purpureus, var.
grandiflorus. The two strong tones of color are
almost those of certain modern stained glass. The
brilliancy of April grass provides a fine setting for
this bold planting in a shrubbery border. The
little bulbs should be set very close, and the

17

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

patches of color, in the main, should be well de-
fined. In fact, I prefer a large sheet of each color
to several smaller groups with a resultant spotty
effect. To my thinking, it is impossible to im-
agine a finer early spring effect in either a small
or a large place than these two bulbs in these two
varieties to the exclusion of all else.

The dwarf Iris reticulata — which should be
better known, as no early bulb is hardier, richer
in color and in scent — with its deep violet-purple
flowers, planted closely in large masses, with
spreading groups of Scilla near by, would produce
an effect of blue and purple nearly like that above
described.

PINK, LAVENDER, AND CREAM- WHITE — MAY

A fine effect for late May, that has rejoiced
my eye for some years, is shown facing page 16.
The flowers form the front of a shrubbery border
composed entirely of Lemoine's lilacs in such va-
rieties as Marie le Graye (white), Charles X
(deep purplish-red), Madame Abel Chatenay
(double, white), President Grevy (double, blue),
Emile Lemoine (double, pinkish), and Azurea
(light blue). While these are at their best, droop-
ing sprays of bleeding-heart (dicentra) show their

J8

COLOR HARMONY

rather bluish pink in groups below, with irregular
clumps of a pearly lavender — a very light-gray-
ish lavender — lent by Iris Germanica. A little
back of the irises, their tall stems being considered,
stand groups now of the fine Darwin tulip Clara
Butt, now of tulip Reverend H. Ewbank. The
slightly bluish cast of Clara Butt's pink binds
the dicentra and the lavender, lilac, and iris to
each other, and the whole effect is deepened and
almost focussed by the strong lavender of Rever-
end H. Ewbank tulip, in whose petals it is quite
easy to see a pinkish tone. The contrast in form
and habit of growth in such a border is worth
noticing. The lilacs topping everything with
their candlelike trusses of flowers; the dicentra,
the next tallest, horizontal lines against the lilacs'
perpendicular, as well as a foliage of extreme deli-
cacy, contrasting with the bold dark-green of the
lilac leaf; the tulips again, their conventional cups
of rich color clear-cut against the taller growth;
and grayish clouds of iris bloom, with their spears
of leaves below, these last broken here and there
by touches of a loose-flung, rather tall forget-me-
not, Myosotis dissitiflora — all this creates an en-
semble truly satisfying from many points of view.
Speaking of tulips, why is not the May-flower-

19

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

ing tulip Brimstone more grown? And what is
there more lovely to behold than masses of this
pale-lemon-colored double tulip, slightly tinged
with pink, with soft mounds and sprays of the
earliest forget-me-not gently lifting its sprays of
turquoise-blue against the delicately tinted but
vigorous heads of this wonderful tulip?

CARMINE, LAVENDER, CREAM-WHITE, AND ORANGE
LATE MAY

On a slope toward the north a few open spaces
of poor soil between small white pines are covered
by the trailing stems of Rosa Wichuraiana. Up
through these thorny stems, along which tiny
points of green only are showing, rise in mid-May
glowing blooms of the May-flowering tulip Cou-
leur Cardinal, with its deep-carmine petals on the
outside of which is the most glorious plumlike
bloom that can exist in a flower. The exquisite
true lavender of the single hyacinth Holbein, a
"drift" of which starts in the midst of the car-
mine-purple tulip and broadens as it seems to
move down the slope, becomes itself merged in a
large planting of Narcissus Orange Phoenix. This
narcissus with its soft, creamy petals (both peri-
anth and trumpet interspersed with a soft orange)

20

COLOR HARMONY

does not, as the heading of this paragraph might
suggest, fight with the color of the tulip, which is
far above it on the slope and whose purple exterior
is beautifully echoed in softer tones of lavender
by the hyacinth.

CREAM- WHITE AND REDDISH ORANGE — JULY

In early July a wealth of bloom is in every
garden, and the decision in favor of any special
combination of color is a matter of some difficulty.
A very good planting in a border, however, is so
readily obtained, and proves so effective, that it
shall be noticed here. Some dozen or fifteen
large bushes of the common elder stand in an ir-
regular, rather oblong group; below the cream-
white cluster of its charming bloom are seventy-
five to a hundred glowing cups of Lilium elegans,
one of the most common flowers of our gardens,
and one of those rare lilies which render their
grower absolutely care-free ! Eighteen varieties
of this fine lily appear in one English bulb list;
many of these are rather lower in height than the
one I grow, which is L. elegans, var. fulgens.

Below these lilies again, that the stems may be
well hid, clear tones of orange and yellow blanket
flower (gaillardia) appear later in the month, car-

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

rying on the duration of color and in no way in-
terfering with the truly glorious effect produced
by the elder and lilies. While the lilies are tall,
the elder rises so well above them that a beauti-
ful proportion of height is obtained.

An improvement on this grouping would be the
planting of masses of L. elegans, var. Wallacei,
among the gaillardia below the taller lilies. The
nearer view of the great mass of July would then
be perfect.

BRIGHT ROSE, GRAY-BLUE, PALE LAVENDER, AND
WHITE — AUGUST

In the facing cuts an arrangement of color for
August bloom is set forth. The first photograph
can give no adequate idea of the charming com-
bination of phlox Pantheon, with its large panicles
of tall rose-pink flowers, against the cloudy masses
of sea-holly (Eryngium ameihystinum) . While Miss
Jekyll generally makes use of sea-holly in a
broader way, that is as a partial means of transi-
tion between different colors in a large border, I
think it beautiful enough in itself to use at nearer
range (and always with pink near by) in a small
formal garden. Pantheon is a good phlox against
it, but Fernando Cortez, that glowing brilliant

SEA HOLLY AND PHLOX PANTHEON

PHLOX AURORE BOREALE, SEA HOLLY, AND CHRYSANTHEMUM

MAXIMUM

COLOR HARMONY

pink, is better; it is the color of Coquelicot, but
lacking the extra touch of yellow which makes
the latter too scarlet a phlox for my garden. To
the left of the sea-holly is Achillea ptarmica, and
far beyond the tall pink phlox Aurore Boreale. In
the lower cut phlox E. DanzanVilliers raises its
lavender heads above another mass of sea-holly,
a few spikes of the white phlox Fraulein G. von
Lassberg appear to the left, and Chrysanthemum
maximum provides a brilliant contrast in form
and tone to its background of the beautiful eryn-
gium.

A use of verbena which does not appear in
these illustrations, but which is frequently made
with these groupings, is as follows: Below phlox
Pantheon, or the Shasta daisy (or Chrysanthemum
maximum), whichever chances to be toward the
front of the planting, clumps of that clear warm
pink verbena Beauty of Oxford complete a color
scheme in perfect fashion. The pink of the ver-
bena is precisely that of the Pantheon phlox, and
the plants are allowed to grow free of pins.

Like the geranium, the verbena is a garden
standby — and, unlike the geranium, it sows itself.
The first indulgence in verbenas by the quarter
or half hundred is apt to be a trifle costly; but

23

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

the initial cost is the only one, for if seed-pods
are not too carefully removed, large colonies of
little seedlings push through the ground the
second year, and always, if one clear hue has been
used, not only true to color but readily trans-
plantable.

II

COMPANION CROPS

"A Garden!— The word is in itself a picture, and what
pictures it reveals ! "— E. V. B.

II

COMPANION CROPS

IT will be as well to say at the outset that my
tastes are as far as possible removed from
those popularly understood to be Japanese. I
almost never regard a flower alone. I can ad-
mire a perfect Frau Karl Druschki rose, a fine
spray of Countess Spencer sweet pea, but never
without thinking of the added beauty sure to be
its part if a little sea-lavender were placed next
the sweet pea, or if more of the delicious roses
were together. Wherefore it will be seen that my
mind is bent wholly on grouping or massing, and
growing companion crops of flowers to that end.
Mention is made only of those flower crops ac-
tually in bloom at the same time in the garden
illustrated. From this garden, of thirty-two beds
separated by turf walks, and with two central
cross-walks and an oblong pool for watering pur-
poses, practically all yellow flowers have been elim-
inated, and all scarlet as well. The early colum-
bine (Aquilegia chrysaniha) and the pale-yellow

27

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

Thermopsis Caroliniana are the only yellows now
permitted, and these only to make blues or purples
finer by juxtaposition. All yellow, orange, and
scarlet flowers are relegated to the shrubbery bor-
ders; therefore, in speaking of companion crops
in this garden, it will be understood that some
of the greatest glories of July, August, and Sep-
tember are omitted.

As far as I know, no one has ever suggested the
growing of various varieties of gladiolus among
the lower ornamental grasses. This, if practicable
culturally, should give many delightful effects. A
yellow gladiolus, such as Eldorado, among the
yellow-green grasses; the deep violet, Baron Hulot,
or salmon-pinks, among the bluish-green. Stems
of gladiolus must ever be concealed. This would
do it gracefully and well.

The two companion crops of spring flowers
shown in cut are the early forget-me-not (Myo-
sotis dissitiflora), which presses close against the
dark-red brick of the low post, while the Heavenly
Blue grape hyacinth (Muscari botryoides, var.), a
rich purplish-blue, blooms next it. Tulipa retro-
flexa is seen in the foreground, and the buds of
Scilla campanulata, var. Excelsior, when the pho-
tograph was taken were about to open. After

28

MUSCARI HEAVENLY BLUE, TULIPA RETROFLEXA, AND MYO8OTIS
ALONG BRICK WALK

ARABIS AND TULIP
COTTAGE MAID

DOUBLE GYPSOPHILA AND SHASTA
DAISY

COMPANION CROPS

one day's sun the various bulbs and the forget-
me-nots made a most ravishing effect with their
clear tones of blue, lavender, and lemon-yellow.

I never tire of singing the praises of Tulipa
retroflexa; it is among my great favorites in tulips.
And this leads to the mention of that tulip, to me,
the best of all for color, known under three names
- Hobbema, Le Reve, and Sara Bernhardt. No
other tulip has the wonderful and unique color of
this. If you possess a room with walls in deli-
cate creamy tones, furnished with a little old ma-
hogany, and are happy enough to be able on some
fine May morning to place there two or three
bowls full of this tulip, you will understand my
enthusiasm. The color may be described as one
of those warm yet faded rose-pinks of old tapestry
or other antique stuff; a color to make an artist's
heart leap up. This is far from the subject, but
these digressions must occasionally be excused.

In small note-books — tiny calendars sent each
year by a seed-house to its customers, and in
which it is my habit to set down on each Sunday
the names of plants in flower — I find the follow-
ing were blooming on a day in May: Tulipa retro-
flexa, early forget-me-not, Muscari botryoides, var.
Heavenly Blue; Sdtta campanulata, var. Excel-

29

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

sior; tulip Rose a Merveille, Campernelle jonquil,
Narcissus Barri, var. Flora Wilson; Narcissus
Poetaz, var. Louisa; Tulipa Greigi, Iris pumila,
var. cyanea (a lovely variety, the blue of the sky),
Phlox divaricata, var. Canadensis (the new variety
of this, Laphami, is both larger and finer), so
beautiful back of masses of Alyssum saxatile, or
rock cress, both single and double, and Iberis
Gibraltarica.

On the Sunday one week earlier, there were in
full bloom last spring, tulips Chrysolora, Count of
Leicester (the best double in tawny yellows), Cou-
leur Cardinal, Thomas Moore, Leonardo da Vinci,
narcissus Queen of Spain and Flora Wilson, Louisa,
poet's narcissus, Iris pumila (the common purple),
and tulips Vermilion Brilliant, Queen of Holland,
Clusiana, Greigi, Brunhilde, Cerise Gris de Lin
(another of the faded pinks — in this case, however,
so extreme that many gardeners would reject it),
Gris de Lin, an enchanting if cold pink; Jaune
a-platie, violas and arabis, a bank of Munstead
primroses (certainly the apotheosis of the English
primrose, if so imposing a word may be used for
so shy a flower) . The arabis appears (facing page
28) with Campernelle jonquils in the near part,
the darling tulip Cottage Maid blooming brightly

30

COMPANION CROPS

among the arabis and making the loveliest imag-
inable spring bouquet. The single arabis I have
now forsworn in favor of the new double variety,
which is far more effective — like a tiny white
stock without the stock's stiffness of habit — and
quite as easy to grow and maintain.

In the blossomy photograph, facing page 48, are
found four or five companion crops of flowers,
though that was a peculiar season in which this
picture was made, when syringas bloomed with
Canterbury bells ! Here peonies and Canterbury
bells make up the bulk of bloom, some young
syringa bushes showing white back of them, and
sweetbrier covered with fragrant pink to the
right. Sweet-williams and pinks may be found
in the foreground with rich rose pyrethrum, the
sweet-williams of a dark rose-red, in perfect har-
mony with all the paler pinks near and beyond
them. I may say here that, like most amateurs,
I have a favorite color in flowers — the pink of
Drummond phlox, Chamois Rose, or, in deeper
tones, of sweet-william Button's Pink Beauty, or
the rosy-stock-flowered larkspur. When I say that
such and such a flower is of a good warm pink, it
is to the tones of one or the other of these that I
would refer.

31

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

On the date on which this picture of peonies
was made there were to be found in bloom in my
garden these: larkspur, Thermopsis Caroliniana
(which I grow near groups of tall pale-blue del-
phinium, and which makes a lovely color effect,
adding lemon-colored spikes to the blue), sweet-
williams, Canterbury bells, peonies, Aquilegia
chrysantha, Achillea ptarmica, hardy campanula,
pinks both annual and hardy, foxgloves, roses,
annual gypsophila, common daisies. The latter
are valuable for masses of early white. I cut
them to the ground as soon as bloom is over,
when their low leaf-clumps are quickly covered
by overhanging later flowers.

The midsummer flower crops are, by all odds,
the greatest in variety as they are in luxuriance.
Some idea of the appearance of this garden in
mid-July may be had in the top cut facing, when
the flowers fully open are almost all either blue
or white, except toward the centre of the garden,
where delicate pink tones prevail, and the fine
purple hardy phlox Lord Rayleigh blooms, giving
richness to the picture and forming a combina-
tion of colors, blue and rich purple, which is
especially to my taste.

The abundance of Gypsophila paniculata, var.

32

GYPSOPHILA AND LILIES IN THE GARDEN

COMPANION CROPS

elegans, will be noted throughout the garden, and
just here may be recalled that delightful and sug-
gestive article by Mr. Wilhelm Miller in "The
Garden Magazine" for September, 1909, advo-
cating the use of flowers with delicate foliage and
tiny blossoms as aids to lightness of garden ef-
fects, not to mention the new varieties of such
flowers mentioned in the article, Crambe orientalis,
Rodgersia, and various unfamiliar spireas.

There is a whiter gypsophila; there is a grayer
as well. The former is the variety flore plena, the
latter the ordinary paniculata. They are both
tremendous acquisitions to the garden, as their
cloudlike masses of bloom give a wonderfully
soft look to any body of flowers, besides making
charming settings for flowers of larger and more
distinct form, as in cut (page 28), where Shasta
daisy Alaska is grown against the double gypso-
phila. Lilium longiflorum is a companion crop of
gypsophila, and I am much given to planting this
low-growing lily below and among the gray soft-
ness of the other. In bloom when the garden was
a blaze of color in midsummer were these — or, pos-
sibly, it is fairer to say, "Among those present":
Delphinium, both the tall Belladonna and one of
a lovely blue, Cantab by name, best of all lark-

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

spurs; Delphinium Chinensis, var. grandiflora, in
palest blues and whites; quantities of achillea,
valuable but too aggressive as to roots to be alto-
gether welcome in a small garden; Heuchera san-
guinea, var. Rosamund; heliotrope of a deep pur-
ple in the four central beds of the garden nearest
the pool, in the centre of each heliotrope bed a
clump of the medium tall and early perennial
phlox Lord Rayleigh, warm purple (this was an
experiment of my own which is most satisfactory
in its result); baby rambler roses (Annchen
Mueller), and climbing roses (the garden gate at
the right is covered with Lady Gay). The arch
between upper and lower gardens has young
plants of Lady Gay also started against its sides.
To continue with companion crops: perennial
phlox E. Danzanvilliers, masses of palest lav-
ender; Physostegia Virginica, var. alba; the lovely
lavender-blue Stokesia cyanea, Scabiosa Japonica,
sea-lavender (Statice incana, var. Silver Cloud),
stocks in whites and deep purples, the annual
phloxes Chamois Rose and Lutea — the latter
so nice a tone of old-fashioned buff that it is
useful as a sort of horticultural hyphen — and
a charming double warm-pink poppy, nameless,
which raises its fluffy head above its blue-green

34

COMPANION CROPS

leaves from July till frost, and brings warmth and
beauty to the garden.

Time was when I preferred to see the chamo-
mile, or anthemis, spread its pale-yellow masses
below the blue delphinium spikes; but I now
prefer whites, or better still, rich purples or pale
lavenders, near, a closer harmony of color.

One of the most successful plantings for bold-
ness of effect is the one beyond the low hedge of the
privet ibota; a detail is seen in cut facing page 36.
This is of lemon and white hollyhocks, with thick,
irregular groups of Lilium candidum upspringing
before them. Sufficient room is left between the
hedge and the lilies to cultivate and to trim the
hedge, which is but two feet high. And when these
tall pale flowers open and both the rusty growth
of leaves at the base of the hollyhock stalks, and
the yellowing leaves of the lily stems, are hidden by
the trim dark hedge, the effect from the garden
itself is surprisingly good. Numberless combina-
tions of all these flowers, which bloom at the
same time, suggest themselves, an infinite variety.
Three plants which bloom in mid-July are the
necessary and beautiful pink verbena, Beauty of
Oxford, and the snapdragons in the fine new tones
called pink, carmine-pink, and coral-red; also that

35

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

exquisite flower, Clarkia elegans, in the variety
known as Button's double salmon, one of the most
graceful and remarkably pretty annuals which
have ever come beneath my eye. Love-in-the-mist
blooms now, and the best variety, Miss Jekyll, is
exceedingly pretty and valuable.

A list of companion crops for August most nat-
urally begins with perennial phloxes; in my case,
Pantheon, used very freely; Aurore Boreale, Fer-
nando Cortez (wonderful brilliant coppery pink),
a very little Coquelicot, used in conjunction with
sea-holly; white phloxes von Lassburg and Fiancee,
zinnia in light flesh tones, the good lavender-pink
physostegia (Virginica rosed), sea-holly, stocks,
and dianthus of the variety Salmon Queen.

There is hardly space left in which to mention
the flower crops which enrich September with
color. But no list of the flowers of that month
should begin with the name of anything less lovely
than the tall, exquisite, pale-blue Salvia patens.
Called a tender perennial, I have found it entirely
hardy; and the sudden blooming of a pale-blue
flower spike in early autumn is as welcome as it
is surprising. Second to this I place the hardy
aster, or Michaelmas daisy, now to be had in many
named varieties and forming, with the sal via just

36

COMPANION CROPS

named, a rare combination of light colors. My
hardy asters thus far have been practically two,
Pulcherrima and Coombe Fishacre, two weeks
later; this gives me four weeks of lavender bloom
in September and October. The accommodating
gladiolus, which, as every one knows, will bloom
whenever one plans to have it, is a treasure now.
America, which has so much lavender in its pink,
is exceeding fair in combination with either of
these hardy asters; and when spikes of the salvia
are added to a mass of these two flowers of which
I have just spoken, you have one of the loveliest
imaginable companion crops of flowers.

A prospective combination not yet tried but
which I am counting upon this season is blue lyme
grass (Elymus arenarius) with Chamois Rose
Phlox Drummondii below it, and back of it gladio-
lus William Falconer. The lyme grass has much
blue in its leaves, and so has the gladiolus; there
should be excellent harmonies of both foliage and
flower.

Very lately, long since the above was written,
a color combination most subtle and beautiful,
a September picture, has come to view: Salvia
farinacea, a soft blue-lavender, with clustering
spikes of palest pink stock near it, very close to

37

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

it, were the two subjects so perfectly suited to
each other. Let me commend this arrangement
as something rather out of the common, for I can
hardly think this salvia is often met with in our
gardens. And the use of a lovely but unfamiliar
flower will bring with it a certain additional
pleasure.

Ill

..>•.*<!

SUCCESSION CROPS

"Give me a tree, a well, a hive,
And I can save my soul alive."

—"Thanksgiving," KATHARINE TYNAN,

Ill

SUCCESSION CROPS

EASY enough it is to plan successive flower
crops for different parts of a place: but not
so easy, considering the limited amount of nour-
ishment in the soil and the habit of growth of
various flowering plants, to cover one spot for
weeks with flowers. An immense variety of treat-
ment is possible and much disagreement must be
beforehand conceded. Calculations for varying
latitudes must be made with more than usual
care; and the question of individual taste asserts
itself with great insistence.

A very rough and hard bank of nearly solid
clay with a south exposure has for some years
been planted to narcissus Emperor, Cynosure, and
one or two other rather later varieties. Striking
boldly along among these, while in full bloom,
grows an irregular line, thickening and thinning
in places, of tulip Vermilion Brilliant, absolutely
described by its name. As the flowers of these
scarlet and yellow bulbs commence to fade, the

41

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

ground below them begins to green with little
leaves of calendulas Orange King and Sulphur
Queen, as well as of the fine double white poppy
White Swan. These practically cover the dying
bulb leaves in a few weeks and produce a succes-
sion of charming bloom beginning rather early in
the summer. A few zinnias do well among them,
the medium tall varieties grown only from seed
labelled " Flesh-color. " For my purposes this zin-
nia color is always the best. It generally produces
flowers varying from flesh-pink to pale or faded
yellow, colors which in all their range look so well
with yellow or warm pink flowers that many
unique and lovely combinations are obtained by
their free use. Beware of the zinnia seed marked
"Rose," and of all mixtures of this seed. The
seed rarely comes true to color, and its bad colors
are so hideously wrong with most other flowers
that they are a very real menace to the beginner
in what we might call picture-gardening.

Iceland poppies, thickly planted among the nar-
cissi and tulips, would bring a crop of charming
silken blooms well held above the foliage already
on that bank, and coming between the earlier and
later flower crops.

The little walk of dark brick shown in the first

42

BORDERS OF PALE BLUE, BLUE -PURPLE, AND PALE YELLOW

TULIP COTTAGE MAID WITH ARABI8 ALPINA

SUCCESSION CROPS

illustration is bordered in very early spring by
blue grape hyacinths (Muscari botryoides), fol-
lowed closely by the fine forget-me-not Myosotis
dissitiflora in mounds and sprays. Among these
are quantities of the cream-white daffodil (Narcis-
sus cernuus). Alternating with the plants of early
forget-me-not are many more of Button's Perfec-
tion and Button's Royal Blue, which come into
bloom as the earliest fade; these grow very tall
and form a foreground of perfect loveliness for
the tall Tulipa retroflexa, which rises irregularly
back of the small sky-blue flowers below, complet-
ing a combination of cream color and light blue
charmingly delicate and effective. Following the
two blue and cream-white crops of flowers border-
ing this walk, dark-pink phloxes bloom in early
August, three successive periods of gayety being
thus assured to the little pathway.

A continuation of this walk, running toward
a wooden gateway in a trellised screen, may boast
also of three successive flower-appearances of dif-
ferent kinds. Back of the brick edging bordering
the gravel are planted alternating groups of myo-
sotis Button's Royal Blue, hardy dianthus Her
Majesty, and early and late hardy asters, the
two mentioned in another chapter, Coombe Fish-

43

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

acre and Pulcherrima. First to enliven the bor-
ders with color is the myosotis, a peculiarly pretty
effect occurring in the leading up, at either end of
the walk, of the irregular edge-groups of pale blue
to low masses of the old-fashioned Harison's Yellow
and Persian Yellow rose. Late forget-me-not is
never lovelier than when used in connection with
this rose. The combination reminds me of the
delicate colors of the flower-boxes below each win-
dow of Paquin's great establishment in the Rue
de la Paix, as it may be seen every May. Fol-
lowing the myosotis and yellow roses come masses
of the scented white pinks, while by this time the
hardy asters have developed into handsome dark-
green groups of leaves and give all through the
summer a rich green contrasting well with the
gray mounds of dianthus foliage, and finally, in
September, rising suddenly into sprays of tall, fine
lavender bloom.

No succession crop of spring and early summer
that I have happened upon seems to work bet-
ter than that of tulip Yellow Rose planted in
small spaces between common and named varie-
ties of Oriental Poppy. The tulip, in itself of
gorgeous beauty, very rich yellow and extremely
double, absolutely lacks backbone, and the first

44

SUCCESSION CROPS

heavy shower brings its widely opened flowers to
earth to be bespattered with mud. The leaves
of the poppy, upright and hairy, form a capital
support for the misbehaving stem of Yellow
Rose, and the poppies, having thus lent the tulips
aid in time of need, go a step farther and cover
their drying foliage with a handsome acanthus-
like screen of green surmounted by the noble
scarlet and salmon blooms of early June. This
is a very simple, practical, and safe experiment in
succession crops, and is heartily commended. Fol-
lowing these poppies comes the bloom of a few
plants of campanula Die Fee, and I am trying this
year the experiment of Campanula pyramidalis in
blues and whites thickly planted among the pop-
pies, for late summer bloom when the poppy
leaves shall have vanished. This is a large de-
mand to make upon the earth in a small space,
but, with encouragement by means of several top-
dressings of well-rotted manure, I hope to accom-
plish this crop succession satisfactorily. Among
the yellow columbines (Aquilegia chrysantha) I
generally tuck quantities of white or purple stocks,
those known as Button's Perfection. The aqui-
legia is cut close to the ground as soon as its seed-
pods take the place of flowers; and the stocks are

45

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

then beginning their long period of bloom. Can-
terbury bells are usually the centres of colonies of
annual asters (my great favorites are the single
Aster Sinensis, in chosen colors — not to be had in
every seed-list, by the way), and of groups of
gladiolus bulbs so arranged as to hide the vacancy
left when the Canterbury bells must be lifted from
the ground after blooming.

In four places in the garden where rather low-
growing things are desired, are alternate groups
of a handsome, dark, velvety-red sweet-william -
the seed of which was given me by Miss Jekyll,
who described this as the color of the sweet-wil-
liam of the old English cottage garden — and well-
grown plants of Stokesia cyanea. As soon as the
fine heads of sweet-william begin to crisp and dry,
the beautiful lavender-blue flowers of the Stokesia
take up the wondrous tale, and a veil of delicate
blue is drawn over the spots which a few days
since ran red with a riot of dark loveliness.

Among larkspurs I plant Salvia patens, which
to look tidy when blooming must be carefully
staked while the stems are pliable and tender.
Second crops of delphinium bloom seem to me a
mistake — I believe the vitality of the plant is
somewhat impaired and the color of the flowers is

46

*

«#£

MUNSTEAD PRIMROSE AND TULIP WHITE SWAN ON SLOPE
BELOW POPLAR AND PINE

SUCCESSION CROPS

seldom as clear and fine as in the first crop. Green
leaves in plenty should be left, of course: the
lower part of Salvia patens is not attractive and
its pale-blue flowers have added beauty rising from
the fresh delphinium foliage.

The plan of planting the everlasting pea (La-
ihyrus latifolius, var. The Pearl) among delphin-
iums, to follow their bloom by clouds of white
flowers, is recommended by an English authority.
To continue the blue of tall delphinium, the very
best succession crop is that of Delphinium Chi-
nense or grandiflorum, the lower branching one with
the cut leaf; a fine hardy perennial in exquisite
shades of pale and deep blue, whose flowers are
at their very best immediately after the spikes
of their blue sisters have gone into retirement.

The fine new Dropmore variety of Anchusa
Italica is exceedingly good placed near the vigor-
ous green spikes of the leaves of the white false
dragonhead (Physostegia Virginica, var. alba) : when
the latter is low, the great anchusa leaves nearly
cover it; and after the crop of brilliant blue
flowers is exhausted, and the robust plants are
cut back, the physostegia raises its tall white
spikes of bloom a few weeks later, brightening an
otherwise dull spot.

47
fc)

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

Platycodons, both blue and white, are capital
to dwell among and succeed Canterbury bells;
the platycodons to be followed again in their turn
by the later-blooming Campanula pyramidalis.

Will some kind garden-lover make me his debtor
by suggesting a good neighbor and successor to
the hardy phlox? This has been a problem in a
locality where frost is due in early September, and
some of the tenderer things, such as cosmos, are
really nothing but a risk. If one could raze one's
phloxes to the ground once they had finished their
best bloom, the case might be different. But the
French growers now advise (according to interest-
ing cultural instructions for phlox-growing issued
by one specialist) the retention of all flower stalks
during winter ! This makes necessary an im-
mense amount of work in the way of cutting, to-
ward early September, in order that the phloxes
may keep some decent appearance as shrublike
plants of green.

To follow the bloom of Iris Germanica (of which
I find two varieties planted together, Mrs. Hor-
ace Darwin and Gloire de Hillegom, to give a
charming succession crop of flowers with a change
of hue as well), I have already recommended the
planting of gladiolus. Lilium candidum growing

48

WE

€^

PEONIES AND CANTERBURY BELLS

DISCREET USE OF RAMBLER ROSE LADY GAY

SUCCESSION CROPS

back of iris leaves is also effective, and, by care-
fully considered planting, gladiolus forms a be-
tween-crop of no little value.

Of succession crops to follow each other in
places apart, it is hardly worth while to speak.
This is an easy matter to arrange; the fading of
color before one shrubbery group acting as a signal
to another place to brighten. Munstead primroses
(cut, page 46) are scarcely out of bloom when tulip
Cottage Maid and arabis are in beauty, as in cut on
page 42, in an unused spot under grapes, and these
are quickly followed by rambler roses (cut, page 48) ,
peonies, and Canterbury bells in the garden proper
(cut, page 48). Bordering on the turf edges of
a walk in a kitchen garden three succession crops
of flowers have been obtained by the use of these
three plantings. Roses stand a foot back from the
grass. Between them and the turf long, irregular
masses of Tulipa Gesneriana, var. rosea, bloom
rich rose-red in May. The roses follow in June;
and Beauty of Oxford verbena covers the dying
tulip leaves with clusters of wonderful pink bloom
which lasts well into the autumn.

I have sometimes thought that a white garden
would be a simple matter to arrange, and that,
under certain very green and fresh conditions and

49

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

with plenty of rich shadow to give its tones va-
riety, it should not be monotonous. The procession
of white flowers is so remarkable, beginning, say,
with the snowdrop, bloodroot, sweet white violet,
and the arabis in its single and double forms, followed
quickly by Iberis Gibraltarica and Phlox subulata,
white violas — all these for the low early flowers
— and followed by larger, taller, and more mas-
sive blooms, from peonies on to Canterbury bells,
thence to lilies, white hollyhocks, gypsophilas, Pearl
achillea, and white phloxes. Dozens of flower
names occur at the mere thought. It seems as
though every flower must have its white repre-
sentative. Whether an all-white garden would
be truly agreeable or no, I cannot say, but I do
hold that sufficient white is not used in our gar-
dens — that a certain brilliancy in sunlight is lost
by the absence of masses of white flowers, succes-
sion crops of which it is so easy to obtain and
maintain. With the free use of white flowers,
there is sure to be a fresh proclamation of beauty,
too, at twilight and under the moon — arguments
which must appeal to the amateur gardener of
poetic taste.

50

IV

JOYS AND SORROWS OF
TRIAL GARDEN

"Here is a daffodil,

Six-winged as seraphs are;
They took her from a Spanish hill,

Wild as a wind-blown star.
When she was born

The angels came
And showed her how her petals should be worn.

Now she is tame —
She hath a Latin name."

•— "A London Flower Show,"

EVELYN UNDERHILU

IV

JOYS AND SORROWS OF A
TRIAL GARDEN

three indispensable adjuncts of a good
flower garden, when considering its upkeep,
are, in the order of their importance : a tool-house
well stocked, a good supply of compost, and space
for a trial garden. In planting for color effect
the trial garden is a necessity. The space for it
may be small: no matter; plant in it one of a
kind. The gardener happy in the possession of
the visualizing sense may take the one plant and
in his or her imagination readily see its effect as
disposed in rows, groups, or large masses.

My own trial garden space is very small; and
my idea has been from the first to secure plants
for it in multiples of four, if possible according to
size. The formal flower garden happens to be
arranged alike in all four quarters of its plan, and
this habit of balanced planting makes the trying
out of eight or sixteen of a kind a really econom-

53

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

ical thing in the end. If the plants please, and
the colors form an agreeable combination with
others already in the garden, their removal in the
autumn from trial-garden rows to certain spots in
the garden proper is simple.

A portion of the trial garden is kept for seed,
and the balance for small collections of bulbs or
plants; except so much space as is reserved for
the fours, eights, and sixteens mentioned above.
Of Crambe cordifolia, for example, I should never
plant more than four, owing to its great size and
spreading habit of growth, while of a dwarf hardy
phlox eight should be the least. It occurs to me
often that some of us underestimate the enormous
value of this wonderful plant. Sure to bloom as
is the sun to rise and set, varying in its height as
few other flowers do, with a range of wonderful
color unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, by any
hardy flower, the gardener's consolation in a hot,
dry August, when it maketh the wilderness of the
midsummer formal garden to blossom as the rose
— there is a delightful combination of certainty
and beauty about it which cannot be overpraised.
Forbes, the great Scotch grower, in his last list
gives six pages of fine type to this flower. It is
like a clock in its day of bloom, another great

54

A TRIAL GARDEN

point in its favor. I have, for instance, three
varieties of white which follow each other as the
celebrated sheep over the wall, each brightening
as the other goes to seed. No lovelier thing could
be conceived than a garden of phloxes, a perfect
garden of hardy phloxes; in fact, an interesting
experiment if one had time and space for it would
be a garden made up entirely of varieties of phlox;
beginning with the lovely colors now obtainable
in the P. subulata group, next the fine lavenders
of P. divaricata, then an interim of good green
foliage till Miss Lingard of the P. decussata sec-
tion made its appearance, to be followed by the
full orchestra of the general group of violets and
purples (basses); mauves, lavenders, and pinks
(violas, 'cellos, and brasses); and the range of
whites (flutes and violins). At the close of this
concert of phlox-color the audience must leave
the garden. The pity is that August is its last
hour. The strains of glorious music, however,
follow one over the winter snows.

But this ramble has carried me far afield. To
return to the trial garden — heucheras in the fol-
lowing varieties were admitted to this place last
fall: brizoides, gracillima, Richardsoni, splendens,
Pluie de Feu, and Lucifer. They flourished su-

55

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

perbly, although their little roots had been sub-
jected to the test of a two weeks' journey by sea
and land from an English nursery to Michigan.
The flower spikes of these hybrid heucheras were
thirty-two inches high by actual measurement !
Another year, when well established, they should
send up even longer spikes. Their colors vary
from very rich coral-red to pale salmon, but in-
variably on the right side of pink — the yellow
rather than the blue. This encourages me to
think of them in connection with sweet-william
Button's Pink Beauty (Newport pink). Next
year I hope to see the heucheras' tall delicate
sprays emerging from the flat lower masses of the
others' bloom, since they flower simultaneously.
Long after the sweet-william has gone to its
grave upon the dust heap, however, the heu-
cheras continue to wave their lacelike pennants of
bright color. I hardly know of any plant which
has so long a period of bloom. The only heu-
cheras familiar to me before were the common
species H. sanguined and the much-vaunted va-
riety Rosamunde. While these are very beauti-
ful, they have not with me the height nor the
generally robust appearance necessary for full ef-
fect in mass planting. The leaves of H. Richard-

56

HEUCHERA SANGUINEA HYBRIDS

RAMBLER ROSE LADY GAY OVER GATE

A TRIAL GARDEN

soni (which are, as Miss Jekyll points out, at
their best in spring, with the bronze-red color)
make a capital ground cover below certain daffo-
dils and tulips, and contrast well with foliage of
other tones which may neighbor them in the late
summer. These heucheras are not common enough
in our gardens or in simple borders. Their bril-
liant appearance joined to the long flowering
period makes them garden plants of rare quality.
Let me suggest placing one of the brighter varie-
ties before a good group of white Canterbury
bells with the same pink sweet-william already
mentioned near by. By "near by" I mean really
close by, no interfering spaces of earth to injure
the effect. I am unalterably opposed to garden-
ing in the thin, sparse fashion which some gardeners
affect, and never let an inch of soil appear. Let
the earth be never so good nor so carefully weeded
and cultivated, it is only now and again that an
edge of turf should be seen, "in my foolish opin-
ion," as the Reverend Joseph Jacob's old gardener
is apt to remark to his master, the delightful
writer on flowers.

Sixteen peonies with grand French names graced
my trial garden this year, standing demurely
equidistant from each other in a stiff row. Their

57

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

bloom was feeble, small, and hardly worth noting
for this first season; next year they should be
subjects for observation. It was a disappoint-
ment that Baroness Schroeder refused to show a
single flower this spring. For lo, these many
years have I looked at prices and longed to pos-
sess this glorious peony; and, now that she is
within my gates, to find her refusing to speak to
me must be set down as one of the sorrows of this
trial garden.

But the daffodils! Early in the spring those
wonderful varieties suggested by Reverend Joseph
Jacob in the columns of "The Garden" as repre-
sentative of the various classes — those far ex-
ceeded and outshone all anticipation. Mr. Jacob's
list will be interesting to lovers of the narcissus
in this country. I subjoin it:

Yellow Trumpets: Emperor, Glory of Leiden,
Maximus, Golden Bell, P. R. Barr, Queen of
Spain (Johnstoni).

White Trumpets: Madame de Graaff.

Bicolor Trumpets: Apricot, Empress, J. B. M.
Camm, Victoria, Mrs. W. T. Ware.

Cups with Yellow Perianths: Albatross, Lucifer,
Citron, Duchess of Westminster, White Lady,
Ariadne, Lulworth, Dorothy Wemyss, M. M. de

58

A TRIAL GARDEN

Graaff, Minnie Hume, Artemis, Waterwitch, Crown
Prince, and Flora Wilson.

Pheasant Eyes: Ornatus, Homer, Horace, Cas-
sandra, Recurvus, Eyebright, and Comus.

Doubles: Argent, Orange Phoenix, Golden Phoenix.

Bunch-flowered: Elvira (Poetaz), Campernelle
jonquils (rugulosus variety).

Of each of these I planted two a year ago.
Fifty varieties set some four inches apart gave
three good rows of daffodils, and of these but
four or five were already familiar. The first to
really attract and enthrall me was Eyebright. It
draws as a star at night. Its rarely brilliant color
and distinct form make it one of the greatest
joys afforded by the trial garden. Next came
the wonderful Argent, a fine star-shaped flower,
half-double, pale yellow and cream-white. Then,
in order, Barri conspicuus was a very fine daffodil
— yellow perianth, with cup of brilliant orange-
scarlet. Then Mrs. Walter T. Ware, one of the
best of the lot in every way. Gloria Mundi is a
very beautiful flower, yellow perianth with a
bright cup of orange-scarlet. Sir Watkin, a huge
daffodil, and effective, is entirely yellow. Minnie
Hume, a pale flower full of charm. Artemis, a
beauty, small but of compact form. Eyebright

59

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

and Firebrand were the brightest and most glow-
ing of the fifty. Elvira, of the Poetaz group, is a
telling flower with its rich cream-white bunches
of bloom and pale cup of straw-color. This daf-
fodil, grown in masses in woodlands, should pro-
duce a very marvellous spring picture. I have
fancied, too, that its fine flowers above the low
Iris pumila, var. cyanea, might be a sight worth
seeing.

These fragmentary notes are all that can be
given here. It is hard to choose from so many
perfect flowers a few which seem more remark-
able than the rest. My practice was, as these
daffodils came toward flowering, to cut one from
each bulb while hardly out of the bud, label it
with a bit of paper high up on the stem, and
keep it before me in water for observation and
comparison. They were unmitigated "joys" —
as daffodils always are. What a marvel to have
a few garden things such as tulips, daffodils, and
phlox, subject to no insect pests, living through
the severe winters of our climate, and in such va-
riety as to amaze those who like myself are only
beginning to know what has been done by hy-
bridizers!

Among the joys of the summer in the trial

60

HYBRID COLUMBINES BELOW BRIAR ROSE LADY PENZANCE

NARCISSUS BARRI FLORA WILSON

A TRIAL GARDEN

spaces was Clematis recta. So satisfactory was it
here that I count on using it freely in the main
garden. It grew to a height of perhaps two feet,
with loose clusters of white bloom much like those
of the climbing C. paniculata, held well above a
pretty and shrublike plant whose delicately cut
foliage is of a remarkably fine tone of dark bluish-
green. The green holds its own well in hot, dry
weather, and gives it value as a low background
after its bloom has gone.

Perennial phloxes receive some attention in
this trial garden. Of these, one new to me, An-
tonin Mercie, shall have special mention, first be-
cause of its good color, a light lilac-lavender; next
because of its rather early bloom — August 5 or
thereabouts in 43° N. latitude; and last because
of its rather low and very branching habit. The
spread of its good green leaves and full flower
trusses makes it an unusually good phlox for the
formal garden, and its resemblance in color to
E. Danzanvilliers, the taller and more pearly
lavender phlox, fits it admirably for use before
the latter. If Lord Rayleigh were just a little
later, what a delicious combination of lavenders
and violet could be arranged ! Phlox R. P. Struth-
ers, a brilliant dark pink, redder than Pantheon,

61

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

not so red as Coquelicot, more perhaps on the
order of the fine Fernando Cortez than any phlox
with which I can compare it, is another immense
acquisition. This is also early, with a much larger
truss of bloom than Fernando Cortez. Standing
below groups of sea-holly (Eryngium ameihystinum)
great masses of this would prove most telling.

Of many other experiments and tryings-out
should I like to write here: of Mr. Walsh's fine
rambler roses, notably Excelsa, which is in a fair
way to equal the popularity of Lady Gay; of
some new larkspurs, a small collection of colum-
bines, and another of hardy asters. I will only
add a word concerning the one sorrow of a trial
garden which has no cure. It is the loss of what
the good old Englishman without whom I should
be helpless is pleased to call "lay bells." When
a "laybell" is gone, then is the garden world up-
side down ! All my bearings are lost; and I hate
the anonymous inhabitant, the creature without
identity, who has the effrontery to stand up and
bloom as though he were perfectly at home where
those who see him know him not!

BALANCE IN THE FLOWER
GARDEN

A sun-dial is calm time, old time, beautiful spacious time
in a garden; it is slow waltz time, — time that flows like a
shining twist of honey, sweet and slow. A sun-dial prods
nobody, a sun-dial can trance and forget; it lets the green
hdurs glide. And at the close of day, when Evening leans
upon the garden gate, your sun-dial ceases to suppose it
knows the hour.

—"The Villa for Coelebs," J. H. YOXALL.

BALANCE IN THE FLOWER
GARDEN

WHEN the chance to arrange the planting of
a formal garden of my own fell into my
hands, about eight years ago, I felt strongly the
need of advice in what I was about to do. Ad-
vice, however, was not forthcoming, and at the
outset I fell, of course, into the pit of absurdity.
Without any reason for so doing, I decided to
arrange the planting in this garden (a balanced de-
sign in four equal parts with eight beds in each
section) as though the whole were a scrap of per-
ennial border a few feet wide and a few feet long.
The ridiculous idea occurred to me to have the
garden a picture to be looked at from the house
alone. The matter of garden design was to fade
out of sight except with regard to the few beds
immediately surrounding the small central pool.
These were planted more or less formally, with
heliotrope in the four parallelograms nearest the

65

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

centre, and iris and lilies in four other spaces near
the rest. I endeavored to produce irregular cross-
wise banks of color from the far end of the garden
to the part nearest the house — scarlet, orange, and
yellow, with a fair sprinkling of hollyhocks in yel-
low and white on the more distant edge; before
these, crowds of white flowers, gray-leaved plants
and blue-flowering things; and, nearest of all to
the beholder, brighter and paler pinks.

The result was nothing but an ugly muddle —
indescribably so when one happened to be in the
midst of the garden itself. For two or three years
I bore with this unhappy condition of things; in-
deed, nothing but the fact that the flowers con-
ducted themselves in remarkably luxuriant and
brilliant fashion, due to the freshness and richness
of the soil, could have saved me from seeing sooner
the silly mistake I had made; when, chancing to
look down upon the garden from an upper win-
dow, the real state of things suddenly revealed
itself, and from that day I set about to plan and
plant in totally different fashion.

With Mr. Robinson, I feel against the wretched
carpet-bedding system, while I quite agree, on the
other hand, with the spokesman for the formalists,
Reginald Blomfield, who declared that there is no

66

BALANCE IN THE GARDEN

such thing as the "wild garden," that the name
is a contradiction of terms. The one thing I do
maintain is that advice, the very best advice, is
the prime necessity: for those who can afford it,
the fine landscape architect; for those who can-
not, the criticism or counsel of some friend or ac-
quaintance whose experience has been wider than
their own. The time is sure to come when experts
in the art of proper flower-grouping alone will be
in demand.

There is no doubt about it, our grandmothers
were right when they preferred to see a vase on
each side of the clock ! With a given length of
shelf and a central object on that shelf, one's in-
stinct for equalizing calls for a second candlestick
or bowl to balance the first. My meaning may
be illustrated by a recent picture in "The Cen-
tury Magazine" of Mrs. Tyson's beautiful garden
at Berwick, Maine. Charming as is this lovely
garden-vista, with its delightful posts in the fore-
ground, repeating the lines of slim poplar in the
middle distance, it would have given me much
more pleasure could those heavy-headed white or
pale-colored phloxes on the right have had a per-
fect repetition of their effective masses exactly
opposite — directly across the grass walk. These

67

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

phloxes cry aloud for balance, placed as they
seem to be in a distinctly formal setting.

So it is in the formal flower garden. I have
come to see quite plainly, through several years
of lost time, that balanced planting throughout
is the only planting for a garden that has any
design worth the name. It is difficult to con-
ceive of that formal garden in which the use of
formal or clipped trees would be inappropriate;
and these we must not fail to mention, not only
because of the fine foil in color and rich back-
ground of dark tone which they bring into the gar-
den, but because of their shadow masses as well and
their value as accents. And that word "accents"
brings me to the consideration of the first impor-
tant placing of flowers in a garden which like my
own is, unlike all Gaul, divided into four parts.

Two cross-walks intersect my garden, causing
four entrances. To flank each of these entrances,
it can be at once seen, balanced planting must
prevail. In the eight beds whose corners occur
at these entrances, this planting is used: large
masses of Thermopsis Caroliniana give an early
and brightly conspicuous bloom. Around these
the tall salmon-pink phlox, Aurore Boreale, much
later; below this — filling out the angle of the

68

BALANCE IN THE GARDEN

corner to the very point — the blue lyme grass
(Elymus arenarius), gladiolus William Falconer,
and lowest, of all, Phlox Drummondii, var. Chamois
Rose. None of these colors fight with each other
at any time, and the large group of tall-growing
things is well fronted by the intermediate heights
of the lyme grass and the gladiolus when in growth
or in bloom. The four far corners of my garden
I also consider more effective when planted with
tall-growing flowers; in these the Dropmore, An-
chusa Italica, first shines bluely forth; this soon
gives place to the white physostegia, with phlox
Fernando Cortez blooming below the slim white
spikes just mentioned; and last, to light up the
corners, comes the mauve Physostegia Virginica,
var. rosea, whose bloom here is far more profuse
and effective than that of its white sisters. This
grouping gives almost continuous bloom and very
telling color from mid- June to mid-September;
the periods of green, when they occur, are short,
and the vigorous-looking plants are not at all
objectionable before they blossom. The effect of
balanced planting in these corners I consider good.
The eye is carried expectantly from one angle to
another and expectation is fulfilled.
In the centre of this garden are four rectangular

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

beds, corresponding in proportion to the size of
the rectangular pool. These, as forming part of
the centre of the garden, are always planted ex-
actly alike. Purple of a rich bluish cast is one
of the colors which bind instead of separate, and
purple it is which here becomes an excellent focal
color for the garden. In the middle of each bed
is a sturdy group of the hardy phlox Lord Ray-
leigh, surrounded on all sides by heliotrope of the
darkest purple obtainable. This year, however,
I expect to replace the heliotrope with even bet-
ter effect by a tall blue ageratum, which I saw in
one or two Connecticut gardens, as the paler color
is more telling and quite as neutral for such a
position. Speaking of this ageratum, I may per-
haps digress for a moment to mention a charming
effect I saw on an out-of-door dining-table last
summer, obtained by the use of this flower. The
color of the table was a pale cool green and most
of its top was exposed; in the centre stood a
bowl of French or Italian pottery, bearing a care-
less gay decoration, and at the four corners smaller
bowls. These were filled, to quote the words of
the knowing lady whose happy arrangement this
was, "with zinnias which had yellows and copper-
reds, with the variety which resulted from an order

70

BALANCE IN THE GARDEN

of salmon-pinks and whites. We really had almost
everything but salmon-pink."

The zinnias, I who saw them can affirm, made
a most brilliant mass of color not altogether har-
monious; but all was set right by the introduc-
tion, sparingly managed, of the lovely ageratum,
Dwarf Imperial Blue. The eye of her who ar-
ranged these flowers saw that a balm was needed
in Gilead; the ageratum certainly brought the
zinnia colors into harmony as nothing else could
have done, and a charmingly gay and original
decoration was the result. What a suggestion
here, too, for the planting of a little garden of
annuals !

We are apt to think of balance in the formal
garden as obtained for the most part by the use
of accents in the shape of formal trees, or by
some architectural adjunct. I believe that color
masses and plant forms should correspond as ab-
solutely as the more severe features of such a
garden. For example, in practically the same
spot in all four quarters of my garden there are,
for perhaps four to six weeks, similar masses
of tall white hardy phloxes, the blooming period
beginning with von Lassburg and closing with
Jeanne d'Arc, the white repeated in the dwarf

71

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

phlox Tapis Blanc in four places nearer the centre
of the garden.

For accents in flowers, the mind flies naturally
to the use, first, of the taller and more formal
types of flowers. Delphiniums with their fine up-
rightness and glorious blues; hollyhocks where
space is abundant and rust doth not corrupt; the
magnificent mulleins, notably Verbascum Olympi-
cum, might surely emphasize points in design; and
I read but now of a new pink one of fine color,
which, though mentioned as a novelty in Miss
Ellen Willmott's famous garden at Warley, Eng-
land, will be sure to cross the water soon if in-
vited by our enterprising nurserymen. Lilies of
the cup-upholding kinds, standard roses, standard
wistarias, standard heliotropes are all to be had.
The use of the dwarf or pyramidal fruit-tree in
the formal garden is very beautiful to me, recall-
ing some of the earliest of the fine gardens of
England, and (where the little tree is kept well
trimmed) offering a rarely interesting medium for
obtaining balanced effects.

But the tall plants are not the only available
means for producing balanced effects. Lower
masses of foliage or flowers have their place.
They must be masses, however, unmistakable

72

HARDY ASTERS IN SEPTEMBER

BALANCE IN THE GARDEN

masses. Thus, in the illustration facing page 68,
each of the large flower masses of baby's breath
(Gypsophila elegans) — consisting of the bloom of
but a single well-developed plant — is repeated
in every instance in four corresponding positions
in this garden. There was too much gypsophila
in bloom at once when this picture was made,
but because some was double the effect was not as
monotonous as the photograph would make out.
In a fine garden in Saginaw, Michigan, designed
and planted by Mr. Charles A. Platt, balance is
preserved and emphasized in striking fashion by
the use of the plantain lily (Funkia Sieboldii, or
grandiflora) , with its shining yellow-green leaves.
Masses of this formal plant are here used as an
effective foreground for a single fine specimen
bush, not very tall, of Japan snowball (Viburnum
plicatum). The poker flower (Tritoma Pfitzeri) is
also used in this garden to carry the eye from
point to corresponding point; and speaking of
tritoma, which Mr. Platt in this garden associates
with iris, let me mention again that delightful
ageratum, as I lately saw it, used below tritoma.
The tritoma must have been one of the newer
varieties, of an unusual tone of intense salmony-
orange, and while the ageratum would seem too

73

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

insignificant in height to neighbor the tall spike
above it, the use of the lavender-blue in large
masses added enormously to the effect of the
torches.

In the second illustration, the rather thin-look-
ing elms seem to flank the garden entrance rather
fortunately. A certain pleasurable sensation is
felt in the balance afforded by the doubly bor-
dered walk with its blue and lavender Michael-
mas daisies or hardy asters. It is surely the repe-
tition of the twos which has something to do with
this: two borders, two posts, two trees, the eye
carried twice upward by higher and yet higher
objects.

74

VI

COLOR HARMONIES IN THE
SPRING GARDEN

"0 Spring, I know thee ! Seek for sweet surprise

In the young children's eyes.
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet
Leaf-folded violet.

In these young days you meditate your part;
I have it all by heart."

—"In Early Spring," ALICE MEYNBLU

VI

COLOR HARMONIES IN THE
SPRING GARDEN

IN these words, Spring Flowers, there is very
music. There is a delicious harmony in all of
Nature's colors, and particularly in the colors of
all native spring flowers, as they appear with
each other in their own environment. If any one
doubts what I say, let him look at such pictures
as are found in FlemwelPs "Flowers of the Alpine
Valleys"; let him take up Mrs. Allingham's
"Happy England"; or let him in May wander
in the nearest woodlot and see a lovely tapestry
of pale color woven of the pink of spring beauties,
the delicate lavenders of hepatica, and the faint
yellow of the dogtooth violet — thousands of tiny
blooms crowding each other for space, but all very
good.

Perhaps, next to the snowdrop, crocus is the
earliest of the cultivated bulbs to bloom in our
wintry region. The matter of color mixtures here
comes to the fore. I admit this to be a question

77

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

of personal taste; but it is one on which discus-
sion should be agreeable and fruitful. It happens
that I object to a mixture of colors in crocus, or,
for that matter, in anything. Not long ago a
well-known landscape gardener, a woman, re-
marked that a border of mixed Darwin tulips
was one of the most successful of her many plant-
ings. In such a hand, I am sure this was so. If
such planting were done exactly as it should be,
with sufficient boldness, a sure knowledge of what
was wanted, and great variety of colors and tones
of those colors, the result would surely show a
tapestry again thrown along the earth — a tapes-
try grander in conception and more glorious in
kind than the one woven of the tiny blossoms
mentioned above. But with the average gar-
dener a mixture, so called, is a thing of danger.
What more hopeless than a timid one ! "Be bold,
be bold, but not too bold" — Spenserian advice
holdsjhere.

To return to crocus. Awhile ago, in the bor-
ders of this small Michigan place of ours, there
was in one place a most lovely carpet of colonies
of pale-lavender crocus Maximilian, with grape
hyacinth (Muscari azureum) running in and out
in peninsulas, bays, and islands. Tall white crocus

78

COLOR HARMONIES

Heine Blanche, in large numbers, was near by, its
translucent petals shining in the sun beyond its
more delicately colored neighbors.

I believe I have before expatiated in these
pages on the great beauty of Crocus purpurea,
var. grandiflora, carpeting large spaces of bare
ground beneath shrubbery, principally used in
connection with great sheets of Scilla Sibirica,
which blooms so very little later than the crocus
as to make the two practically simultaneous.
These, in order to get a telling effect, should be
planted by the thousands, and this, I beg to as-
sure the reader, is a less serious financial observa-
tion than it sounds !

Hepatica that year bloomed with Iris reticu-
lata. As an experiment I arranged the following
spring some groups of this smart little iris, with
hepatica plants threading their way among the
grasslike leaves of the iris, and near by a few
hundreds of Muscari azureum. The cool, delicate
pinks of the hepatica were in most lovely accord
with the rich violet of the iris, yet affording a
striking contrast in form and a full octave apart
in depth and height of tone. Is there a valid
objection to thus using imported and native
plants side by side? I know Ruskin would have

79

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

hated it, but the great mid-Victorian man prob-
ably never had a chance to see the thing well
done. You recall what he wrote of English flower
gardens :

"A flower garden is an ugly thing, even when
best managed; it is an assembly of unfortunate
beings, pampered and bloated above their nat-
ural size; stewed and heated into diseased growth;
corrupted by evil communication into speckled
and inharmonious colors; torn from the soil which
they loved, and of which they were the spirit and
the glory, to glare away their term of tormented
life among the mixed and incongruous essences
of each other, in earth that they know not, and
in air that is poison to them."

I should like to bring Mr. Ruskin back to life
again, show him some color achievements in flower
gardening in England and America to-day, and
hear him say, "A new order reigneth."

But back to the crocus ! Where drifts of Crocus
purpureus, var. grandiflorus, were blooming under
leafless Japanese quince, blooming quite by them-
selves, a fine show of color of the same order was
had, really only a transition from one key to
another, by flinging along the ground, planting
where they fell, heavy bulbs of hyacinth Lord

80

PUSCHKINIA BELOW SHRUBS

TULIP KAUFMANNIANA IN BORDER

COLOR HARMONIES

Derby. The full trusses of this superb flower
made the most lovely companions for the just-
about-to-fade crocus. How can I adequately de-
scribe the color of Lord Derby ! Never, no never,
in the words of one of the Dutch growers, who
calmly says, "Porcelain blue, back heavenly blue."
May I venture to ask the reader what impression
these words convey to him? To me they are as
sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. They mean
nothing. From my own observation of the hya-
cinth, I should say that its blue, in the early stages
of development, has a certain iridescent quality
which makes it uncommonly interesting, almost
dazzling when seen beyond the green of the fresh
grass of May; and in full bloom it shines out
with a half-deep tone of purplish blue. Crocus
purpureus, var. grandiflorus, blooms with this hya-
cinth; the two tones of purple are distinct from
each other and extremely interesting together.

Is, or is not, Puschkinia little known? How
distinct it is from most of the smaller spring
things, and how lovely in itself with its tiny bluish-
white bells, pencilled with another deeper tone of
blue! And so rewarding, coming up valiantly
year after year, without encouragement of the
compost or replanting! A little colony of it is

81

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

here shown (page 80) very badly because rather
too tightly planted. Puschkinia could be asso-
ciated with Iris reticulata most beautifully; or its
slender bluish bells would be delightful growing
near Tulip Kaufmanniana. The bloom of all
these bulbous things may be quite confidently
expected at the same time.

Another illustration shows practically nothing
but crowds of the fine white crocus Reine Blanche,
grown as naturally as possible below Pyrus Ja-
ponica. Here they dwell calmly and seem to
sleep year after year, except for the time when
they show their shining faces to the sun of April.
The most dreaded enemy of the crocus, to my mind,
is a wet snow. The petals, once soaked and
weighted, never recover their beautiful texture,
and when, one fatal April, as my note-book shows,
our hectic climate brought in one hour upon these
charming but tender flowers rain, hail, and snow,
the wreckage may be left to the imagination of
the tender-hearted.

Nothing, to my thinking, can exceed for beauty
the picture made by the majestic Tulipa Vitellina,
with its beautifully held cups of palest lemon
color, when supported by the lavender trusses of
Phlox divaricata — and the stems of that, in turn,

COLOR HARMONIES

almost hidden by the fine Phlox subulata, var.
lilacina. Long reaches of these three flowers hap-
pily planted, or a tiny corner against shrubbery
-it matters not one whit which — "and then
my heart with pleasure fills !" What a wonderful
thing to see below the glowing buds and blossoms
of the Japanese quince clusters of tulip La Mer-
veille or — but not and — tulip Couleur Cardinal.
La Merveille, with its tremendously telling orange-
red hues, puts dash into the picture; Couleur Car-
dinal, sombreness, richness. No one could think
for one moment of allowing these tulips to appear
near each other. Crocus and early-flowering
things below and among the shrubs, to bloom
when the quince is leafless; tulips toward the
grass, to show when tiny points of green and the
red quince blossoms make a fiery mist above them.
The lucky householder or gardener who has
sometime placed a group of the glorious shrub,
Mahonia, on his ground, may like a planting
which has seemed good to me against the shining
dark-green of its low branches. Narcissus poetaz,
var. Elvira, to bloom with the lavender hyacinth
Lord Derby or Holbein; with the gay tulip Ver-
milion Brilliant near by, and some groups or col-
onies of tulip Couleur Cardinal associated with

83

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

these. The fine Darwin tulip Fanny, used with
masses of Phlox divaricata and Phlox subulata,
var. lilacina, below it, is a marvel of color. Mr.
Hunt's description of Fanny I give: "Clear, rosy
pink, with white centre marked blue. Not a
large flower but one of exquisite color and form."
I have never yet made a May pilgrimage to Mont-
clair, but I know I should be a wiser gardener if
I might, for Mr. Hunt's blooming tulips must be
worth many a league's journey.

Nothing I have ever had upon our small place
has given me more spring pleasure than the plant-
ing which I next describe. A shrub, two tulips,
and a primula. The shrub was Spircea Thun-
bergii, with its delicate white sprays of flowers.
Below and among these spireas are the great tulip
La Merveille, orange-scarlet, and the old double
Count of Leicester, in tawny-orange shades -
and before the tulips lay low masses of the Mun-
stead primrose. On this primrose, which fares so
well with me, I have enlarged so often and so vol-
ubly that I fear the reader is weary of my praises.
But to me it is an essential of the spring. With
this primrose, with the hardy forget-me-nots, and
arabis, the lemon-colored alyssum, the lavender
creeping phloxes, and with a charming low-grow-

84

COLOR HARMONIES

ing thing whose name is Lamium maculatum (the
gray-green leaves have a rather vague whitish
marking upon them, and the flowers are of a
soft mauve — grow tulip Wouverman back of
these, I beg !) — the most delightful effects may
be had.

As for tulips, again, the loveliest of combina-
tions under lilacs, or immediately before them,
would surely ensue if groups of tulips Fanny, Carl
Becker, Giant, and Konigin Emma were planted
in such spots. And speaking of tulips — the ones
just mentioned I got of the Dutch, the originators
of the Darwin and Rembrandt tulips and who
thereby have made all bulb-growers their eternal
debtors. The photograph of tulips which accom-
panies these notes shows how exhibition beds may
be made beautiful — it is a picture of the Haarlem
(Holland) Jubilee Show in the spring of 1910.

In the illustration, page 86, the blackish group
of tulips in the right-hand middle distance is La
Tulipe Noire — "the blackest of all the tulips."
The circular group in the centre distance is Ed-
mee, a bright cherry-rose color, also Darwin; and
at the extreme left L'Ingenue, a fine white Dar-
win, slightly suffused with pale rose.

Mr. Krelage gave last autumn to one of his

85

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

English friends a list of the Darwin tulips he
considers the best. These are the ones: Clara
Butt, salmon-pink; Crepuscule, pinky lilac; Faust,
deep violet; Giant, deep purplish-crimson; La
Candeur, ivory-white; La Tristesse, slaty blue;
Madame Krelage, rosy pink; Margaret, soft pink,
almost blush; Mr. Farncombe Sanders, rosy
crimson; Prince of the Netherlands, cerise-car-
mine; Raphael, purplish violet; and Haarlem, a
giant salmony orange-red. Five of these I have
grown. The man to whom this list was given, a
distinguished judge of flowers, comments on the
evident partiality of Mr. Krelage for the rich
deep-purples, as shown by these choices of his
own.

Last spring Miss Jekyll wrote of her pleasure
in some beautiful varieties of tulips, Darwins and
Cottage both, sent her as cut blooms by a well-
known grower. And I was so charmed with her
description of these, especially with what she said
of the purple and bronze tones of some of them,
that I cleared out a lot of shrubbery to make room,
and planted last fall the following groups: Ew-
bank and Morales together, Faust, Grand Mo-
narque, Purple Perfection, and D. T. Fish; Bronze
King, Bronze Queen, Golden Bronze, Dom Pedro,

86

CROCUS MONT BLANC

DARWIN TULIPS AT THE HAARLEM (HOLLAND) JUBILEE SHOW, 1910

COLOR HARMONIES

Louis XIV; Salmon Prince, Orange King, Pan-
orama, Orange Globe, and La Merveille.

I am not a collector; but how readily, save for
one reason, could I become one, in ten different
directions in the world of flowers ! Tulips should
be one of my choices; the narcissus another; no one
could pass by the iris. The collecting of tulips is,
I fancy, simple beside, say, that of daffodils.
The varieties of the daffodil are so many, the
classes not as yet quite clearly defined; while the
tulip is simplicity itself, except when it comes to
tulip species — there the botanist comes to the
front and no unlearned ones need apply. Tulips
are unfailing, certain to appear. No coaxing is
necessary, nor do they require special positions.
They may, for instance, grow among peonies;
they are delightful among grapes. While the
narcissus may not flourish among peonies, because
of the amount of manure needed by the latter,
tulips come gloriously forth. The question was
put to me some time since by Doctor Miller as to
the probability of injury to or failure of narcissus
when planted among peonies, on account of the
amount of manure generally used among such
roots — the statement made originally, I believe, by
some English writer. May I give here the opin-

87

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

ion of an English authority on daffodils in his
own words ?

"As to daffodils among peonies — well, if you
don't get manure (new) among their roots, and
only top-dress with farmyard or stable manure,
using bonemeal underground, I think many daf-
fodils would do very well; but you should try
them from more places than one when you buy.
Like humans and others, a rich diet coming on
top of a long-drawn-out poor one upsets matters."

Crocus-collecting, judging from what Mr. E.
Augustus Bowles writes of it, must have charms
indeed. I confess to the germ of the fever in the
shape of several of Mr. Bowles's delightfully read-
able articles safely put away in a letter-file. Each
time I take these out to reread them, I grow a
little weaker; and by next July when fresh lists
of crocus species lay their fatal hand upon me, I
expect to be a crocus-bed-ridden invalid indeed !

VII

THE CROCUS AND OTHER
EARLY BULBS

"The groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould,
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea."

— TENNYSON.

VII

THE CROCUS AND OTHER
EARLY BULBS

ET me begin by presenting these "rumina-
tions," as he calls them, from the pen of the
Reverend Joseph Jacob, of England, whose name
is known wherever two or three daffodils or as
many tulips are gathered together. _"Was there
ever a time," writes he, "when bulbs were not pop-
ular? Probably not. At all events, there is not
much doubt about it at the present time. Every
horticultural firm which considers itself at all
'up' in the world considers one of its annual
necessities the issuing of a bulb-list. Contrari-
wise, the reception and perusal of these lists are
among the perennial pleasures of every one who
has a garden. Bulbs are wonderfully accommo-
dating things. I have a tortoise which we call
Timmie, and for the last three months he has
been fast asleep under some nice dry leaves in the
cellar. Just now, with a little careful packing,
he could very easily undertake a long journey.

91

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

"Bulbous plants are the 'Timmies' of the vege-
table kingdom. When they have retired into
their shells, they can be sent about so readily and
so safely that if they lived to about ten times
the age of Methuselah, I should not be surprised
to find that, if it is really true what botanists
tell about dispersion and propagation being the
two things that plants worry themselves most
about, then all well-brought-up plantlets would
be taught, just as we teach the 'three RY to-day,
how to take on a bulbous state as an essential
part of their life cycle."

With Mr. Jacob's whimsical wish I heartily
agree, more particularly as I recall the few choice
aubrietias by post from Ireland, the glories in
delphinium from England in the same manner, all
of which, when opened, were found to be exhausted
by their journey.

Now, before rushing toward — before leaping
to our main flower, the crocus, may I pay a word
of tribute to the tribe of muscari, the grape hya-
cinth? While these small bits of perfection in
flowers, in blue flowers — yes, a true blue in some
forms — are wonderful in color, they must, in my
experience, be packed closely together in planting
for any really good effect. While several flowers

92

EARLY BULBS

come from each crocus bulb set in earth, from
Muscari azureum, the small and early sky-blue,
I usually have but two, and the tiny things
seem not to spread, to multiply, as the crocus
does.

Of the other grape hyacinths, a delightful color
picture is seen each May on either side of my
little brick walk. The late muscari Heavenly
Blue clusters below the pale-yellow lily-like
heads of Tulipa retroflexa, and below the grape
hyacinth (whose strong dark-blue has a metallic
quality) quantities of fine myosotis plants are
blooming at the same moment.

The earliest muscari are true crocus companions
— azureum in dense companies, with crocus Mont
Blanc (cut facing page 86) — or with such a lav-
ender as Madame Mina a most unusual color
combination may be made.

Since the spring of 1912 I have felt that I
must take up my pen for the crocus, to introduce
it in a few of its newer and less-known varieties
to those who have never grown those at all.

The desire to get "something for nothing" is
quite as noticeable among the guild of amateur
gardeners as among those who find joy in bar-
gain sales. And in the crocus we have first of all

93

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

a bargain. Thousands for a few dollars, hundreds
for some cents. Next in cheapness to seeds they
are; and have a habit, when not bothered by a
nervous or too transplanting owner, of multiply-
ing in a fashion comforting to see. In the nine
years in which I have been growing the crocus on
our small piece of ground, I cannot now remember
having lost any except in cases where the growth
of overhanging or overhungry shrubbery has eaten
up the little things at its feet.

One of my first plantings before the bare east
wall of brick of a then new house was of the cro-
cus Reine Blanche, a fine white, in groups now
dense, now more open, with hosts of Scilla Sibi-
rica crowding among them, and that first glory of
the tulip family, Kaufmanniana, holding outspread
back of and above the little blue-and-white multi-
tude its lilylike flowers — flowers which only open
to the sun. Tulipa Kaufmanniana is costly, I
admit, and growing more so, but, as in the case
of Darwin and May-flowering tulips, many of
which are rapidly increasing in value, delays are
dangerous. Therefore, buy now if possible. I
must have often described it before — its general
color within the flower a rich cream, running into
clear yellow toward the centre of the bloom; on

94

EARLY BULBS

the outside of each petal a broad band of dull
reddish-rose. To myself I called it a water-lily
long before I read that it had been often described
as the water-lily tulip. In warm corners it has
opened with me (latitude of Boston) as early as
March 25, though its usual flowering time in our
climate is mid-April.

Among the florists' varieties of crocus, the one
with true magnificence of form and color is Crocus
purpureus, var. grandiflorus. Magnificent is a
large adjective to apply to a low-growing flower;
ordinarily one should reserve it for the altheas,
or the finer gladioli, sensational in their beauty.
But it is a fact that people unaccustomed to the
sight of so large and fine a crocus as this can
sometimes not be persuaded that it is a crocus;
therefore, the word may be permitted. And when
close-growing numbers of this particular beauty
are near other close colonies of Scilla Sibirica,
there is then a spring effect worth going far to
see. Maximilian, a clear light-lavender, is a fa-
vorite with me. Madame Mina, white with rich
lavender stripes the length of its fine petals, is a
beauteous flower; and Reine Blanche, of which
mention has just been made, one of the loveliest
imaginable whites. Mont Blanc, white, is also

95

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

very fine. In these whites, and in Madame Mina
as well, the rich orange stigma gives a very glow-
ing effect as one looks down into the crocus cup.
As for the yellow crocuses, I never look at them if
I can help it ! I have a few remnants of them
from misguided purchases of years gone by, but
I am always meaning to clear them out and al-
ways forgetting to do it till their small squat
flowers are gone and the track of the position of
the bulbs is lost. This antipathy to the yellow
florists' crocus, which, let me add, does not extend
in my case to the yellow of the species crocus,
may be the prejudice of ignorance, for of varieties
other than Cloth of Gold and Large Yellow I
know nothing. In these the yellow is the crude
yellow of the dandelion (a flower I hate with all
my might) ! Mr. E. A. Bowles, of Waltham
Cross, England, tells us that the more delicate
and subtle tones of yellow are to be found in sev-
eral varieties of crocus species; it is to these that
I plan to turn my attention with great ardor
another season.

Few of these species crocus do I already know
in my own borders — only half a dozen — and
as I believe readers will rejoice as I have done
in some of Mr. Bowles's enthusiastic comments

96

EARLY BULBS

on or descriptions of these flowers, I offer no apol-
ogy for quoting from him, as I mention the flowers
of which he knows so much, through years of col-
lecting, growing, and study.

Now, in spite of my aversion to the large yel-
low florists' crocus, I do like Crocus susianus,
which is one of the bright-yellows before mentioned
(Color chart, Cadmium yellow, No. 1). But Crocus
susianus, blooming as early as April 9, planted
very thickly, gave in my border the interesting
impression of a large-flowering yellow Phlox subu-
lata — practically no green leaf visible below the
masses of bloom. Five to seven flowers appear
in small, tight bunches from one bulb; and back
of and among this flowering mass of yellow I had
colonies of the white crocus Mont Blanc. Let
me commend this very simple and unstudied ar-
rangement. C. susianus is much dwarfer than
Mont Blanc, therefore have it mainly to the
front.

Crocus Sieberi I call a warm pinkish-lavender
(Color chart, Violet mauve, No. 1). Six to eight
flowers come from a bulb, and the bright-orange
stigmata within give a glowing centre to the little
flower. This is very small and low. Mr. Bowles
calls it a "crocus for every garden" and adds that

97

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

it "seeds freely and soon spreads in any sunny
border."

"Crocus Korolkowi" to quote Mr. Bowles
again, "from the far East, has two good points
- it flowers early and is of a peculiarly brilliant
form of yellow." This little crocus I have grown
for a few years myself, and it always surprises
me by appearing practically with the snowdrop.

Crocus biflorus, the "Scotch crocus," is white,
with pencillings of grayish mauve on its three
outer petals. The markings are exquisite and the
early blooming of this crocus marks it as a specially
necessary one.

My prime favorite among all these species cro-
cus is Crocus Tommasinianus. It is tall, slender,
delicate, with narrow, pointed petals, of a lovely
lavender, slightly bluer than Sieberi. An orange
pistil within it is like a vivid star. It has great
height of stem, and tapering form of flower. It
is the one which most delights me as a novice in
crocus-collecting; and last spring, in a limited
space where the ground runs up into a rather
steepish slope for a few feet, which slope is cov-
ered by a thick group of the little tree known as
the garland thorn, there beneath the small tree
stems I hope to see next spring hundreds of little

98

EARLY BULBS

candles, lavender candles of Crocus Tommasini-
anus running up the tiny hillside, and racing along
beside them a company of Galanthus Elwesii, their
companions in time of bloom. "I have found,"
writes Mr. Bowles, "C. Tommasinianus so far to
prove the most satisfactory of the wild species
for spreading and holding its own when planted
in grass."

Several beautiful new seedling crocuses have
come within a few years from Holland — May
and Dorothea — the latter a "soft, pale lavender-
mauve," May "a beautiful white of fine form."
These two I have; not, however, Kathleen Par-
low, said to be an extra-fine white, with wonder-
ful orange anthers, nor Distinction, the nearest
approach to a pink color in crocus.

The beauty of tulip Kaufmanniana was never,
I fancy, better set forth in a photograph than in
that which is shown on page 98. To the kind-
ness of Mr. Bowles himself I owe this picture of
perfect spring loveliness, and to the kindness of
the distinguished Scottish amateur Mr. S. Arnott
the picture of the blue grape hyacinth, Hyacinthus
lineatus azureus. This flowered in Mr. Arnott's
garden in February, 1912, and is, I believe, a
rare variety.

99

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

To my eyes it is so charming a picture of the
type that its inclusion here will surely give pleasure
to those to whom these "small and early" things
are objects of interest.

100

VIII

COLOR ARRANGEMENTS FOR DARWIN
TULIPS AND OTHER SPRING-FLOWER-
ING BULBS

"Along the lawns the tulip lamps are lit.**

— ROSAMUND MARRIOTT WATSON.

VIII

COLOR ARRANGEMENTS FOR DARWIN
TULIPS AND OTHER SPRING-FLOWER-
ING BULBS

I BELIEVE I shall always remember May,
1913, as the Darwinian May. As the mention
of this adjective is doubtless music'to the ear of
the scientist, so its sound is equally delectable to
the possessor and lover of the Darwin tulips. In
a bit of writing appearing some time ago in this
journal, I set down a list of Darwins arranged
for color combination, taken from a fine English
source. These I tried for the first time this year;
and I assure the reader when I saw them I fell
down and worshipped. A pageant of color, a
marvellous procession of flowery grandeur — no
words are mine in which to tell of my sensations
on seeing this beauty for the first time; and the
sensations were not mine alone. They were
shared by all those who saw them, among them
some sophisticated eyes, eyes which might not
show delight without good cause.

103

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

The color arrangement proved not so good as
I had hoped. And, thanks to an ingenious guest,
we rearranged for next year in this fashion: One
tulip of each variety was cut and labelled with a
slip of paper. These cut tulips were then placed
in the open spaces of the rattan or cane seat of
a Chinese chair, the large flowers resting against
the back and sides of the chair. The round open-
ings in the woven cane exactly admitted the stiff
stems of the Darwins; the background of basket-
looking stuff was most becoming to the gay
flowers, and at our leisure, seated in comfort be-
fore our tulip galaxy, we arranged and rearranged
till the following plan evolved itself — a plan of
which I append a rather feebly drawn chart — a
plan, however, which I recommend with my whole
heart, a Darwinian theory less abstruse if not more
certain in its outcome than that of him in whose
honor these noble spring flowers are named.

Another probably successful arrangement of
spring flowers suggests itself. Why should not
the tall lemon-colored blooms of Tulipa Vitellina
show back of rather close groupings of Scilla cam-
panulata's lavender bells, while the tender yellow
of Alyssum saxatile, var. sulphur eum, creates a
charming foreground ? The three flowers bloomed

104

TULIP VITELLINA, PHLOX DIVARICATA

TULIP GESNERIANA ELEGANS LUTEA PALLIDA ABOVE PHLOX
DIVARICATA LAPHAMI

COLOR ARRANGEMENTS

with me this year at the same time, and I cannot
but advise a trial planting of them together —
say a dozen of the tulips, fifty scillas, and six or
seven roots of the beautiful hardy alyssum, and
you have a picture which a true "garden soul"
will feel beneath the ground in winter. This could
be done in a spot apart, a bit of ground sacred to
adventures in flowers.

And while we are on adventures in flowers,
may I impart a few impressions of some tulips
seen this spring for the first time ? Really revela-
tions — some of them unspeakably beautiful.
Coming, for instance, unexpectedly upon Tulipa
viridiflora was like coming upon a specially beau-
tiful green-and-white trillium in a wood. This
tulip has that precious look of not having been
evolved. Yet it is a May-flowering or cottage
tulip. What pleasure in a few bulbs of this
unique flower, in its aspect of untouchedness !
It cannot be possible, one thinks, that the deli-
cate bands of green up and down its palest yel-
low-painted petals were not set there by the skil-
ful eye and brush of perhaps the Japanese !

Tulip The Fawn, a Darwin this, was almost un-
believable in its beauty. No description of it in
print satisfies me. May I here give my own?

105

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

Pale amber to cream-color outside, suffused with
soft pinkish lavender, the whole effect that of a
tea-rose. Why not give it a subtitle — the tea-rose
tulip ? And why not grow it with that deep, rich
purple Darwin Faust? The contrast between
these two is tremendously striking, yet there is a
certain harmony of tone which allows of their
dwelling together not only in peace but in beauty.

Gudin, a tall tulip of a pale-mauve hue, look-
ing its best near a group of the stately Innocence,
was another of the wonders of the spring. Or-
pheus was a charming flower turning to warm rose
in its last days; Emerald Gem, oddly named when
its richest of salmon blooms are considered, with
Orange Globe should form a combination of bril-
liant color unsurpassed; and in Dom Pedro we
have a Breeder tulip, a flower of wonderful ma-
hogany tones which I should ever choose to see
associated with Coridion, lovely "clear yellow
with stripe of lilac through centre of petal."

About June 3 comes Ixiolirion macraniha, like
a small lavender lily, with delicate tubular flowers,
as many as a dozen up and down the graceful
waving stem. The leafage of this flower is scanty;
what there is, is of a grayish-green which makes
the flower a fit companion for the dusty miller

106

COLOR ARRANGEMENTS

(Senedo cineraria). The ixiolirion is one of the
bravest of bulbs, coming triumphantly through
the bitter frosts of last winter. Ixiolirion pallasi
is named as a good one, and this I hope to try.
The lasting quality of ixiolirion in water is one
of its recommendations; and because it is so very
perfect when cut, if used with sprays of Deutzia
Lemoineii — for daytime use on the table, that
is, for I have yet to find the blue that can prop-
erly be used under artificial light — I hope to let
a quantity of these beautiful waving things blow
near and before the low bushes of the deutzia
next spring. These will follow the tiny Italian
Tulipa clusiana, whose slender beauty grows
dearer every year. Clusiana is neighbored by
Puschkinia and the two are preceded by some
species of crocus — the Scotch, I think, var. C.
biflorus pusillus.

So we achieve an uncommon spring planting,
delicate and lovely for weeks from the end of
April to the first of June, always interesting
whether the small flowers are coming or going —
and if planted with judgment and discrimination
as to natural-looking arrangement, regard to
height and color, we may without fear of disap-
pointment think in December of the rare joys in

107

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

store for us in that spot when it shall have been
touched by the suns of spring.

A charming happening has just taken place in
the borders. The bush honeysuckles of Michigan
were never more gloriously covered with their veils
of white and rose than this spring. It may have
been the gradually warming season, the uninter-
rupted progress from leaf -bud to blossom; in any
case, the tale is the same all about us — the loni-
ceras have been remarkably fine. Below a tower-
ing group of Lonicera, var. bella albida, whose
flowers in early June are just passing, crowds of
the swaying long-spurred hybrid aquilegias bloom
and blow. Most of us now know the unusual deli-
cacy and range of color in these charming flowers
— faint pinks, yellows, blues, and lavenders —
all pale and poised as they are.

But oh ! to catch beyond, under the shadow of
the honeysuckle boughs, as I did but now, the
sight of masses of blooming pink scillas, Scilla
campanulata, var. rosea, at precisely the moment
and in precisely the place where its modest beauty
was most perfectly displayed — to have this as a
surprise, not a special plan — here was a pleasure
of a quality all too seldom felt and known. Noth-
ing could carry on and repeat the tones of the pink

108

COLOR ARRANGEMENTS

and lavender aquilegias as does this loveliest of
late scillas. In appearance more like a tall lily-
of-the-valley than any other flower I can call to
mind, in tone so cool a pink that it is perfect in
combination with the blue, lavender, or pink col-
umbines. It is enchanting as their neighbor and
far more interesting thus used than in the more
commonplace proximity to its cousin or sister,
the lavender Scilla campanulata, var. excelsior,
blooming at the same time. To me it would be
dull to see sheets of these two spring flowers near
each other or intermingling. Dull, I mean, com-
pared with such a possibility as the combination
I have tried to describe and which was simply
one of those heavenly accidents befalling all too
rarely the ardent gardener.

On this June day the buds in my garden are
almost as enchanting as the open flowers. Things
in bud bring, in the heat of a June noontide, the
recollection of the loveliest days of the year —
those days of May when all is suggested, nothing
yet fulfilled. To-day I have been looking at
something one of these photographs feebly tries
to show — tall spikes of pale-pink Canterbury
bells, the flowers unusually large, standing against
a softly rounding background of gypsophila in

109

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

bud; to the left of the campanulas, leaves of Iris
pallida Dalmatica, so tall that their presence is
immediately felt; a little before, but still to the
left of the pink spikes and the iris, perhaps a
dozen tall silvery velvet stems of Stachys lanata,
whose tiny flowers give but a hint of their pale
lavender as yet, and are lost in the whiteness of
the young leaflets, and — and this is the thing
which really creates the picture — three or four
spreading branches, a foot from the ground and
directly below the campanulas, of Statice incana
Silver Cloud, tiny points of white showing that
the whole dense spray will soon be full of flowers.
Below and among the campanulas (which I
keep in bloom a very long time by a careful daily
taking off of every shrivelling bloom) stand sal-
mon-pink balsams, these to replace with their two-
foot masses of flowers the campanulas when the
latter's day is over and to rise above the gray-
white leaves of the stachys when its blooming
time is also past. This stachys is a lovely ad-
junct to the garden. The texture of its leaves is
a matter of surprise to every one who touches
them. Most people would call stachys "woolly,"
but I do not like this word — (is it because I live
in the West ?) — and why apply an unpoetic

110

PINK CANTERBURY BELLS, STACHYS LANATA

The Garden Month by Month." By courtesy of Frederick A. Stokes Company
BELLIS PERENNIS AND NARCISSUS POETICUS

COLOR ARRANGEMENTS

word to any one of the lovely inhabitants of our
gardens ?

It came about that a space before the bush
honeysuckles — the pink flowering variety, Loni-
cera Tatarica, var. rosea — in a border, needed fill-
ing with lower shrubs. The piece of ground to
be furnished was perhaps fifteen feet long by three
wide, though irregular in both width and outline.
Last autumn Rosa nitida had been there set out,
planted about three feet apart. Bare ground for
this year and next was sure to spoil the look of
things while these roses were yet young, and a
covering for it was thus managed. Canterbury-
bell plants were distributed in small groups among
the roses, especially toward the back of the border;
and English irises, Rossini and Mr. Veen, were
tucked in in longish colonies before and among
the campanulas. In ordinary seasons these irises
might not have bloomed with the campanulas,
but this year it was Monte Cristo-like — the
flower and the hour ! — with a resultant superb
effect of color. Mr. Veen, a true violet iris, Ros-
sini, a purplish-blue, were good together to me, who
differ from Miss Jekyll in possessing a penchant
for blue combined with purple or with lavender.

To compare a bloom of one of these irises with

111

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

a spray of the Dropmore anchusa is to get an ex-
tremely vivid and interesting idea of the effect
of colors upon each other. Taken alone, Iris
xiphioides, var. Mr. Veen, is a blue without very
much purple in its tone; beside the anchusa all
the blue vanishes — the iris is a distinct purple;
place it beside Rossini, it becomes blue again; and
grow masses of Rossini below the anchusa, es-
pecially the variety Opal, and there is one of the
most beautiful juxtapositions possible in flowers
— so far as I know an original combination of
color and one to charm an artist, I believe. An-
chusa of a year's standing, a three-foot anchusa,
might be best to use in this way. The two-foot
iris would prove a good companion.

There follows, soon after the gray-and-pink com-
bination in my garden of which I spoke a few
paragraphs back, the combination of pink Cam-
panula medium and Stachys lanata, a time when
one of the loveliest of all double poppies lights up
the little place with color. For this poppy — an
annual — there is no registered name. It is dou-
ble, extremely full, perhaps three feet in height, and
of a delicious rosy-pink, exactly the pink of the
best mallows, or of the enchanting half -open rose-
buds of the ever-lovely rambler Lady Gay. To

COLOR ARRANGEMENTS

see three or four of these poppies in full bloom
among the white mist of gypsophila, either single
or double, the oat-green of the poppy leaves
below, is to see something more delicately beauti-
ful than often occurs in gardens. Many packets
of the seed of my poppy are always in readiness,
as I have a superabundance of the same; and if
ten people read these words, and if, peradven-
ture, there be ten gardeners with vision to see
through the veil of these sentences the rose-pink
beauty of this flower, let them ask for a bit of
this seed, for it is theirs for the asking !

The love of flowers brings surely with it the
love of all the green world. For love of flowers
every blooming square in cottage gardens seen
from the flying windows of the train has its true
and touching message for the traveller; every
bush and tree in nearer field and farther wood
becomes an object of delight and stirs delightful
thought. When I see a rhubarb plant in a small
rural garden, I respect the man, or more generally
the woman, who placed it there. If my eye lights
upon the carefully tended peony held up by a bar-
rel hoop, the round group of an old dicentra, the
fine upstanding single plant of iris, at once I ex-
perience the warmest feeling of friendliness for

113

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

that householder, and wish to know and talk with
them about their flowers. For at the bottom
there is a bond which breaks down every other
difference between us. We are "Garden Souls."

114

IX

NOTES ON SPRING FLOWERS

'April appeared, the green earth*s impulse came
Pushing the singing sap until each bud
Trembled with delicate life as soft as flame,
Filled with the mighty heart-beat as with blood.'

IX
NOTES ON SPRING FLOWERS

A^ ever-astonishing thing to me in gardening is
the overlapping of the times of bloom in
flowers. As I walk about in May I am sure to
see some inhabitant of the borders up and doing,
earlier than I think he should be. One is ab-
sorbed in what is already open; the budding of
coming flowers goes unnoticed and their little soft,
colorful cries for attention come as a surprise.

Under an ancient thorn, known to Professor
Sargent and a few others as Cratcegus punctata —
a thorn which stands against old apple-trees, and
which, as soon as the petals of apple-blossoms have
fallen and disappeared, becomes a wreath of white
against the apple-leaves — under this blooming
thorn there stands in a bold group the fine late
tulip, Flava. This tulip has a way of fading in
curious and beautiful fashion. In its first stage
it is one of the grandest and most imposing of
early flowers; its bloom is held high in air; its
stem is absolutely erect; its color a soft straw-

117

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

yellow; its leaves very low, large, and of a fine
bluish-green; the blooms open wide, their four
petals at the top of the stalk, like lilies held erect,
and the inside of each petal seems to take on a
certain pallor toward the centre, leaving an edge
of deeper tone. The effect is indescribably beau-
tiful in its way — a tulip swan-song, thought I, as
I gazed.

A fine tulip new to me last spring was Nau-
ticas. Here the color within the petals is Vin de
Bordeaux No. 1, shading toward the upper edges
to Rose lilace No. 2.* The inner basal spots of
Nauticas are of Indigo grisatre No. 1, very strik-
ing in effect; and the leaves of this tall tulip were
of so rarely good a green that even their color was
recorded. It proved to be a trifle darker than
Vert bouteille No. 4. If any reader wonders at
my enthusiasm for this tulip, a flower incompara-
ble as it seems to me, let him place next each other
the color plates here mentioned, imagine a finely
rising stem and large broad leaves, of the richest
of greens, crowned by a rose-purple flower of per-
fect form. He will wonder no more that the tulip
is thus commended.

* Color references apply either to the French color chart " Repertoire de
Couleurs," or to "Color Standards and Color Nomenclature," by Dr.
Robert Ridgway.

118

SPRING FLOWERS

Of Zomerschoon the rare, the beautiful, I own
but a dozen bulbs. A detailed description from
the color chart is necessary, as this wonder among
tulips has many colors. The upper outside of
inner petals shows Rouge d'Andrinople No. 1, but
a trifle lighter than the shade in the plate. There
is remarkable life in this color as it appears in
the tulip. Flaiaed and feathered with a true
cream-white, with a slightly bluish sheen on the
centres of the outer petals, the flower is of inde-
scribable beauty. There is not one to equal it
for charm, for luscious combination of salmon
and cream. It is never likely to become plentiful,
it is such a slow one to increase.

Although we hear rumors of a possible short-
age for next season in tulips in violet, lavender,
and bronze tones, it is quite out of the question
in these notes to pass by one of these beauties.
Mauve Clair, a Darwin variety of unusual quality,
is one of the best. The general tone of this tulip
is Violet de Parme No. 1, while the flame or mark-
ing of the outer petals is of Violet d'aconit No. 1.
Tulip Bouton d'Or, whose yellow as seen in the
French chart is Jaune cadmium No. 1, has a per-
fectly unvarying tone throughout the flower.
Thus I found several of these tulips; yet again,

119

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

with other blooms of Bouton d'Or, Jaune chrome
moyen No. 1, petals edged with No. 3 of the same
color, seemed a more perfect description. I give
the two for accuracy's sake. The black anthers
of Bouton d'Or add appreciably to its interest.

A tulip of far paler yellow than Bouton d'Or
is Moonlight, another cottage tulip, so elegant,
so distinguished, as to relegate Bouton d'Or at
once to a sort of tulip bourgeoisie. Moonlight is
beautifully named, with its pale tones of yellow
and charmingly proportioned flower. The gen-
eral tone of Moonlight in the chart is Jaune citron
No. 1 or Jaune primavere No. 1; within its petals
Jaune soufre No. 4 prevails.

While among the yellow tulips, Sprengeri, the
latest of all tulips to bloom, must not be over-
looked. Tulipa Sprengeri, to be sure, is not yel-
low; it is an orange-scarlet and thereby related
to the yellows (Orange de Mars No. 2, edges of
inner petals Orange rougeatre No. 1). The out-
side of each outer petal is flamed through the
centre with Rouge cuivre. This tulip I have
growing among close-packed roots of a pearl-gray
German iris, name unknown. The two come into
flower simultaneously; the tulip is quite as tall
as the iris, and the twx> flowers are strikingly

120

SPRING FLOWERS

good together. Sprengeri grows taller with me
than any other tulip, Louis XIV alone excepted.
It is a persistent grower, too, appearing year
after year as do almost no others except Tulipa
Gesneriana, var. rosea, that gay and resolute little
bloom always so enchanting above forget-me-
nots.

Near Philadelphia last spring a marvellously
lovely combination of tulips and iris was to be
seen. A long, narrow bed had been made in the
centre of a similarly long and narrow piece of
sward. This straight line was a glowing band of
German iris of the richest purple-blue, and of a
brilliant yellow tulip set in tall and ordered
groups alternating in effective fashion with the
iris. Of the tulips there seemed to be fifteen or
twenty in a group, and the variety, I thought, was
Mrs. Moon. The name of the iris is wanting;
but it was the counterpart of one of my own
which I owe to the kindness of a farmer's wife,
and whose colors, according to the chart, are Bleu
d'aniline No. 4 in the standards and Violet de
violette in the falls.

A further suggestion for iris-and-tulip grouping
(this from an English source) is a bold use of the
deep purple-blue iris thinly interspersed with the

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

lavender Darwin tulip Reverend H. Ewbank. In
my own part of the country it is rarely that the
Darwin or May-flowering tulip overlaps in time
of bloom upon the German iris, but in the lati-
tude of Philadelphia these plants may be expected
to give flowers together.

A group of Darwins in brilliant cherry-rose
tones we may notice next. These gay occupants
of the spring border hold less charm for me than
some of their less flaunting fellows, the reason
being the difficulty of combining them well with
tulips of other colors. True, they may serve as
a climax where first lavender, then deep-violet
tulips are used in successive groupings. But with
white tulips, dead-white, they are not agreeable
to the eye; with primrose and yellow they do not
particularly agree; with mauve and bronze not
at all. The two which shall be singled out for
special mention are both Darwins, Professor Fran-
cis Darwin and Edmee. The tones of Professor
Darwin according to the chart are Rouge fraise
No. 2 within the petals, Vin de Bordeaux No.
2 outside. This tulip has a pale lemon-colored
pistil and a prismatic blue-black base. In Edmee
the outer petals are of Amaranthe No. 1, with
much blue in these pinkish tones. These tulips

122

DARWIN TULIPS WITH IRIS GERMANICA

SPRING FLOWERS

are beauteous instances of the development of
their race.

Let me suggest to those who do not yet know
the newer Darwins, Cottage tulips, Breeders, and
Rembrandts an investment in a few bulbs next
fall, if only a half-dozen of each of some of the
finer varieties,, and, each for himself , see the won-
ders of thesg flowers. Make your selections now
and place your orders at once for fall delivery.
In the first three classes, if I were to choose four
out of each as introductory lists, they should be
these:

Cottage or May-flowering Tulips: Retroflexa su-
perba, Moonlight, the Fawn, Inglescombe Pink.
Darwins: Clara Butt, Reverend H. Ewbank,
Gudin, and Sophrosyne. Breeders: Coridion,
Golden Bronze, Louis XIV, Goldfinch, Velvet
King, and Cardinal Manning.

These are but short lists, not combinations of
color — samples of some of the finer varieties
in the three classes. Would that I might have
named Zomerschoon in the Cottage group — Zo-
merschoon, that too costly tulip of unforgettable
beauty.

And now for a few combinations of tulips with
other flowers. The gayest knot of flowers of

123

THE WELL-C,ONSIDERED GARDEN

1 h i

spring may be produced by the joint use of Tulipa
Gesneriana, var. rosea, with one of the taller forget-
me-nots, such as Perfection or Royal Blue. In
this vivid-crimson tulip there is a dull-blue base;
something of that blue is perhaps imparted to
the rosy chalice of the flower and makes it perfect
company for the sweetest of pale blossoms.

Mr. Divers, head gardener to the Duke of
Rutland, makes these suggestions as to combina-
tions of tulips and low-growing plants to flower
together: Couleur Cardinal, a single early tulip,
with Phlox divaricata; tulip Picotee is also rec-
ommended with the phlox; and the same fine
tulip with myosotis Royal Blue. This should be
exceedingly good, especially as we recall the rosy
flushing of Picotee as it ages. For a very lively
effect, tulip Vermilion Brilliant is suggested as
a companion to the pale-yellow primrose. Mr.
Divers uses ribbon grass (Phalaris arundinacea,
var. variegatd) with Phlox divaricata, tulip Picotee,
and Aubrietia Leichtlini, plants which when prop-
erly set with relation to each other's heights and
habits must surely make a perfect picture in
lavender and rose.

Another authority on tulips would have tulip
Thomas Moore, that tawny-orange flower, rise

124

SPRING FLOWERS

above yellow primroses; the Darwin Erguste
bloom over Phlox divaricata, or Bouton d'Or with
myosotis. All these are good; and a trial of any
two together must convince the doubter that half
spring's pleasure lies in tulip time.

Tulip Bouton d'Or, almost droll in its fat round-
ness, and whose rare rich yellow is already de-
scribed, proved most excellent in conjunction with
the cushion irises in flower, such varieties as Isis
and Helense. Their strange red-purples were
very sumptuous among groups of these tulips.
Tulip Le Reve, that flower whose beauty is one
of my perennial delights, showed a peculiar charm
rising among colonies of Mertensia Virginica. The
general tone of Le Reve, according to the color
chart, is Rose brule No. 1; the petals are feath-
ered with Rose violace No. 4, while the centres
of the outer petals show Lilas rougeatre. The
mertensia flowers are of Bleu d'azur No. 1,
though more lavender-blue and with greater depth
of tone. The buds are of Violet de cobalt No. 1,
the leaves Vert civette No. 3.

A suggestion for spring planting noted last season
was the remarkably rich effect of tulips Purple
Perfection, Vitellina, and Innocence with cut buds
and blooms of the superb purple lilac Ludwig

125

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

Spaeth. A noble combination, this, for a border
in which interesting and original color is desired.
Tulip President Lincoln I thought a great find.
The chart description of it would be this: darkest
tone of petal, Violet d'iris No. 2; paler part of
petal, Lilas violace No. 2. Let me suggest with
every confidence in its value the growing of Presi-
dent Lincoln with the two tulips, Mrs. Collier
and Doctor Hardy, shown in color on the cover
of the Reverend Joseph Jacob's capital book,
"Tulips," that book written from "the innate
fire of an enthusiast's heart." The Fawn, the
well-known Darwin tulip, was grown among two-
year-old plants of Hydrangea arborescens. Blanc
rose No. 3, in the chart, gives an idea of the
tone of the outer petals of this very wonderful
flower, but its luminous quality will not be de-
scribed. An underlying tone of palest yellow in
the tulip made it peculiarly lovely among the
leaves of the hydrangea.

I have come to believe myself among the most
impressionable of gardeners; delighted at the
least indication of the love of flowers in a casual
acquaintance; ever ready to set off at short no-
tice to look at gardens; but not always so de-
lighted with what I find. And since there is in

126

SPRING FLOWERS

me this critical quality, born doubtless of much
looking and comparing when I see, as I saw lately,
a garden comparatively small in compass but in-
comparably interesting, my heart fills with a plea-
sure not unlike the poet's at the sight of the cele-
brated daffodils.

In this garden, some of it under tall trees, a
city garden not a hundred miles from where I
live, on a day in earliest June, there was to be
seen a most lovely flower grouping, in which the
following flowers had place: Masses of that
wonderful pinkish-mauve Iris pallida, Queen of
May, tall lupines of rich blue near by, with Iris
Madame Chereau back of this, while before the
group and among it were opening on tall stems
the luscious silken salmon-pink flowers of the
two Oriental poppies Mrs. Perry and Mary Stud-
holme. Below these the coral bells of heucheras
(alum-root) hung at the tops of slender swaying
stems, a slightly richer note of pink than the
poppies.

As I beheld this beauty in flowers, I said to
myself: "Here is an end to adjectives." I have
none in which to adequately describe this loveliness.
It must be seen for its delicacy, its evanescent
quality. All who garden know the texture of

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

the poppy petal, of the flower of the iris. In
no medium but water-color could possibly be ex-
pressed the beauty, the daring yet delicate beauty,
of this arrangement of flowers. I am permitted
the privilege of trying to describe it to my readers;
and, while my words are weak, I know full well
that any flower-grower is to be congratulated who
may endeavor to arrange for himself the picture
here set forth. All hardy perennials, all very
hardy. Do pray experiment with the beauteous
blooms; set them out together this coming au-
tumn in some sun-warmed spot, and in two years
behold a picture unsurpassed for subtle color har-
mony and contrast. In this garden again I saw
that the superb poppy of the group above, Mrs.
Perry, and the ever-glorious Iris pallida, var. Dal-
matica, dwell most happily together, the poppy a
round flower, a flower on horizontal lines, the iris
perpendicular, standards and falls; the greens of
iris and of poppy foliage delicately contrasting; in
the one the yellow predominating, in the other the
blue.

128

A SMALL SPRING FLOWER
BORDER

"Though not a whisper of her voice he hear,
The buried bulb does know
The signals of the year
And hails far Summer with his lifted spear."

— -COVENTRY PATMOBB."

A SMALL SPRING FLOWER
BORDER

THE tale of this border is soon told — not the
pleasure of it, for I can assure the reader
that from early spring to late autumn, from the
hour when peony shoots and bulb leaves first
pushed their way through the ground, there has
been no moment when this place had not a pecul-
iar interest. A slight description written imme-
diately after the original planting was made, and
first printed in the Bulletin of the Garden Club of
America, may here be introduced, thanks to the
courtesy of that society.

The border in question is a double one, a bal-
anced planting on either side of a walk of dark
brick about two and a hah* feet wide. The space
allotted to flowers flanking the walk is some three
feet._ Eight subjects are used; combinations of
color, periods of bloom, form and height of flowers
and plants, all are considered.

At those edges of the borders farthest from

131

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

the walk are peonies of white and palest pink —
Madame Emile Galle, that flower of enchant-
ment predominating. Next the peonies toward
the walk, comes a row of Iris pallida Dalmatica,
then an alternating line of Iris Kaempferi and
Spiraea astilbe Arendsii Die Walkiire; next these
the Darwin tulip Agneta planted alternately with
English iris Mauve Queen; then the double early
tulip Yellow Rose with myosotis.

Bleu Celeste, the double early tulip which Miss
Jekyll calls the bluest of tulips, was to have
bloomed with the vivid flower of tulip Yellow Rose.
But because of Miss Jekyll's commendation of
Bleu Celeste, or possibly for the more prosaic
reason of crop failure in Holland, my very late
order remained unfilled, and Mr. Van Tubergen
substituted for it the Darwin Agneta. This, he
assures me, is nearly the color of Bleu Celeste.
Alas ! unfortunately for me, Agneta blooms after
Yellow Rose, thus I may not look for the lovely
bands of clear yellow and dull blue which were
to have adorned my border in early May. Close
to the brick itself are mounds of Myosotis dissiti-
flora and Button's Royal Blue, an early and a
late, while back of these are lines of Alyssum sul-
phureum, the hardy one of primrose-yellow.

132

SPRING FLOWER BORDER

I count on the Japanese iris as an ally of the
English one (though, oddly enough, this was ar-
ranged long before war broke out), the latter said
to be a delicious shade of pinkish mauve. The
cool pink spirea, too, should create a delicate foil
for the broad-petalled Iris Kaempferi, and my
faint and perhaps foolish hope is that a few forget-
me-nots may be tricked into blooming on till iris
Mauve Queen shows its color; for of all garden
harmonies I dearly love the pale blues and mauves,
brilliant blues and deep violets, set over against
each other.

How charming were the flowers along my little
brick walk about the 15th of May ! Myosotis
half in bloom, and the soft yellow-green buds of
Yellow Rose among and above it; tulip Agneta
only ranks of pointed buds back of these. One
week later great blooms of yellow tulip (was ever
tulip better named?) were in clusters among the
myosotis while, above this canary color and blue,
Agneta lifted beautiful lilac cups. The effect was
indescribably gay and original. Leaves of Iris
pallida Dalmatica were now broadening back of
the tulips, spirea spreading its delicately cut
green and brown-madder foliage between the iris
spears, and young peonies repeated these tones

133

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

of spirea leaves in a vigorous row farthest from
the walk.

The form and habit of Yellow Rose make it a
tulip particularly fit for use with myosotis, but
its yellow is too strong in tone for the lilac and
sky-blue of the other flowers. Moonlight, how-
ever, is too near Agneta in height. Perhaps Brim-
stone (Safrano) would be the better subject here,
but Brimstone blooms earlier than Yellow Rose.
In using Brimstone, however, off should go its
head so soon as the rose-pink flush begins to show,
since that pink would doubtless to some extent
interfere with the effect of the three pale colors
here desired, blue, yellow, and lavender. An-
other suggestion is, as substitute for the Darwin
Agneta the use of the fine tulip Gudin, certainly
one of the most ravishing of all the Darwin tribe;
or of William Copeland (Sweet Lavender), the
beauty whose charming portrait was shown in
the colored plate with the issue of the "Garden-
ers' Chronicle" (English) for November, 1914.

Brilliant, telling, as these spring flowers were,
running from arch to arch and seen against green
lawns, after ten days the picture was yet sweeter,
for the yellow tulips' race was run, the myosotis
had lifted delicate blue-clad stems in air, and the

134

SPRING FLOWER BORDER

Darwin pink-lavender petals were atop of the
straightest, tallest of green shafts, so many, so
exquisitely erect, that a memory of Velasquez's
great canvas "The Lances" flashed into the mind.
Blue and lavender, delicious colors near each
other, made this walk a place of beauty for days
after the yellow tulip blooms had fled.

As I have said, this is a beauty of lavender,
deep yellow, and pale blue for perhaps two weeks.
The early tulip first departs, leaving no void, for
the mauve and pale blue then present a picture
interesting if more quiet. About the 27th of May
tulip petals fall, leaving the myosotis a band of
misty blue on either side the walk; and as Ag-
neta fades the deep blue-purple Iris Germanica,
which has for some days held its shafts of buds
closed and ready beside the Darwins, suddenly
bursts into great flowers. Unfortunately for my
complete satisfaction, there was one of those mis-
takes in the identity of roots which must some-
times occur in gardens, and only a few of these
proved of the variety and the tone required for
this setting.

There is for a week, the first week of June, a
lull. Not, however, uninteresting, for the blue-
greens of tulip leaves are still fresh, the iris swords

135

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

are fine to see, and the delicately cut yellow-green
of spirea foliage is charming, covering the earth
where irises have sprung. Back of these are the
young peonies all filled with rounded buds, straight,
handsome, and distinct against the smooth-shaven
grass beyond the border on either side.

July, and the tardy spirea Die Walkiire in this
border has not flowered yet. Brownish buds are
held above every plant and soon there will be
bloom. Although there are now no flowers along
the walk, the effect of various types of plant foli-
age is exceedingly good. Blue-green leaves of
Iris pallida Dalmatica rise among all the spireas at
regular intervals — to be exact, eighteen irises on
either side; back of these, away from the walk,
are dark-green peony leaves; toward the walk are
lines of drying stems of English iris, pale-gray
mounds of the hardy alyssum, which I shall
have to confess failed to do well this year,
but which shall have another invitation to this
spot, next time by means of seed-sowing, not
transplanting.

In May zinnias in those pale tones I so much
fancy were sown among the myosotis leaves; by
mid- July they were opening their first flowers; and
from that time on, the walk was gay till late

136

SPRING FLOWER BORDER

October, the rather shallow roots seeming not in
the least to affect the welfare of other subjects
near them. The illustration shows them in Sep-
tember. Back of these borders of flowers since
this description was written have since been set
close rows of Spiraea van Houtteii, whose boughs,
in time to come, are to be permitted to fall natu-
rally on the side away from the walk, but to
be kept close-shaven on that toward the flower-
borders so that a formal green background may
be supplied.

To leave the border now for a few generaliza-
tions on the flowers of spring and early summer.
The blooms of tulip Jubilee are of varying heights,
which gives this tulip a peculiar value, even as
the twisting of stem in certain gladioli makes them
more valuable for some purposes. Avis Kenni-
cott, on the other hand, seems to keep the yard-
stick always in mind, and her flowers are a regi-
ment of golden magnificence. Ordinarily, I should
never place Avis Kennicott near Jubilee and La
Fiancee, as they are here; nor should I allow
Le Reve to neighbor these. The perfect place
for Le R£ve is in company with Mertensia Virginica
alone, as has often been suggested before. Each
year this combination grows upon me.

137

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

The effect of sunlight through the cups of La
Fiancee and Jubilee as they stand together up a
little slope fairly well covered with young hem-
lock spruces, is exceedingly nice. The deep violet
of Jubilee and rich lavender-rose of La Fiancee
make of them excellent comrades in the border.
A drift of tall gold flowers stands farther up, and
beyond the group of spruces, which are from three
to ten feet high, Heloise shines in the picture with
one of the tallest and richest of flowers of a fine
deep-red. Beyond Heloise comes Herzogin von
Hohenberg, of a medium blue-purple tone, a won-
derfully valuable color in Darwins, rising from
quantities of myosotis; and far up the rise of
ground stands a group of tulip Couleur Cardinal.
Beyond these again, and to the right, a whole
colony of Tulip retroflexa gleams from among the
dark gray -green boughs of hemlock and of young
white pine. Two or three years ago some charm-
ing pictures in the bulb-list of Messrs. E. H. Kre-
lage and Sons, of Haarlem, filled me with a desire
to see tulips grown among evergreens. The pic-
tures from Holland showed this effectively done
for a great flower-show at Haarlem, and it seemed
to me that nothing could be more lovely, more
striking, too, in effect, than the use of bulbs

138

SPRING FLOWER BORDER

among small conifers of formal habit. The true
place for daffodils, as we all know, is in spring
meadows; but tulips require a less careless han-
dling, and, while it is true that I have grown them
nearly always in loose groups and masses, I am
fast coming to the belief that the tulip, from its
own aspect, calls for design in planting. Do not
for a moment think that I favor the planting
suggestions for tulips found in some of the repre-
sentative bulb-lists of America ! Far from it !

Iris Crusader is a magnificent flower. As
many as four blooms are open at one time, the
lowest a foot below the topmost; for these flowers
occur at four places, four angles on the stem.
The single flower is a glory, its prevailing tone
(Ridgway) a deep bluish-violet. There is some-
thing in the spring of the long curves of this
flower both in standard and fall which gives it a
unique beauty. The brownish pencilling at the
top of each fall, the orange-yellow beard which
surmounts those charming tones of blue-violet
which suffuse the whole, make it a distinguished
flower. It is a knight among irises; and, bloom
occurring just before the pallida section, it seems
to herald a company of nobles of the garden. No
flower could bear a fitter name than does this iris;

139

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

i
whoever named it had a sense of fitness all too

rare.

The Rembrandt tulip has for the last two or
three seasons cast its spell upon me. "America
is biting," says an English tulip authority in
words better calculated to give pleasure to our
friends, the Dutch growers, than to us ! Yet
this is true: the charm of the Rembrandt is be-
ginning to make itself felt in the land. One of
the most interesting of this group is Bougainville
Duran, the tones of whose markings are (Ridgway)
light vinaceous-purple and neutral red — these
laid upon a ground of delicious ivory-white. For
richness of color and general beauty of appear-
ance this is the finest Rembrandt I have seen.
Its use below lilacs, especially below a group of
young low-flowering bushes, is sure to give pleas-
ure — before Toussaint 1'Ouverture, Souvenir de
Ludwig Spaeth, those rich red- violets in lilacs, and
those bluer ones, President Grevy for instance.
Semele is another fine tulip in this class — Ru-
cellin-purple, flaked pomegranate-purple.

A planting of these four tulips (names below)
over or back of a low-flowering plant such as the
deep-purple aubrietia, or that new variety which
is so warmly commended, Lavender, might make

140

SPRING FLOWER BORDER

a good spring picture, the tulips to be Reverend
H. Ewbank, Bleu Celeste, Morales, and a very
few white ones, such as Innocence or La Candeur.
Another plan is to plant well in front of that
grand tulip Flava the beautiful lavender Sdlla
campanulata Excelsior; and between this and the
tulip the wonderful mauve iris of about fifteen
inches' height, Mrs. Alan Gray. There would be
a sight whose loveliness the "scant gray meshes
of words" could never catch and show. A fine
delicacy of effect this — palest primrose tulip,
blue-lavender scilla, and pinkish lavender in the
iris blooms.

A wondrous new all-yellow iris in the Germanica
tribe, named by its originator for Miss C. P. Sher-
win, is treasure-trove for the June garden. Aqui-
legia chrysantha in connection with this iris, or
groups of the latter planted below the perfect
sprays of that perfect rose known as spinosissima,
or, for a livelier picture, the new iris before the
vivid blue of the anchusa — beauty could not fail
the gardener here.

The " lily-flowered " tulips just announced from
Holland and never yet shown in America will cre-
ate great interest here. Sirene, Adonis, Argo, mar-
vellous tones of satiny rose, rich rose, golden yel-

141

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

low, salmon-rose, all with the reflexed petals and
tall habit of Tulipa retroflexa, will be welcomed
with enthusiasm if they prove as beautiful as their
just-named parent.

142

XI

NOTES ON SOME OF THE
NEWER GLADIOLI

"In summer a strew of fresh rushes, mint, and gladiolus
(that flower so dear to mediaeval eyes) covered the pave-
ment with a cool fragrance, while a bough of some green
tree or flowering bush filled the hearth."

— (From chapter The Mediaeval Country-House),
"The Fields of France," MADAME MARY DUCLAUX.

XI

NOTES ON SOME OF THE
NEWER GLADIOLI

IT is November and all tuberous things, all ten-
der bulbs, have been "safely garnered in, ere
the winter storms begin." Dahlias are in their
sandy nests; gladioli repose in labelled paper bags;
tritomas, Galtonias are in dry, cool spots for winter
safety.

As we work under leafless trees and where noth-
ing of green remains save the bright grass and the
rich hues of pine and hemlock, the colors impris-
oned within each bulb are sure to rise before me.
I see again the rainbow of that wonderful exhibit
of gladiolus as it was to be seen in Chicago last
August; the matchless beauty of such blooms as
Niagara and Panama. And I here set down a
few notes on the gladiolus made last summer, both
at home and away from it.

And first let me say that the best recent hap-
pening for the lover of this flower, and conse-
quently, of course, the best thing for the grower

145

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

of gladiolus in this country, was the formation of
the American Gladiolus Society. To all who take
serious interest in this flower, I would recom-
mend the small monthly publication, "The Mod-
ern Gladiolus Grower," published at Calcium,
New York, by Mr. Madison Cooper, himself an
amateur; this paper is the organ of the American
Gladiolus Society, and a very fountainhead of
expert information in all matters relating to
gladioli.

But to the gladiolus itself ! Let me herald first
the coming, the glorious coming of the lavender
beauty, Badenia by name. No words can paint
the beauty of this flower. A true lavender in
color, not too blue, its flowers are large, finely
expanded, and many open upon the stem at one
time.

Countless combinations of this with other
flowers crowd upon one's vision. Which would
be fairer, an arrangement of like colors? Shall
we let Badenia open above a mass of well-staked
, velvet-purple petunia? Or shall we see it rise
above quantities of cool-pink Ostrich Plume aster ?
Again, we might grow it near palest yellow snap-
dragon; or, a more subtle arrangement yet, plan
to have it late against Salvia azurea, the junction

146

THE NEWER GLADIOLI

of its stems with the ground masked by rippling
mounds of Phlox Drummondii, var. lutea. All pale
yellows and buffs, all rich purples, all blues which
are almost turquoise, rise to the mind as I think
of the delicious pictures easily created with this
noble gladiolus. Badenia has but one serious de-
fect, its price is very high. To remedy that con-
dition let us wish it the Arab wish: "May its
tribe increase.''

Now for the glorious pair Niagara and Panama.
Niagara shall have the first word. Niagara is
quite worthy of several descriptions. I therefore
give first its commercial one, prefacing that by
the fact that it has already secured three honors
from horticultural societies, including one from the
American Gladiolus Society. "In type," says its
originator, "the variety resembles America, but
the flowers appear to be somewhat larger, meas-
uring four and one-half inches across. In color the
flowers are a delightful cream shade, with the two
lower inside petals or segments blending to ca-
nary-yellow. The flower spike is very erect and
stout and is wrapped with broad dark-green
foliage."

Now, to be exact in my own color description
of this flower, Niagara is of the tone known as

147

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

Naples yellow (color chart, Jaune de Naples No. 2).
Deep in its throat are lines of faintest lilac (color
chart, Rose lilace No. 4). These, however, do not
in the least interfere with the general effect of
palest yellow or cream given by the whole fine
flower.

Two combinations of Niagara with other flow-
ers flew to my mind, as I held this beauty in my
hand. Phlox E. Danzanvilliers back of it, agera-
tum Stella Gurney below and in front. The phlox
can be made to hold its bloom for some time —
the ageratum, as we know, is incessant. Again,
nothing lovelier, thought I, than Niagara with
salpiglossis of that dark velvety mahogany known
as Faust; or below phlox Von Hochberg. The
color at the base of the gladiolus, slight though
it is, is very little lighter than the wine-purple of
this phlox itself. Lovely, too, should Niagara be
with all-lavender hardy asters, especially with
that of the barren name of James Ganly.

Panama, a sister of Niagara, was the third cap-
tivator of the gladiolus show. I here declare,
speaking with all possible calmness, that it is the
softest and most charming tone of pronounced
rose-pink I have ever noticed in a flower. It
makes one think of roses, of the best roses, par-

148

THE NEWER GLADIOLI

ticularly of Mrs. John Laing, and while I have
never fancied the idea which obtains here and there
of growing gladioli among roses, because of the
leggy look of both roses and gladioli at their best,
yet, if it must be done, Panama is the flower to
place in our rose-beds ! The pink of Panama is
that called mauve-rose (color chart, Rose malvace
No. 2). Almost invisible markings there are,
deep in its throat, of purple-carmine (Carmin
pourpre No. 2). A setting of lyme grass, Elymus
arenarius, is suggested, with perhaps, near by, a
few blooms of the new decussata phlox of luscious
pink, Elizabeth Campbell. While the phlox is
lighter in tone than the gladiolus, the pinks are
of precisely the same type, for I have compared
the living flowers. Verbena Dolores might fur-
nish the base of this planting to charming ad-
vantage.

With the older gladioli, Peace, Dawn, and
Afterglow, we have a sextet of what seemed to
me the most beautiful of the newer gladioli,
America excepted, but America is now established.
It will be noticed, too, that I am far too modest
to describe my own beautiful namesake, but I own
to such a prejudice in favor of this flower and its
brilliant and unmatchable flame-pink, that I could

149

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

not under the circumstances write dispassionately
of it.

The above-mentioned sextet, then, I would
say, comprises several of the newer varieties of
gladiolus whose interesting color and fine form
fit them particularly for garden groupings of orig-
inality and charm. Of other fine varieties I shall
presently speak, but these are really marvellous
for beauty. One has but to see them to feel ideas
for placing them, flocking softly to one's brain.
Next year, oh, next year!

It is impossible to overpraise the cool elegance of
gladiolus Peace. Its flowers are milky -white (color
chart, Blanc de lait No. 1) with well-defined nar-
row stripes on the lower petals, far back in the
throat, of rosy magenta (color chart, Magenta
rougeatre No. 1). The variety is said to be un-
surpassed for cutting, as the flowers keep well in
water, and buds will open the entire length of the
spike. Peace is surely the noblest white gladiolus.
Its large flower, the slender violet markings so well
within the throat that there is hardly an effect of
color, gives one the impression of a pure white spike
of bloom which had once looked upon an evening
sky.

Two gladioli with charmingly suggestive names

150

THE NEWER GLADIOLI

are Dawn and Afterglow. Dawn, the lovely and
poetic both in name and in look, has for its gen-
eral color salmon-carmine (color chart, Carmin
saumone No. 1). In my own tongue I should
call this flower suffused with delicate coral-pink
— the buds like the palest coral from Naples —
these buds, too, gracefully drooping with a large
softness peculiarly their own. Dawn — what sug-
gestion in the name ! Dawn rising among well-
established groups of the Japanese anemones
Whirlwind or Beaute Parfaite; Dawn with the
salmon-pink geranium Beaute Poitevine; Dawn
in conjunction with Niagara — all these are sure
to prove arrangements to charm one's eye in mid-
summer. There is a salmon-pink balsam above
which Dawn might be enchanting. Afterglow
greatly caught my fancy. In general tone it is a
flesh-pink (color chart, Rose carne No. 4), with
throat markings, very apparent, lilac-purple (chart,
Fuchsine No. 4). A rich salmon of generally the
same tone in all its flowers would be my own
description of it.

Taconic I had opportunity to observe closely
last August; its general color is mauve-rose (Rose
malvace No. 2), though the flakes of white very
finely distributed over the prevailing tone make

151

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

it difficult to exactly place the color. Its mark-
ings are of carmine-purple (Pourpre carmine No.
3), slim, narrow lines. The effect of the flower
was of a beautiful warm pink flaked and feath-
ered with white, as in a Breeder tulip; the mark-
ings, however, much more delicate.

Philadelphia and Evolution come next to mind;
the former in color mauve-rose (chart, Rose mal-
vace No. 1), clear pale rose-pink tone, fine form,
a wide, large flower with sharp, narrow markings
in the throat, of carmine-purple (chart, Pourpre
carmine No. 3). Evolution's prevailing tone is
mauve-rose (chart, Rose malvace No. 1, flaked
with No. 4 on the same plate, and with dark old-
rose — chart, Rose brule No. 3). The anthers of
this pair of lovely gladioli, with their pale-pink
tones — the anthers are of the shade called bluish
lilac (Lilas bleuatre No. 1) — give genuine distinc-
tion to these flowers.

Gladiolus Rosella is a lovely thing. In its
main tone carmine-purple (chart, Pourpre car-
mine No. 1, with its throat markings No. 3 on
the same plate), the effect is of a huge flower of
rich orchid-like pink, very beautiful, a very open,
spreading flower. Rosella above ageratum Stella
Gurney cannot fail to be a success in color plant-

THE NEWER GLADIOLI

ings; Rosella below Salvia azurea, with the an-
nual pink mallow near by; and, last, Rosella with
Baron Hulot, that small-flowered but ever-needed
gladiolus of the color known as bishop's violet
(chart, Violet eveque No. 4) . I am myself minded
to grow Baron Hulot in the midst of ageratum
Stella Gurney — precisely as one lets a colony of
tulips appear above forget-me-not; and Baron
Hulot would be also most perfect among the fine
creamy flowers of chrysanthemum Garza.

With a few very short descriptions I have done.
Senator Volland is an interesting flower, the gen-
eral tone of its petals bright violet (chart, Violet
de campanule No. 1). Blotches of amaranth
(chart, Amarante No. 4), with yellow- white spaces
below these, occur on the inferior petals, with a
lovely mottling of the amaranth on these lower
petals as well. "Bright violet" does not describe
the color of this flower to me as well as pale
cool lavender, with richer lavender or purple on
the throat, flakes of a true cream color upon the
purple. Canary-bird, with its clear light yellow
(no visible markings of any other color), is most
charming in combination with Senator Volland.
And the Senator again might stand to great ad-
vantage before tall groups of Physostegia Virginica,

153

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

var. rosea, the soft rosy false dragon's-head. The
color of Canary-bird on the chart is sulphur-yel-
low (Jaune soufre No. 1).

Isaac Buchanan may not be a new gladiolus
but it was new to me — a lemon-flaked soft pink,
the flakes giving a charming effect. The flower
is not large, but rare in color, and above Phlox
Drummondii, var. lutea, an interesting effect should
be got. Snowbird is a lovely white with pinkish-
violet slender markings in the throat; La Luna,
a soft creamy white with a very clearly defined
marking of richest Pompeiian red on the throat;
California, a pinkish lavender gladiolus, is an ex-
cellent color for use with America; Princess AI-
tiere, a very large pure white with royal-purple
markings on the lower petals; and Independence,
a magnificent salmon-pink, very light in tone, re-
minding me in a general way of the fine old Wil-
liam Falconer, but far and away better in type —
every gladiolus named here is to me worth getting
and growing.

I emphatically advise the buying of small quan-
tities of these bulbs as a starter, as one would
with fine tulips; the careful labelling, staking,
comparing with other flowers differing in form,
color, and habit but blooming simultaneously; and,

154

THE NEWER GLADIOLI

most necessary of all, the note-making in one's
little book — that little book which should never
be in the house when the gardener is in the garden !
I was greatly interested to learn that florists pre-
fer for cutting in some cases, the gladiolus whose
stems are allowed to bend and twist as they
bloom. A hint of this kind may be valuable for
some of us who grow this superb flower mainly
to put about our houses. It is easy to see the
agreeable variety of line afforded for such purposes
by the gladiolus which has not been strictly
staked.

On going over what has been said, I marvel at
my attempt to write on the glories of this special
flower. I have, in the first place, left out so many
beauties, such for instance as Sulphur King, Mrs.
Frank Pendleton, Jr. (bright rose-pink, a little
deeper toward centre of the flower, the lower
petals blotched with carmine — so remarkable
that a connoisseur writes of it: "Mrs. Pendleton
is in bloom, has a five-foot stalk with twenty
flowers and a smaller offshoot with twelve; it is
simply magnificent"), William Falconer, America,
Kunderd's Glory — there are dozens which should
come into any writing in connection with this
flower. No flower of the garden proves more irre-

155

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

sistible to me than this. Its lovely perpendicular
line first, lily like, irislike; then its truly pris-
matic range of exquisite color. No wonder that
hybridizers in Holland, France, Germany, Great
Britain, and this country have been earnestly
working now for years upon so beautiful a sub-
ject, or that amateur hybridizers are beginning
to crop out in our own land.

The cultivation of the gladiolus is so exceed-
ingly simple; the results so wonderfully reward-
ing; the color effects so certain of accomplish-
ment with flowers which come as true to type
and color as these; there is everything to praise
in this flower, no check to the imagination when
forming one's summer plans with lists of it by
one's side. Gardens of enchantment might easily
be created by the careful use of two annuals such
as dark heliotrope, ageratum Stella Gurney, and
the lavender, cool, pink, and palest-yellow gladi-
olus, mentioned in these pages. A mistake of
judgment would be almost impossible with these
materials in hand.

156

XII
MIDSUMMER POMPS

'Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,
Soon will the musk carnations break and swell,
Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,
Sweet- William with his homely cottage smell,
And stocks in fragrant blow;
Roses that down the alleys shine afar,
And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,
And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,
And the full moon, and the white evening star.*'
— MATTHEW ARNOLD.

XII
MIDSUMMER POMPS

A^J I sat in my garden one fine evening in late June
of the year just gone, my eye wandered over
near-by heads of pale-pink peonies, and beyond
other white ones, to a distant corner where a rather
unusual color effect had appeared. At the back
of this flower group was a tall dark-blue del-
phinium, name unknown; to the right stood the
charming one La France, its round flowerets set
thickly and evenly up the stem, their general
tone a pale pinkish-mauve. Directly below La
France the fingered stems of the lovely perennial
foxglove, Digitalis ambigua, were to be seen. Be-
side the buff foxglove masses of the purple-blue
Campanula persicifolia, erect and delicate, had
place, and the foremost flowers of the group were
gay single pyre thrums, with a high light in the
presence of a few of the common white daisies.
In the warm evening light the flowers seemed to
take on a new aspect. The blue of the tall lark-
spur spires had acquired a translucent quality;

159

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

the little Annchen Mueller roses set thick against
opening gypsophila glowed like rubies; the great
white peonies flushed in the setting sun till one
might fancy that Festiva maxima had magically
become that beauty of beauties in peonies, Ma-
dame Emile Galle.

A few particularly fine delphiniums have this
year attained special perfection in the garden, in
better shades of light blue than any before seen
here, except perhaps for the blue of the old fa-
vorite Cantab and the fine Madame Violet Geslin
which a year ago was a revelation. La France,
elsewhere described, gave great delight. Kelway's
Lovely was remarkable for its overlaid petals of
palest blue and palest lavender. The beauteous
Persimmon, too, was there; its color so truly
sky-blue that when a flower was held against the
heavenly canopy of a fine summer's day, it seemed
to disappear, to melt into its own hue. One
could wish that handsome spring-blooming thing,
muscari Heavenly Blue, relieved of its present
ill-fitting name and the pretty title bestowed in-
stead upon delphinium Persimmon. This it in
very truth describes.

One of those discerning friends who send de-
tails of flowers seen afar off, wrote from England

160

DELPHINIUM LA FRANCE, CAMPANULA PERSICIFOLIA, DIGITALIS
AMBIGUA AND PYRETHRUM

MIDSUMMER POMPS

the first news of the two delphiniums shown facing
page 164; these were prize-winning flowers at
the Holland House show of 1913, and first shown
in 1908. On the left is a marvellous spike of
palest sky-blue and lavender Statuaire Rude.
The enormous size of the flowerets and the man-
ner in which they range themselves loosely up the
stem, joined to a rare beauty in soft color tones,
give this delphinium a peculiar distinction. In
the Alake, at the right of illustration, petals of the
richest blue are overlaid by others of richest vio-
let, affording an effect entirely unique and entirely
sumptuous: delightful to record, the flower is
named for an Indian potentate ! The celebrated
"what" that's in a name never troubles me so
much as in this matter of flower nomenclature.
Most women gardeners who are readers, too, are
sensitive to the fitness of flower names. I have
been ever averse to the naming of flowers for in-
dividuals, unless the individual so honored shall
have rendered some service to horticulture. In
the terminations "Willmotti," "Sargentii," and
other such, we rejoice; similarly in "nigella Miss
Jekyll," "peony Baroness Schroeder"; these bring
most properly and with a certain mental stimulus
to our recollection those whose gardens, whose

161

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

scientific knowledge, or whose writings have been
of world-wide value to the gardening public. But
I could not bring myself to buy a Japanese iris
yclept Hobart J. Park — no, not unless some ac-
count of Mr. Park, his tastes and his doings, should
accompany his name in the plant list. Nor do
I find the name of J. G. Slack peculiarly inviting
when attached to one of that same poetic tribe of
iris. Do seedsmen name flowers for good cus-
tomers ? I mightily fear it ! Names, to be per-
fection, should first carry some descriptive qual-
ity, and next they should be words of beauty.
Many examples might be given: Dawn, most
aptly fit for the lovely pale-pink gladiolus which it
adorns; Capri (a name, of course, to conjure with),
a true felicity as a name for a delphinium of a rav-
ishing tone of sky-blue; Eyebright, for that won-
drous daffodil with scarlet centre; Bonfire, for the
salvia's burning reds; Lady Gay, the happiest hit
in names for that sweet little rose which will
dance anywhere in the sun and wind of June.

A sight most lovely is, of a summer's evening,
to see Delphinium Moerheimi lifting its white spires
of flowers against a green background of shrub-
bery with a blue mist of sea-holly below it, and
in the foreground, rising from gypsophila masses,

162

MIDSUMMER POMPS

other spires of richest rose-pink hollyhock. White
and lavender phloxes in the middle distance add
to the charm of this picture. Tapis Blanc, and
Antonin Mercie, and the little dark balls of box-
trees, and the blooming standard Conrad F. Meyer
roses with their formal flavor, are agreeable acces-
sories, really enhancing the beauty of the freer
flower masses.

As each summer appears and waxes, I think I
have found the companion for sea-holly. One year
it was phlox Coquelicot or its brilliant brother
R. P. Struthers; another year phlox Pantheon
was my favorite for the honor; while last year I
was entirely captivated by the effect of the an-
nual Statice bonduelli, primrose or canary-yellow,
with the blue-gray eryngium. But this season a
large group of the sea-hollies chanced to bloom
beside another group of pentstemon, and a happy
alliance it was, quite the happiest of all. The
brilliant color of the pentstemon, Pentstemon bar-
batus Torreyii, found its perfect concomitant in the
cloudy blues of the eryngium, and the two to-
gether formed a satisfying spectacle. This pent-
stemon, not one of the newer hybrids, I also
liked for use in the house, especially when rising
from bowlfuls of the creamy heads of Hydrangea

163

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

arborescens; the effect, a severe contrast, was good.
The pentstemon is a trifle too near scarlet to be
welcome in my garden — it must remain without
the gate; but in gayer gardens than mine it should
always have place. Lovely it would surely be
above mounds of cream-white zinnias in full bloom
with a sweet pea like Barbara rising back of the
pentstemon.

Sea-holly ! I could sing its praises for pages !
Sea-holly has never seemed to me to find its per-
fect companion for cutting until, in the trial gar-
den, acquaintance was luckily made with the an-
nual Statice sinuata bonduelli. Statice incana has
here been known and loved; Statice latifolia, that
beautiful violet statice which ladies buy on Edin-
burgh streets; but Statice bonduelli, with its deli-
cate yellow blooms, became in a day a prime favor-
ite. The loveliness of its foot-high branching stems
covered with tiny canary-yellow flowers, when
cut and held against the bluish sea-holly, can
hardly be imagined. Gypsophila paniculata, the
double variety, is good with the two, but possibly
the pair are best alone. For out-of-door effect
the statice should not be overlooked; though its
stems are rather sparse, its leaves entirely basal,
it is nevertheless a treasure, and a charming result

164

DELPHINIUMS THE ALAKE AND STATUAIRE RUDE

MIDSUMMER POMPS

occurs when the later mauve variety blooms, with
many heads of a new pale-yellow centaurea gently
forcing their way to the sun through the tiny
lavender statice blossoms.

Gladiolus primulinus hybrids are a delight to
the "garden soul." Exquisite soft tones of pale
yellow with now and again some spikes of a pale
flame-pink, they are most lovely as they grow,
while for cutting, used with Statice bonduelli and
the double gypsophila, nothing could be more
attractive. Add to your arrangement of these
flowers a cluster of that enchanting sweet pea,
Sterling Stent, you shall rejoice in what you have
created. Sterling Stent! I betray a valuable
gardening secret when I tell of him. His color,
according to the French chart, is Laque de Ga-
rance from 1 to 4 with occasional tones of Rouge
peche 4. Beautiful beyond description is he, and
he fadeth not in sun !

And now a word concerning a certain double
rose-colored annual poppy, a poppy which has
become a rose-pink essential to this garden. One
of Button's hollyhocks, a double pink of the exact
tone of these poppies (chart, all shades of Rose
Nilsson), has made a picture here and there, lifting
its tall stems set with rich pink bosses of rosy

165

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

petals above the rounding gypsophilas in whose
lacy masses some poppies softly bloom. So like
are the poppies to the individual hollyhock flowers
that it is as if some of the former had whimsically
decided to grow along a hollyhock stalk. If one
were to try for this effect, a new gladiolus, Display,
should be freely used within the range of vision
here; and the beauteous sea-holly would again
prove its high garden value if groups should be
set in this picture. Among the pink poppies I
very much fancy the white platycodon, P. grandi-
florum album; the pearly tone of these flowers
charming with the gay poppy-blooms, and the
platycodon's smooth pointed cups affording an
interesting contrast to the other's soft fulness of
fringed silk. Gladiolus Display among sea-holly
could not but be excellently effective. It is a
gladiolus of rare beauty.

Let us not pass by the Oriental poppy in our
consideration of the flowers of the poppy tribe.
In the latitude of Boston the fresh pale-green
tufts of the former may be discovered in early
April, a heartening and lovely sight as the last
snows of winter are vanishing before the spring
sun. These have formed in the previous autumn,
but this perennial has a constitution to withstand

166

MIDSUMMER POMPS

the severest of winters. Here is a flower which
does well in any good garden soil, though sunlight
is its prime necessity. Equally vital to its well-
doing is its transplanting when dormant in August
or September, or so I used to think. I know now,
after some experimenting, that the Oriental poppy
can be safely moved in spring as well.

Until two years ago, when some of the varieties
of this flower of recent introduction were revealed
to me, I was ignorant of the development of the
flower.

"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken."

Princess Victoria Louise, the huge bloom of a
delicious rosy-salmon hue, was a sensation. One
who enjoys the delicate suggestion of thin flame
should stand before this flower transported with
delight. And now the list of Bertrand H. Farr,
of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, gives us no less
than thirty varieties of Oriental poppies in only
five of which the word "scarlet" enters into the
descriptions. All the rest verge upon the salmon,
apricot, amaranth, and deep-mulberry shades. The
lighter colors of these newer poppies are, as has
been suggested, very like those of the Shirley
poppy, and how remarkable to find in the larger,

167

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

stronger, and more enduring flowers the charming
color characteristics of that poppy, whose one
defect is its ephemeral quality!

From a color-plate in the list of the plantsman
just mentioned a very beautiful combination of
poppies should be got by using the rich amaranth
Mahony, described as "deep mahogany-maroon,"
but which I should call a blackish mulberry, with
Rose Queen, a fine satiny rose-pink. The revolu-
tion in color in these poppies transforms them at
once into subjects of the greatest interest for the
formal or informal garden, the garden which pre-
cludes the use of scarlet, orange, or any deep
yellow. The rich darkness of Mahony would be
a heavenly sight with the Dropmore anchusa ris-
ing back of it, but for real nobility of effect the
two should be used alone.

Some plants seem a bit dull in their beginnings;
not so with this, for from the first the lovely form
and curve of each leaf is apparent, aside from the
fresh yellow-green of the leaf -group. To fill the
wide spaces of earth which should occur between
plants destined for so rapid and so large a growth,
tulips are suggested; to follow the poppy bloom
and act again as a ground cover, seed of salpi-
glossis sown early, or of tall marigold, whose foli-

168

MIDSUMMER POMPS

age and bloom will in August and September
seem to be the only inhabitants of this part of
the border or the garden. If the objection be
raised that the poppy leaves must shade such
seeds in May and June, I reply that it is easy so
to stake aside a leaf or two of the poppy in many
places as to allow the sun full access to the little
seedlings of annuals.

Shall I be forgiven for returning to the subject
of sea-lavenders, or statices, for a moment ? Seeds
of several varieties started under glass not only
made a pretty effect in rows but became a ne-
cessity for cutting. The variety bonduelli already
mentioned was tried for the first time, taken on
faith and the word of Sutton & Sons. It found
favor at once. Statice sinuata, mauve, came true
to its name, bearing pale-mauve flowers in what
might be called tiny boughs or branches about a
foot from the ground. Statice sinuata Mauve proved
to be of many lovely tones of pale mauve, bluish
mauve, and cream-white. But, oh, the pale-yel-
low variety, S. sinuata bonduelli, again ! In this
we have almost a primrose-yellow Gypsophila pa-
niculata for the making delicate of our bowls and
jars of July flowers. One should see it with sea-
holly. On its fitness for use with Gladiolus primu-

169

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

linus hybrids I have already dwelt; indeed, there
is hardly one flower whose beauty it might not
enhance. And then — amusing to me who dislike
dried flowers for decorative uses — the texture of
all these statices is like that of tissue-paper.
Draw the finger lightly across their flower clusters
when in full bloom and hear the soft rustle of
them! Statice bonduelli against brown-seeding
gypsophila, the single, with the great orange lily,
Lilium superbum, is exceedingly good in effect
because of the yellow-green of the statice and of
the lily-buds. The decorative value of seeds ripe,
but not too ripe, is seldom dwelt upon, but I can
assure the reader that the three things mentioned
make together a most lovely planting for early
August and are equally beautiful when cut.

It may be of interest to set down here a brief
account of trials of some newer gladioli, only of
those which made themselves uncommonly wel-
come. In Display, mentioned above as a fine
neighbor for the rose-colored poppy, I noticed a
flower of very beautiful form — a broad, well-
opened flower of most decided character and good
looks; on its outer petals is a suffusion of Rose
begonia No. 1, deepening toward the outer edges
to Rose vieux No. 2. The anthers bore a dis-

170

MIDSUMMER POMPS

tinct lavender tone, and a fine cream-white on
the lower petals of the gladiolus connected the
darker shades of rose above and below it.

The marvellous Mrs. Frank Pendleton I also
saw a year since for the first time, and this was
an experience apart. The flower, a broad, finely
opened one of white, carried petals all flushed to-
ward the tips with Rose malvace; the markings
of lower petals were of extraordinary richness and
depth of color. In chart colors the nearest to
this tone was Rouge carombier No. 4, but the
plate was really neither dark nor velvety enough.
Rouge Andrinople No. 1 is the tone of these
large oval markings. Mrs. Pendleton is a gladi-
olus in a thousand, and its American origin should
be a matter for pride to all in this country who
cherish their gardens.

The longer I garden, the more deeply do I prize
all flowers in tones of violet or deep, rich purple.
We need more such as foils for paler colors, yes,
and for richer too. The Buddleia is a garden
godsend and, pleasant to record, is rapidly becom-
ing better known. The grace of its habit, the
charming lavenders and purples of its flowery
racemes, not to mention its gray -green foliage and
its absolutely constant bloom make it already of

171

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

value high and wide. At the thought of the vio-
let gladioli the vision of those enchanting wreaths
of lavender held out from every Buddleia plant
floats before my too imaginative eye. The illus-
tration shows a group of Buddleias blooming above
gladiolus America, which in its turn is grown among
hardy French chrysanthemums partly for support
from the latter, partly for succession of bloom in
the trial garden.

Phoebus, Nuage, Abyssine, Colibri, and Satel-
lite are the lavender or violet flowers I would now
name. The first, possessed of long, narrow petals,
whose general tone is of Violet de campanule No.
2, has markings on the inferior petals of Violet
vineux No. 3. These markings are long, pointed
blotches terminating in spaces of tenderest creamy
yellow; the whole a very handsome flower of the
hooded type. In Nuage the throat markings are
of Violet rougeatre No. 4, turning below to Violet
petunia No. 3; the petals are of a grayish lavender,
Violet franc No. 1. Abyssine is a small gladiolus
whose general tone is Violet prune No. 4; a flower
one would not be without, so velvet-soft, so won-
derful in color. Baron Hulot has long been indis-
pensable to us all; Abyssine ranks with Baron
Hulot.

172

BUDDLEIA VARIABILIS MAGNIFICA, WHITE ZINNIA BELOW

MIDSUMMER POMPS

Colibri is a flower of many lovely tones of
mauve and violet, not large but in color unique.
On its three inner petals are narrow central mark-
ings of yellowish cream. The dark edges of the
petals are of Violet pourpre No. 1 ; a lighter tone
is seen toward the centre, though all is so veined
and touched with mauve and violet as to be
difficult to describe.

Satellite is the last of this dark-hued list. Here
the general tone is Violet prune No. 4 relieved by
tones of Amarante in all its shades in the chart.
Two perfectly rounded lower petals of Violet pen-
see No. 4 give an astonishing beauty to the flower.
In my notes concerning it I find this entry: "No
gladiolus to compare with this," coupled with an
admonition to myself to grow it with delphinium
Mrs. J. S. Brunton, or, for a richer effect, among
or beyond the tall phlox Goliath. For those who
would know accurately the color of the delphin-
ium just mentioned, I may add that the first two
shades of Bleu de cobalte factice exactly represent
its petal colors, while its eye is white tinged with
canary -yellow and palest lavender.

Yet another gladiolus, the last; and this is of
those lasts which shall be firsts, for it is a giant
in size of flower and height of stem — a superb

173

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

addition to the ranks of gladioli. London is its
imposing name. In color almost the counterpart
of America, its cool pink eminently fits it for use
with the beautiful lavender gladiolus Badenia.
The flowers of the two are of almost equal size,
measuring four inches on each side of the triangle
made by the petals; and they are quite ravishing
together. Badenia, the purple verbena Dolores,
and that charming hardy phlox Braga used to-
gether in a garden should make a most happy
color arrangement. Gladiolus Satellite, too, is
exceedingly good with phlox Goliath.

I spoke just now of verbena Dolores. To be
explicit as to its color, it has over its fine trusses
or panicles of bloom the darker shades of Bleu
d'aniline, but the flower is much darker than No.
4 of this shade, and has that velvety texture which
gives the dark verbenas a richness possessed only
by the darkest snapdragons.

In the trial garden a few new hardy phloxes as-
serted themselves last year: two or three dozen
planted in the spring of the year before rose in
their might the second season and sent forth glo-
rious trusses of flowers to proclaim their presence.
A first cousin in color to the lovely Elizabeth
Campbell, and very beautiful with it, is Rhyn-

174

MIDSUMMER POMPS

strom, a recent acquaintance. Rhynstrom has a
wonderfully large floweret of a delicious pink; per-
fect it is before phlox Pantheon, as it is dwarf
and of a tone of rose to positively accentuate the
loveliness of the taller of the two. Baron von
Dedem has decidedly the most dazzling hue of
all phloxes. Its opening flowers are nearly if not
quite as brilliant as Coquelicot in full bloom, and
the expanse of its great blossoms makes it in the
garden a far more telling phlox than the latter.
Widar and Braga, two beauties in themselves, lend
themselves well to use as foregrounds for the taller
lavender phloxes E. Danzanvilliers and Antonin
Mercie, again needing to complete the picture
that good verbena Dolores. Phlox Braga is en-
trancing with ageratum Stella Gurney and with
the same humble but most useful annual, Widar,
discreetly used, may afford an effect as subtle as
it is lovely.

The recent vogue of lavender in all sorts of
feminine accessories is known to us all. There is
in this hue a certain refinement, a charm, which
makes it a special favorite for the woman no
longer young. Can it be, I wonder, that the sug-
gestion is taken unconsciously from Nature's own
use of the tone in the waning of summer, from

175

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

those flowers which embroider the roadsides with
lavender-purple in September — aster, ironweed,
the tall liatris? Be this or not a foolish fancy,
there is no flower of more value and of greater
beauty in the September garden than the Bud-
dleia. It is at every stage of growth most lovely,
and in its fulness of bloom a thing to marvel at.
Por an autumn picture, set the variety known as
Magnifica back of phlox Antonin Mercie (in its
second bloom, all first flowers having been cut
immediately upon passing), with masses of green-
white zinnias also in the foreground. Phlox
Jeanne d'Arc, the tall late white, creates a beau-
tiful background for these Buddleias, the graceful
lavender plumes of the latter very delicate against
the round white mounds of the phlox trusses.
Mr. E. H. Wilson, an authority upon Buddleias
as well as upon all other Chinese plants, shrubs,
and trees, suggests the planting of Sorbaria arborea
and its varieties by the brook or pond side in com-
bination with Buddleia. "The effect is every-
thing the most fastidious could wish for."

Also in mid-September, a great group of flow-
ers then in perfection in the trial garden gave ex-
cellent suggestion for a planned planting. This,
altogether a happening in arrangement, was seen

176

MIDSUMMER POMPS

against a trellis covered with leaves of the vine.
Close against the green stood in slender dignity
a group of blooming Helianthus orgyalis, Miss
Mellish, ten feet tall, its blooms of clear yellow
shining against the upper blue. Below the Helian-
thus, Button's Dwarf Primrose sunflower raised
its pale-yellow heads with dark-brown centres,
the yellow-green leaves forming a spreading back-
ground for tall white zinnias arrayed in groups
below. The semi-dwarf lavender phlox Antonin
Mercie, with fragrant creamy-white Acidanthera bi-
color before it, made the foreground of this picture,
and those who would have tones in flowers ranging
from pure chrome-yellow through primrose to lav-
ender and cream-white will do well to plan this
simply made and satisfying group. Introduce a
few hardy asters such as James Ganly, with a bit
of low-growing verbena Dolores in the extreme
foreground, and a delicacy of form and a rich
color accent, too, are at once added to such a
scheme as this.

To return to midsummer flowers — three brief
suggestions and I have done. A rich royal-purple
Antirrhinum, Purple King by name, was excellent
when cut, with Statice bonduelli; the new giants
of double zinnias, rose-colored ones only, were

177

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

permitted to show their stout heads among the
early -flowering white cosmos, the dwarf variety;
and more lovely even than these was the picture
before touched upon of pearly-white platycodon
with fluffy heads of the double rose-pink poppy
encompassing it about. These arrangements may
strike the expert flower gardener as too common-
place to be entertained. I offer them as points
of departure and already think with satisfaction
of the loveliness that may spring from them in
better hands than mine.

178

XIII
GARDEN ACCESSORIES

"Mary, my dear, I am very particular about my baskets.
If ever I lend you my diamonds and you lose them I may
forgive you — I shall know that was an accident; but if I
lend you a basket and you don't return it, don't look me
in the face again." — "Mary's Meadow," J. H. EWING.

XIII
GARDEN ACCESSORIES

AS the pen to the writer, as the brush to the
•* *- painter, so the trowel to the gardener! This
implement must be right — must be, to its user,
perfect. The trowel, for my own hand, is an
English one bought long ago in London and
whose like I have never seen for sale in this coun-
try. It formed a part of the furnishing of the
Vickery Garden Basket shown in the illustration,
and is a small, slender tool. It may be that every
gardener is ready to declare that he or she has the
perfect trowel. Be this as it is, mine has stood
me in good stead for nearly fifteen years, bright
all that time with use. Its dimensions are a bit
unusual. The length of the trowel is over all
thirteen inches, of the blade six and three-quar-
ters. This blade is unusually narrow, only two
inches from edge to edge of curving blade. Handle
and blade are set at a slight angle to each other
and excellent leverage thus secured.

My trowel dwells resplendent in a pigskin

181

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

sheath. No player of the violin, after finishing
with his instrument, ever unscrews his bow or
covers the violin itself with more care than that
with which I wipe my trowel and replace it in
its leathern home. So necessary has my trowel
become to me that I am even now lending it as
a model to a manufacturer of toofc; and my hope
is that trowels of this type may soon find their
way into the hands of all those who feel with
me that without perfection here the work must
languish.

The Vickery Garden Basket, mentioned above,
is as convenient as such a thing may be. Fitted
garden baskets, however, are apt to be unsuited
to individual needs. Either they contain articles
useless to their owner or they lack the things he
cannot do without.

Twelve or thirteen dollars, according to a writer
in "The Garden Magazine," will supply the ama-
teur with all tools absolutely necessary for his
garden; and this is based upon the use of the
best in tools, not the cheapest. The bill becomes
higher when one begins to add to these necessaries
little expediters and simplifiers of garden work;
but if such additions are made only occasionally
the financial strain cannot be severely felt. Thus,

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GARDEN ACCESSORIES

for instance, wall nails with the short, sharp point
and the lead arm so easily bent are wonderful
first aids for the putting up of ramblers or of such
creepers as Euonymus radicans, which seldom
seems inclined to take hold of a wall of its own
motion. There is the fascinating tool known as
"cueille-fleurs" which a dear traveller once brought
to me from France, and which is, I think, now ob-
tainable in this country. A rod about a yard in
length has at its farther end small scissors which
cut and hold a flower, and these are opened and
closed by a small arrangement in the handle of
the rod. Designed for reaching into a wide border
or up above one's head, this is a useful addition
to gardening aids. Raffia tape on a spool, with
a hook which may be caught in a belt or button-
hole, is something which it is delightful to find
at one's hand, and verbena pins of galvanized
wire are resources which one appreciates as ver-
benas commence to throw about their branching
stems in June. A small steel finger-cover I have
often used for light cultivation around small
lesser plants; and in our gardening those stout
paper bags in which the Dutch bulbs come are
never thrown out, but kept for bulbs of gladioli
which must be sorted into their varieties at the

183

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

very time when spring-flowering bulbs go into the
ground.

Those three-piece sets of garden tools — rake,
hoe, and spade — known as ladies' sizes are not
only constantly in my own hand, but are evidently
regarded with some favor by those members of
the sterner sex whose business it is to keep the
garden trim. These tools have small heads, but
handles of the regulation length, and far be it from
me to find fault if the little neatnesses of the gar-
den can be best maintained by the use of these
ladies' sizes.

Without the Capitol Lawn Edger, a marvel of
a little six-inch lawn-mower going rapidly about
on one wheel, we could not garden. "The tyr-
anny of the grass edge," as Miss Jekyll calls it,
loses some of its severity when this small edger
is at hand. Only one going over of an edge with
scissors is ever necessary after these little knives,
carried along by their one little wheel, have
shaved the turf finely and evenly at the edge of
walk or bed.

In labels an ingenious thing from England has
lately presented itself. This is shown in the
illustration of the Vickery Garden Basket, ris-
ing from one edge of the basket. It consists of

184

GARDEN ACCESSORIES

a stout wire so bent as to hold the somewhat
shield-shaped wooden name-piece which swings
from it. The label has these advantages over the
average slender wooden ones which are thrust
into the ground, that it is far enough above the
earth to be kept clean, that one does not have
to bend so low to read it, and that it is really
more readily seen than the accustomed type. At
a recent convention of florists' societies, accom-
panied by a show of flowers growing, the labels
used were very favorably mentioned. Painted
grass-green, they were lettered in white, and, while
names were particularly clear, the labels them-
selves were exceedingly unobtrusive. Not that
the flower enthusiast ever objects to the presence
of labels; no, it is too often their absence which
he has to deplore. Half the pleasure in a fine
garden lies in an acquaintance with the correct
names of its plant inhabitants. To be sure, these
labels, as Mr. Bowles somewhere plaintively re-
marks, at times become tombstones. Even then,
how much better to have loved, learned the name,
and lost than never to have loved at all.

Two sets of the widely used Munstead baskets,
whose picture is shown herewith, have hardly suf-
ficed me during the last twenty years, and these

185

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

are now weakening under continuous use. In
these sets or nests there are three baskets — or
really one might call them willow trays with
handles — and better gathering baskets for flowers
I never hope to find. They carry the name of
Miss Jekyll's place and were designed by her.
The sweet-pea basket shown is somewhat on the
order of the Munstead basket, but the handle is
higher and the pointed steel rod, by means of
which the whole may stand upright in the ground,
is the addition which makes this of peculiar use.
A sweet-pea basket it is called, and I can testify
heartily to its garden value. Two bowl-shaped
baskets of split bamboo have been my compan-
ions in the garden for many years, light, capacious,
convenient, and very beautiful to send about the
neighborhood filled with flowers. Especially do I
recall their lovely appearance when holding Clarkia
of that most charming type known as Button's
Salmon Queen. These bamboo bowls are Japa-
nese. From Japan, too, come the small brown
baskets (of which we have no picture) with arching
handles entirely made of twigs woven roughly to-
gether; little boat-shaped things these, and when
filled in April with crocus, scilla, and Iris reticu-
lata, they are like entrancing bits of woodland

186

THE TROWEL, THE LABEL, AND VARIOUS BASKETS

GARDEN ACCESSORIES

brought within doors. From some Chinese mis-
sion station came the nest of bucket-shaped bas-
kets woven of coarsely split strips of an unfamiliar
wood and stained dark brown. These are, I
understand, beyond our getting now; I shall,
therefore, not describe them further than to say
that their shape and lightness have combined to
make them indispensable. And last, the little
straw plates woven in North Carolina of a native
grass are most desirable additions to garden fur-
nishings, light, convenient, perfect for a few apples
or clusters of grapes, and precisely what is needed
when seedlings are to be transplanted, their tray-
like proportions fitting them specially for carrying
such objects as must all be seen at once.

A clever little garden accessory has lately come
to hand. This is called the Crossroads Bulb
Planter. It is a light, round, wooden stake of
some thirteen inches in length. The lower part
of the stake is divided by lines burnt in the wood,
lines to show the depths at which should be planted
the narcissus, hyacinth, tulip, scilla, crocus, and
anemone.

While I know little as to garden-pest remedies
beyond the universal ones common to all gardeners,
the blight which has affected hardy phlox within

187

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

the last few years has really affected my spirits
too. Nothing is a greater menace to August
beauty in our gardens. It is therefore with par-
ticular pleasure that I mention two kinds of pre-
vention, one from no less a gardener than Mr.
W. C. Egan. Mr. Egan advises the cutting off
of all leaves immediately upon their showing signs
of infection. These should be burned. The plants
then are to be sprayed every ten days with Bor-
deaux mixture until the blight disappears. The
other remedy suggested by a friend who has tried
it is a spray of X. L. All once each week from
the time the leaves of phlox appear above ground.
This is declared to be highly effective and I can
from my own knowledge of this spray recommend
it. In our own garden practically nothing more
than this is used for roses or sweet peas. It routs
the enemy quickly and completely, be he leaf-
hopper, aphis, or that deadly worm known as the
rose-slug, who in the twinkling of an eye changes
a fine green rose-leaf into a white skeleton.

So generally is the camera becoming a garden-
ing accessory that a few considerations of its best
use may not be amiss. Garden photography pre-
supposes a trained eye — an eye trained first in
proportion and line, next in composition. Is it not

188

GARDEN ACCESSORIES

true that one's first decision in working with a
camera whose area of exposed film is, say, four or
five inches must be this: Shall the picture be on
lines horizontal or lines perpendicular? To take
the most obvious illustration: tall spruces or pop-
lars cry aloud for a perpendicular framing of line;
apple-trees, round masses of shrubbery, for the
horizontal. So in using the camera in the formal
garden — a bit of high wall, tall cedars perhaps
against it, there is your photographic instruction,
your perpendicular hint most evident; lilies, fox-
glove, hollyhocks in groups suggest the same plan,
while reaches of little spring flowers photographed
for detail always need the horizontal position of
the plate or film, with, what is to me peculiarly
interesting, a high horizon line, well above the
centre of the plate. Round masses of phloxes,
Shasta daisies, usually mean the horizontal posi-
tion likewise. All depends upon the character of
the subjects to be photographed. In getting pic-
tures of whole gardens, too, the good photographer
always considers the general proportions. True,
if the height of garden subjects seems to exceed
the breadth, the perpendicular position is the only
one; if vice versa, the horizontal. It is not often
possible to photograph one's garden in its entirety,

189

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

and fortunately so; for where in the actual gar-
den would be our garden mysteries, our garden
surprises, as we walk and gaze ?

A knowledge on the part of the amateur of some
of these principles of drawing and composition is
the first requirement for successful picture-making
in the garden. Amateurs there are who can do
full justice in black and white to their lovely gar-
dens, in whose productions is suggestion of color,
too, equally and unmistakably delightful. Others
miss the whole spirit of the beauty before them
for lack of knowledge of these simple basic prin-
ciples. Indeed, I am wishing to go a step far-
ther and say that I believe we all know gifted
amateurs addicted to the camera who quite un-
consciously make out more beauty in their gar-
dens and their goodly walks than actually is
therein. And how legitimate this is ! — the art
which can so select and transmute is in itself a
wonderful possession.

190

XIV
GARDENING EXPEDIENTS

"As midsummer approaches the energies of the gar-
dener must be directed towards keeping the garden at a
high level of excellence, and this can only be done by
unceasing care and attention."

— " Saturday in my Garden," FARTHING.

XIV
GARDENING EXPEDIENTS

INGENUITY can nowhere be better exercised
than in the garden art. Small ways of im-
proving, ingenious methods of doing, often result
in benefit quite out of proportion to the amount
of effort employed. Let the gardener ever keep
his eye open to all that he sees going on about
him. A valuable lesson crops out in a least prom-
ising spot. The treatment of a bit of turf before
the electric power-house in our own town gave
me a suggestion of great excellence for mowing.
This grass was cut often during spring and early
summer, and always twice over whenever the
mower was used, first in an easterly and westerly
direction, next time north and south; the grass
never allowed to grow long enough to form a
visible mulch when cut, except in midsummer
when such a mulch formed a protection from
burning suns. Of all this I took careful note,
and our own mowing operations have been car-
ried on in similar fashion. Where, however, there

193

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

is a larger expanse of grass to keep in order, we
mow east and west one day, and a day or so later
north and south; but never under any circum-
stances, in our dry climate, make use of a grass-
catcher.

When sudden clouds darken a hot June sky,
the gardener and I, taking plenty of twine or
raffia, hurriedly tie into sheaves the taller and
more delicate flower-stems such as delphiniums,
Canterbury bells, pyrethrums, physostegias, and
taller phloxes, and other especially precious things.
Taller or shorter stakes are hastily driven in, and
this support and close tying has saved for us
many a raceme and panicle of later bloom. I
commend this plan as excellent, particularly if one's
Garden Club is expected on the following day and
the hostess's heart sickens before the possible dev-
astation by wind and rain.

Flower cutting is a subject by itself and one
not frankly enough discussed. It may be — it con-
stantly is — done wastef ully, and there is not among
us a true gardener who would willingly waste a
flower. It may be done too sparingly, and, to
my thinking, sparing the garden shears spoils the
garden more quickly than the proverbial rod the
child. After years of cutting, certain habits be-

194

GARDENING EXPEDIENTS

come instinctive, and these I will give as numbered
suggestions.

First: If your cutting is done in a formal gar-
den, give a comprehensive look at the whole
before taking up your basket and shears. If it is
a question of which matters more to you, your
house or your garden, always consider the garden.
Notice where flowers are spindling up, where a
ragged spot exists, where bloom is so luxuriant as
to injure the effect, where the blessed require-
ments of balance should be looked after. In the
case of overluxuriance of bloom, a constant hap-
pening, the plant which is advertised as being
"covered with flowers" is considered by discrimi-
nating gardeners as either a monstrosity or a
curiosity. I have no doubt that a painter of
gardens such as Mr. George Elgood insists upon
cutting away a bit here, a mass of color there,
before placing his easel in final position for the
painting of the delicious garden pictures for which
he is renowned. Wealth of bloom ! When shall
we learn that this is a phrase which seldom or
never leads to beauty? Not in quantity dwell
the best joys of gardening ! The advantage in the
idea of too many flowers lies in the fact that here
we have material for picture-making by skilled

195

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

\

and judicious cutting. Who does not love to so
attenuate the rambler rose over the good gateway
by taking out here and there a cane, as to leave
it a characteristic climbing one, throwing its
lovely garlands lightly over their support and per-
mitting all the beauties of stem, thorn, leaf, and
flower to be clearly seen and gratefully enjoyed ?

Second: If cutting for your own or another's
table, take your freshest and finest; if for use in
a church, a crowded hall, or other public place,
it has always seemed to me true flower economy,
and perfect fairness too, justice with generosity
to every one, to cut such flowers as may have but
a day or two more of life, and which will be fresh
and effective for the time in which they must be
exposed to that arch-enemy of flowers, close and
overheated air. My own experience is that by
observing some of these simplest rules a garden
is never touched by the shears without ensuing
improvement. Discordant colors are quickly re-
moved, combined in one's basket or jar with
flowers of tones to quiet and enhance them, and
thus two are the gainers — the garden and the
receiver of the flowery gift.

And now for brief mention of a minor conve-
nience of mine for recording spring or fall orders

196

GARDENING EXPEDIENTS

of plants or bulbs. Taking a strip of heavy manila
paper twenty-four inches long and four deep, I
fold it to open after the manner of those small
books of so-called "views" which one can buy
at any watering-place here or abroad, making a
crease at every two and three-quarters inches,
which secures eight pages at once. On each of
these pages I paste a sheet of writing-paper torn
from a small block of about the size of the page.
The book then, with the addition of a gummed
label for title affixed to outside of upper cover, is
ready for use. The advantage of such a trifle is
that by taking each end of the little note-book at
once and moving the hands in opposite directions,
the whole inner surface of notes lies open at once
before one. Each spring and fall I make a fresh
book of this type. I find it an immeasurable help
where time is precious. Now my bills or invoices
may be left indoors instead of proving fluttering
anxieties in the garden !

Of the little kneeling-mat I use, I would like to
say one word. It is an oblong mat, dark crimson
in color, and is made of nothing more nor less
than two thicknesses of woollen-plush covering
from an old "Shaker" chair. This mat might
in one way be better. Its color might be a bit

197

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

brighter, so that the small convenience should be
more easily discernible on the grass before a border,
or between the beds of a garden. I would suggest
a bright blue or a yellow. Aside from this, the
little arrangement is very perfect for its purpose.
Soft, thick, and light, it is the faithful compan-
ion for all seasons when planting, transplanting, or
cultivating is the order of the day.

For carrying flowers, if baskets happen to be
less conveniently at hand than usual, or where
it might prove a burden to the flower-recipient
to have to return baskets, I often cut double
sheets of heavy wrapping-paper into a roughly
graceful shape of some picturesque arching basket
which is in my memory, leaving two strips at top
for handle. These strips are fastened together
by pins at their ends, the sides of the papers are
joined in the same manner, and the whole pressed
gently open from within, when a practical and
satisfactory receptacle is created for holding and
keeping cool the stems.

Frosts, with us, are due in early September.
Heliotropes are apt to blacken then, Japanese
anemones to receive that baptism of cold from
which they do not recover. To offset such di-
minishings of the garden's color, I keep hidden

198

GARDENING EXPEDIENTS

away back of some white spruces a number of
pots of the good geranium Mrs. E. G. Hill,
whose color, according to Ridgway, is appropri-
ately enough geranium pink. These, when set
among the foliage of plants which have done their
duty by the garden, give a look of gayety at once,
and help enormously to prolong the feeling of
summer which with each day becomes more dear.
Miss Jekyll it surely was who first suggested this
expedient, but I cannot at the moment give
chapter and verse.

Not long ago a delightful defense of the ge-
ranium appeared in "The Point of View" in
"Scribner's Magazine": "The truth of the mat-
ter is, we can none of us get along without the
geranium. Or, if we do, we all of us suffer the
consequences of great empty crying holes in our
flower-beds. We all know how it is. During
May and June and part of July our gardens exult
in crowded ranks of glory upon glory. Most of
our temperamental flowers catch enthusiasm from
one another and have their fling all together.
The result is intoxicating while it lasts, but it is
followed by a disheartening midsummer slump.
Suddenly the mood changes, the petals fall, and
the color and the fragrance are gone. As dull

199

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

and sober as they were erewhile brilliant and ani-
mated, our irises, peonies, roses, foxgloves, lark-
spurs, rockets, present a monotonous sequence of
barren green leaves to our disappointed eyes.
The hopeful annuals are not yet more than in
dubious promise; the phlox and dahlias have
hardly set their buds. The whole garden suffers
eclipse.

"This is precisely the geranium's opportunity,
and we are as cruel as we are stupid if we deny it
to her. She would only fain prevent an entire
collapse and would gently keep the garden's head
above water until such time as it feels like swim-
ming again. She can do this as no one else can,
blooming brightly and quietly here and there
among the discouraged plants, keeping up general
appearances, saving the gardener's self-respect
when passing wayfarers pause to look over his
fence in quest of the color which they have come
to expect of him."

Where shall we look for a stock of geraniums
from which to choose our colors and our types?
No farther than to Maryland, where from White
Marsh Mr. Richard Vincent sends forth a list
of hundreds of beautiful examples, single and
double, ivy-leaved, plants with variegated foliage,

200

GARDENING EXPEDIENTS

seventeen varieties of scented-leaved, one so-
called Regal pelargonium, and nine cactus-flowering
geraniums. All this is a most sumptuous illus-
trated list, a perfect treasure-house for those who
plan gay color for their borders. On page 8 of
this list is not only a geranium shown of loveliest
delicate pink, Berthe de Presilly by name, but
immediately below this picture is another with
a really most happy use of geranium and sweet
alyssum together. I do not stand for the copious
use of Scarlet Bedder, no, not at all; but who
could not find a spot where Alpha with its lovely
small blooms, not unlike a scarlet lychnis, might
not be useful, or, near cream-white stock, Baron
Grubbisch or Rosalda might not create a picture ?
In the geranium lies an almost untouched field of
beautiful and practical resource for gardens. I
am perhaps not too rash in saying that I believe
most of us have not seen over ten varieties of
this flower. We bring to any consideration of it
a preconceived idea of ugly misuse. Why not de-
vote a small portion of ground another season to
trials of the geranium for uses of our own devis-
ing?

If, therefore, the geranium, being a garden
standby and a garden adornment, may be called

201

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

a garden expedient, as indeed it may, one other
faithful flower may aspire to the like honor. The
zinnia has during these last years of gardening
furor come into its own. Among all the charm-
ing things for garden and for house it holds high
place. If one buys, as has before been hinted,
packets of seed of white and flesh-color only,
almost all the softer tones of creamy white and
pink, with often wonderfully arresting hues hardly
describable, are forthcoming. A flower of splen-
did form and substance, a flower of great rigidity
of stem, a flower of generous freedom of bloom,
a flower of the most fascinating decorative possi-
bilities, where would my garden — my September
garden — be without the zinnia !

As for other planting expedients, to my think-
ing, none are better than that of alternate planting
in the row. This, of course, is for formal effect.
Two periods of bloom are so easily thus secured
in practically the same spot. My first experi-
ment in this matter was with Michaelmas daisies,
early and late, as has been told in a former chap-
ter; my next was with a close-set row of pent-
stemon barbatus coccineus and hardy phlox; the
latest and most ambitious was with a border of
spring flowers arranged with the idea of securing

202

GARDENING EXPEDIENTS

much bloom and some beauty in a small given
place. This, too, is fully described elsewhere. A
note in a recent number of "The Garden Maga-
zine" seemed to me full of practical possibilities.
It concerned a system of "planting-cards," and
I will tell of these in the contributor's own words:
"I cut cards of strong white pasteboard, mea-
suring eight by twelve inches, and in the middle of
the narrow side of these I put a loop of string for
hanging. The back of the card is left blank so
that garden notes and memoranda may be writ-
ten there, and on the face of the card I paste the
names of the vegetables to be planted and their
cultural directions. These I obtain from the
catalogues of the seedsman from whom I order
my seeds. For example, with 'Corn5 I paste
first their cultural directions, then under this the
names and descriptions of the four varieties I
intend planting, in the order of their earliness and
lateness. By each variety I make a note in ink
of the quantity of seed ordered and another note,
'Plant every two weeks till July 15.' This is
done for each kind of vegetable and toward the
right I leave a margin of one and one-half inches
on which to note the dates of sowings. These
cards will not take the place of garden note-books

203

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

or of systematic garden records, but have the
advantage of costing nothing and of being ever
ready."

The writer prefaces this description of what
seems a really useful, if slight, gardening expedi-
ent by the remark that such cards save much
time and trouble of a fine spring morning. They
are ready to hand to a man who does garden
work, and form an excellent reminder for oneself
besides. I cannot see why such a little card ar-
rangement might not be equally good for the
recording of notes of flower-seed sowing as well
as for that of seeds of vegetables.

204

XV

THE QUESTION OF THE
GARDENER

The relation between gardener and employer is not
an easy one, especially if the employer is a gardener him-
self. There is apt to be a conflict of tastes; and the better
the gardener the more acute the conflict is likely to be.

— "Studies in Gardening."

XV

THE QUESTION OF THE
GARDENER

write for me" — thus runs a letter lately
from a clever friend — "a manual entitled,
'The Gardener-less Garden/ telling how to get
the most joy for the least trouble ! Or call it
'The Lazy Gardener,' — I like to moon around
in the garden and I do not want to meet the
man with the hoe at every turn. Nor do I like
to work very steadily myself, though I always
think that I shall want to next year.

"'Oh, what is life if, full of care,

We have not time to stand and stare? ' '

Still, a book on gardening in its varying aspects
could hardly omit mention of that man who must
be constantly in sight of those who garden, the
gardener, the paid, the earnest, and almost always
the friendly, assistant in our labors with flowers.
That charming anonymous book, which appeared
first in the form of letters to "The Times" (Lon-

207

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

don), "Studies in Gardening," has a chapter, and
a capital one, which I would commend, and it is
called "Behavior to Gardeners." The few para-
graphs I shall commit to paper on the subject
will deal partly with this matter, the employer's
attitude, and partly with the question of salary
or wages; in the latter case taking the gardener's
own standpoint.

It has often gone to my heart as a worker
among flowers to see the misunderstandings which
all too frequently arise between an American and
his gardener. And so often this is entirely due
to the difference in temperament. The average
gardener, slow, careful, methodical, cannot but
feel the heckling comments of his employer who
wants things done in his way, yet who, in nine
cases out of ten, does not know what that way
is. The gardener must recognize and resent igno-
rance, haste, prejudice, and excessive criticism, and
particularly is this hard to bear because as a rule
the gardener loves his work, cherishes his plants,
and, to his credit be it said, does this more faith-
fully and thoroughly than the untrained gardener
for whom he labors.

To take up the other side, for the employer it
should be set down that he may himself be a

208

THE GARDENER

good amateur gardener, coupling to this an im-
aginative ingenuity which I like to think a char-
acteristic of Americans; and the lack of imagina-
tion, the dumb devotion to traditional methods
of gardening whose outward and visible signs he
cannot but observe on each visit to his garden,
go hard with him. It has been my lot to see
in several cases employer and gardener antag-
onistic, and the best interest of an estate lan-
guishing under such conditions. One must be
friends with one's gardener. I venture to assert
that no great degree of success can be reached
with flowers unless such is the happy case. Take
note of a man's personality, of his temperament,
when next you have occasion to decide upon the
vital figure for your garden. If the candidate
be not " simpatico, " know that your garden can-
not with him be carried happily, successfully along.
That was a refreshing instance of friendship be-
tween master and man shown in an anecdote of
the great London flower exhibition, the Chelsea
Show of May, 1912, and pleasant it is to repeat
it here:

"What a true aristocrat is, was forcibly illus-
trated the other day by an incident concerning
the speech of Sir George Holford, who won the

209

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

King's prize for orchids at the London show, and
who, at the Royal Horticultural Society's dinner
later, deprecated the great praise given him, say-
ing that his friend Mr. Alexander deserved most
of the credit. Mr. Farquhar met him the next
day and complimented him on that portion of his
speech. Sir George said: 'He is my friend; I
never think of him otherwise.' The point of this
illustration lies in the fact that Mr. Alexander is
the baron's gardener; but the baron never thought
of referring to that fact in his speech. He spoke
of him as his friend."

This, more remarkable where class distinctions
are rigorously observed, has timely bearing upon
the relations of master and man in our country
too. But here consideration and respect are not
always lacking. One of my friends, an indefati-
gable worker on her own place, with her gardener,
had spent the months of August, September, and
October in rearranging much of the tree and shrub
planting on her large place, moving hundreds of
coniferous subjects in that time. Through all the
arduous work — and who does not know the nerv-
ous strain upon those who dig and lift, and those
who watch with interest, while an evergreen
travels from one spot to another ? — through all

210

THE GARDENER

this time the young Scotch gardener's solicitude
and anxious effort never flagged. The season
waxed late, weather remained fine, and the chat-
elaine felt that there was still time to move other
trees, her mind's eye full of visions. But it oc-
curred to her that the gardener should now be
given a modicum of rest from his monotonous
labor, that as the fit reward of diligence the word
evergreen should not again that season reach his
ear, and this reflection was at once acted upon.
Often, I believe, is such consideration shown to
the men who are our daily companions and co-
workers in our gardens and without whom, where
large gardening operations are concerned, we
should be lost indeed.

To paraphrase the Johnsonian dictum, much
may be made of a gardener if he be caught young.
The amateur who works constantly among his
flowers has an ideal in his mind: a young, strong,
willing man, an intelligent man, one who shall
be quick not only to carry out his employer's
wishes but to study the tastes and doings of the
garden's owner, to learn to imitate them that he
may do successfully in that master's absence. In
the good professional gardener I have perhaps
fancied that I noticed a certain gentleness of de-

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

meaner, caught, I like to think, from the delicate
and care-taking occupation in which he is daily
engaged. Surprises, however, may come at any
moment — witness the reply of our young Ameri-
can farmer, John, who gardens with zeal and ever-
growing knowledge and gives me a service which
is perfection for its place. John had just returned
from a week's vacation. I was most truly glad
to see him back, and said so, adding: "I missed
you very much last week, John." To my entire
confusion, John, without a trace of a smile, look-
ing me directly in the eye, said with the simplic-
ity of a child and without the least discourtesy:

"I bet you did, Mis' K !"

Gardeners, according to a classification given me
by an expert, should be divided into their several
grades as follows: 1. Gardener-superintendent. 2.
Head gardener. 3. Working gardener. 4. Coach-
man gardener. Whose respective executive duties
are:

1. Has charge of the whole estate and with fore-
men and assistants over the different departments
of greenhouse, garden, farm, and so on.

2. Has charge of greenhouses and garden only,
with foremen and assistant; does no physical work.

3. Does most of the work himself with laborers

THE GARDENER

and takes care of small greenhouse, kitchen garden,
and lawn.

4. Coachman first, gardener at odd times.

While the immigration laws of the United States
classify the gardener as a personal body-servant,
and his admission to this country is free from
restrictions, in England he is not looked upon as
such. He is the gardener in all senses of the word,
and in no well-regulated establishment would the
employer take the liberty of gathering flowers,
fruit, or vegetables without the consent of the
gardener. Unfortunately, in the United States
the majority of gardeners are looked upon as in-
ferior to the chauffeur and the cook. The Amer-
ican gardener, or rather the gardener employed
on American estates, in many instances is the su-
perintendent of the whole, including the farm and
dwelling or mansion; his salary in a few cases
being equal to three thousand dollars per year,
with many privileges.

From the same authority to whom I am indebted
for the classification of the gardener comes also
the following opinion, which I quote verbatim:

"We are unfortunate in this country, not hav-
ing botanic gardens and gardens carried on like
the Royal Horticultural Society in England, where

213

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

the young gardener is taught the thorough, prac-
tical work of the gardener and goes through all
departments, even to the menial work of digging,
attending to furnaces, etc. In England the gar-
dener has to pay an apprenticeship to the head
gardener on some estates. After he has served
an apprenticeship to the head, he becomes an as-
sistant, then journeyman, then foreman. So he
must have at least ten or fifteen years of thorough
experience before he becomes head gardener. The
trouble with the American gardener is that he is
a specialist either in roses, carnations, or orchid-
growing, and has not the all-around knowledge
of the European trained gardener.

"You cannot get an assistant gardener in this
country to-day for much less than fifty-five dol-
lars to sixty dollars per month and board. I
mean an assistant in a large garden, where they
specialize in fruit-trees, rose-growing, carnations,
orchids, palms and foliage plants, and kitchen
garden.

"This, you see, is far better than some wages paid
to gardeners. I do not think the average wages
paid to a gardener in this country would be equal
to one hundred dollars per month. In many in-
stances this is the fault of the gardener himself.

THE GARDENER

Most places that I know of are where gardeners
have made themselves valuable and created the
place. I have in mind at least two instances
where gardeners were employed at sixty dollars
per month and are now getting as high as one
hundred and fifty dollars per month; this all
happening inside of five years."

The question of the gardener's worth in money
is surely to be considered as an important one
to both sides. A discussion of this matter has
lately taken place with a rather unusual freedom
of speech in the columns of one of our best horti-
cultural weeklies; and it may be of interest to
quote here from some of these arguments. One
writer, himself taking the words of a former Sec-
retary of the Treasury of the United States, be-
gins thus: "In every profession which uses a
man's highest powers and lays rigid demand on
his idealism and courage it is always safe to as-
sume that up to a certain point these men can
be overworked and underpaid, because they are
much more concerned with doing their work well
than with being well paid for it. But when this
imposition begins to reduce them and their fami-
lies to poverty, they do not, as do workmen lower
in the scale, go on strikes. They quietly resign

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

and seek some other occupation. It is a com-
monplace among professions in which idealism
plays a part: this idealism is deliberately exploited
to the disadvantage of those of whom it is exacted.'
This, I think, meets the gardener's case exactly,
and, so long as conditions are as they are, garden-
ing must necessarily be a labor of love."

Now hear another, this time on the practical
side: "The burning question seems to be how to
get away from the fifty-dollars-a-month salary
limit. There is no getting away from it so long
as people of wealth are willing to hire a laborer
who calls himself a gardener, at that price. The
remedy, to my mind, is to start a campaign of
education among the people who are wealthy
enough to hire a real gardener and show them
by facts, figures, and statistics that they are losing
money by not doing so. A good gardener is worth
anywhere from one hundred dollars up — just by
the same process of reasoning that one would
employ in engaging a lawyer or doctor.

"The larger the estate, the more the responsibil-
ity. The larger the responsibility, the higher the
salary. If a good man is squeezed down to taking
less than he is worth, the greater the temptation
to make something on the side. If a poor man,

216

THE GARDENER

that is, an ignorant man willing to take laborer's
wages, is hired, then the estate will suffer not
only in that, but in many other ways. So that
it is the employing class that the campaign of
education should be aimed at. It will do no
good to scold the seedsman or other allied inter-
ests; nor to split the ceiling in gardeners' meetings
about the villainy of those fifty-dollar fellows call-
ing themselves gardeners. One hundred dollars
should be the minimum, and two hundred, three
hundred, five hundred, or even more should not be
considered anything out of the way if the train-
ing, experience, and native ability be present. But
the employers have to be educated up to that."

I would not go so far as to say with the writer
just quoted that four and five hundred a month
should be given even to a fine superintendent.
Proportions should be maintained, salaries of the
learned professions kept in mind. Still, I person-
ally believe that one hundred dollars a month is
the least that should be offered by those whose
fortune fits them to employ an excellent profes-
sional gardener.

In all these words, the subject of the gardener,
his salary or wages, and his position, has been only
begun. It is a matter which with the ever-in-

217

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

creasing interest in gardens must and will be more
and more discussed; and in which the gardener's
side must be better looked after by his employer
than at present seems to be the case. "And if
the reply of an alarmed employer might be that
all this means higher wages, our reply is, first, that
after all it is very little; and secondly, that the
garden must be looked at in a new perspective,
not as a tiresome and costly appurtenance every
penny spent upon which is begrudged, while thou-
sands are to be lavished on pictures, old china,
and motor-cars, but as a great influence on life."
There is reasoning here as cogent as it is vig-
orous; I fully agree with this writer, and the more
so when I think of the disproportionate use of
money by those who would keep down the wages
of the men engaged for their gardens; for those
labors which go to produce what is becoming
daily more and more precious to men and women
in this age. Let us who think seriously of these
things not only learn to value the services of our
own gardeners more fully, but let us spread our
convictions upon the subject, and soon must come
a better understanding and agreement between
employer and employed.

218

XVI

NECESSITIES AND LUXURIES
IN GARDEN BOOKS

"What then I say is this, that we ignoramuses who
know very little about it can derive a pure pleasure, not
merely from the contemplation of gardens, but from the
reading of books about them.'*

— Preface to "The Scots Gard'ner," LORD KOSEBBBT.

XVI

NECESSITIES AND LUXURIES
IN GARDEN BOOKS

IBLIOGRAPHIES are dull things — true, too,
of many necessities, and I make no apology,
to those who care for gardening, while dwelling
for a little on garden books. What would winter
be without them? "Summer," as the delightful
David Grayson remarks, "is for activities; winter
for reading." So it seems to the true gardener!
His mental gardening is done while snow is flying,
leaving the physical to be carried out as twigs
begin to bud and grass to green again.

The very watchword of an American gardener's
winter — the slogan, I might almost call it — should
be, "Look it up in Bailey." As the Irish judge
remarked, "I yield to no one in my ignorance of
scientific horticulture," therefore there would be
no sense in my trying to garden without Bailey's
Encyclopedia at my elbow. The six volumes
are indispensable, filled with wonderful horticul-
tural learning, yet not too technical for the begin-

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

ner. Bailey, too, is an absolutely American book,
published altogether for this country, with cul-
tural information for our varying climates of
North, South, and West, containing marvellously
fine articles by specialists. Professor Sargent
writes on the genus Abies; Mr. Groff, of Ontario,
on the gladiolus; Doctor Fernow on forestry; and
so on.

Yes, in the matter of books necessary to garden
knowledge, Bailey is undoubtedly the keystone
of the garden arch. Every other book may go —
this cannot. And, the arch thus firmly held to-
gether, let us proceed to decorate it appropriately
by mentioning as our second necessary book
Miss Jekyll's masterpiece, "Color in the Flower
Garden." Given these two publications, any in-
telligent man or woman with time, money, and
the wish need have nothing ugly in his or her
gardens. This is rather narrowing the matter
down, I admit, but I feel strongly that these are
the words of truth and soberness, and I believe
there are many who will concur in this opinion.
Bailey furnishes us the sound knowledge, the
structure for gardening. Miss Jekyll — who bet-
ter?— provides the structure with a more ex-
quisite and carefully considered garnishment than

GARDEN BOOKS

has ever to my knowledge been given before by
man or woman. With her ingratiating pen, too,
she is so happy in creating pictures that the gar-
den-lover cannot choose but hear and, what is
more, follow in the lovely flowery path. Can
anything surpass the beauty of description of the
various gardens at Munstead Wood in the " Color
in the Flower Garden," or the charm of the pho-
tographic reproductions used to illustrate? Yet
there is something here better than beauty; there
is suggestion which amounts to inspiration — Miss
Jekyll has the faculty of setting all sorts of plans
going in one's head as one reads what she writes;
and I will venture to say that most of her readers
in this country do not attempt to copy slavishly
her ideas but use them as points of departure
for their own plantings. Miss Jekyll has suc-
ceeded not only in so charmingly showing us what
she has planned and accomplished in her Surrey
garden, but in giving a great impulse toward the
finest art of gardening — gardening as a fine art.
We hear it said: "Miss Jekyll's books are writ-
ten for England, and the English climate and con-
ditions." Yes; but here is Bailey to set one
straight culturally for one's own spot in America;
and it is truly surprising to notice the increasing

223

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

numbers of plants which are perfectly suited to
both England and the United States.

And here, since Miss Jekyll's name is con-
stantly appearing and reappearing in current
gardening literature in this country, it may be
interesting to say that "Color in the Flower
Garden" is one of eight books from Miss Jekyll's
pen issued within nine years' time. The others
are: "Wood and Garden," "Home and Garden,"
"Wall and Water Gardens," "Lilies for English
Gardens," "Roses for English Gardens," "Flower
Decoration in the House," and "Children and
Gardens." In answer to questions on my part,
Miss Jekyll quotes her publisher as saying, "I
personally consider 'Color in the Flower Garden'
is the most valuable book yet got out," and
Miss Jekyll herself adds: "I also think 'Color
in the Flower Garden' the most useful." Eight
thousand copies of "House and Garden" have
been printed, and twelve thousand of "Wood
and Garden," and both books are now to be
had in a cheaper edition than the original
one.

Now and again I am asked what I consider
the best simple book for beginners in gardening.
What a pleasure to have one to commend! It is

£24

GARDEN BOOKS

"The Seasons in a Flower Garden," by Miss
Louise Shelton, of Morristown, N. J. I wish this
book had been published twenty years ago — not
five. It gives advice not only lucid and sound,
but always looking toward good color arrange-
ment, the very highest and finishing beauty of
the garden. Here in a small volume may be
found, admirably arranged, the first principles of
good flower gardening.

"Success in Gardening," by Miss Jessie Froth-
ingham, of Princeton, is a book on the order of
Miss Shelton's, and like hers it deserves a wide
public. This, too, is to be commended to the
inexperienced. From January to December gar-
den work is suggested week by week and between
the lines one sees much charming suggestion, the
fruit of a long and sound experience on the part
of the author.

Mrs. Sedgwick's "The Garden Month by
Month" is a capital addition to our garden lit-
erature. Information here is in tabulated form
— easy to get at, so well arranged and classified
as to give at once facts as to any plant or bulb
in general or even occasional cultivation. The
pictures, as may be seen from the two here repro-
duced, are, I believe, the most satisfying photo-

225

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

graphs of flowers and flower groups ever published
in this country. These illustrations in black and
white — a process as yet better than any color-
printing we can achieve here — are remarkably
well done, and present the actual aspect of the
blooming plant to far greater advantage than any
collection of such photographs which I can at pres-
ent call to mind. The beautiful photograph (facing
page 110) of Bellis perennis and Narcissus poeticus
ornatus does more than give a faithful representation
of the two flowers — it suggests a lovely combina-
tion for spring planting; and, in cut facing, notice
the perfect placing of Baptisia australis on the water-
side, with budding delphiniums beyond and sky-blue
water to carry out the lovely blue-toned picture.
(This planting, I am told however, is not as good
as I thought it, as the color of Baptisia is too slaty
in its blue to make a really good effect.)

Of the color chart at the beginning of the book
I cannot speak so highly since comparing it with
the clear tones of the "Repertoire de Couleurs" of
the Chrysanthemum Society of France. The at-
tempt of Mrs. Sedgwick and her publishers in this
direction was a laudable one, for here was a real
need; but again, owing doubtless to the lack of
facilities for color-printing, the result is mediocre

226

From " The Garden Month by Month" By courtesy of Frederick A. Stokes Company
BAPTISIA AUSTRALIS

GARDEN BOOKS

only. I remember, when this book appeared, how
eagerly I wished for it because of the new and
valuable color chart. And it was a disappoint-
ment to have to fall back again upon the French
publication.

An American color chart which has been warmly
received by those interested in this matter of
proper naming of colors is Doctor Robert Ridg-
way's "Color Standards and Color Nomenclature,"
a convenient and beautifully arranged chart, a
boon to the lover of accurate color description of
flowers — a rather costly book, too costly for the
general public; therefore it will be good news to
many that a small edition of this chart is now
in course of preparation, to be offered at a mod-
erate price. When this is done, the first impor-
tant step taken in America toward this highly im-
portant matter to the American gardener will
have been accomplished.

Among luxuries in garden books must be set
down an imposing volume containing some price-
less suggestions concerning color arrangement by
Miss Margaret Waterfield, of England — "Gar-
den Color." Here I first learned of certain beau-
tiful tulips used separately or in lovely combina-
tions described in Miss Waterfield's own chapters

227

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

in the book; and on buying these the results
were to my eye precisely what they were to
hers — a satisfaction that is nothing short of
enchanting. Miss Waterfield's own water-color
sketches, reproduced in her book for purposes of
illustration, are in some cases valuable too to
the gardener who would create pictures as he
gardens. Her manner of planting seems always
to me that of an artist and these drawings from
her hand confirm that impression.

A little volume of totally different character,
but full of meat for a reader interested in these
things, is the recently published "Spring Flow-
ers at Belvoir Castle," by Mr. W. H. Divers,
head gardener to the Duke of Rutland. Writ-
ten in alarmingly dull style, it is still a mine of
riches for the amateur who tries for spring ef-
fects; for certain violas and primroses, aubrietias,
arabises do quite as well in this country as in
England, and, I believe, nearly all tulips and daf-
fodils. These are the flowers most important in
the plantings at Belvoir Castle and, wonderful to
relate, the color descriptions of individual flowers
by Mr. Divers seem to be as accurate as Miss
JekylPs own. This is a remarkable thing; but
just here the remarkableness of this little book

228

GARDEN BOOKS

ceases for me, for the clear photographs with
which it is thickly sprinkled show the most inane
and tiresome arrangement of flowers possible to
conceive, carpet-bedding gone mad. Piteous to
see measured bands of these delicious flowers,
mats of aubrietas studded with single tulip jewels
in geometric arrangements, and one horror called
a "raised flower-bed" in which the same out-of-
date planting is practised. At Belvoir Castle, to
make it worse, a rare chance is surely given by
the great variety of graded slopes apparent in the
pictures for much picturesque informal planting.
The mention of daffodils turns our attention
to two small but important books on this most
fashionable flower. England seems daffodil-mad
to-day; and as we are far behind the mother
country in "gardening finely," yet always looking
to her for sound advice, we shall probably soon
catch the fever. In fact, some of us think we
have symptoms now.

The valuable book for the daffodilist is the
lonograph, "Daffodils," by the Reverend Joseph
Tacobs, of England, in that set of books, "Present
Day Gardening." In these pages all that is
known concerning daffodils up to date is con-
densed, set down by a true lover of the flower,

229

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

and not only a great grower of the daffodil, but
an accomplished writer and authority on the sub-
ject, as well as one in constant demand as a judge
at the English and Continental daffodil shows.
No possessors of this book need to waste time
or money in the purchase of a poor variety of
daffodil, if they consult Mr. Jacobs's chapter,
"Varieties for Garden Beds and Borders." For
prices of these, if one has at hand Barr & Sons' daf-
fodil list (to be had for the asking), which Mr.
Jacobs calls unique in its position in the daffodil
world, there should be no mistake made by the
gardener who would make an excursion into the
wondrous world of yellow, cream, lemon, and
orange flowers. Perianth and trumpet become
terms of intensest interest, and I can testify from
a short experience that once the daffodil catches
the attention of the amateur gardener he never
lets go. Indeed, his hold grows ever stronger
with successive Mays.

Two other Englishmen, novelists of repute,
have given us their gardening experiences in de-
lightfully written volumes. Mr. Rider Haggard's
"A Gardener's Year" makes charming reading,
but is a trifle orchidaceous for one who, like my-
self, has not yet dared to "let go" in that direc-

230

GARDEN BOOKS

tion. Beware of orchids unless the purse is full.
Mr. Eden Philpotts brings all the beauty of his
poetic style to bear upon the subject of "My
Garden," thus deliciously prefacing his book:
"The time has come when, to have a garden, and
not to write about it, is to be notorious." Let
me commend the three chapters on the iris in this
fascinating book to the attention of all iris-lovers.
There never has been, there never can come from
another pen, so poetic, so beautiful a bit of writing
on this alluring flower. Done in entrancing lan-
guage, it tempts the most unyielding to become
an iris-collector. I myself, on reading these de-
scriptions, felt so deep a debt of gratitude to Mr.
Philpotts for them, and for the pleasure which
for years back had been given me by his Dev-
onshire tales, that I experienced a real delight
when the following request caught my eye:
"Many new and exquisite vines may now be ob-
tained, and among lovely things that I am open
to receive from anybody (and will pay carriage)
are Vitis Thunbergii; Vitis Calif ornica, a tremen-
dous grower; Vitis aconitifolia, a gem from China;
and Vitis megaphylla, most distinct of all arrivals
in this family."

My heart leaped with joy as I thought: "Is it

231

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

possible that I, even I, may contribute to Mr.
Philpotts's garden?" Promptly flew out my let-
ters to Massachusetts, to Texas, in quest of the
grapes. Answers showed that at least one of
them could be mine for the asking and a little
besides; but before I had actually ordered the
plant, as good luck would have it, I happened
upon the following passage in "My Garden," un-
seen heretofore: "Green corn is a pleasant vege-
table, and I surprise Americans who come to see
me, by giving them that familiar dish. Let them
have but that and ice, and a squash pie, and they
ask no more, but to be allowed to talk about
themselves and their noble country." Needless to
say that, in so far as I can achieve it, Mr. Eden
Philpotts has gone, goes, and shall go grapeless.

Facilities for procuring new varieties of flower-
ing plants, new colors, in this country are notice-
ably improving. Witness each fresh issue of
American seed and bulb lists. One firm in this
country offered last spring for the first time, as
far as my experience goes, roots of Cantab, the
lovely blue delphinium which Miss Jekyll con-
siders the best of all blues, and which has been
difficult to find in any list, English or American.
Another has a separate list of rare and charming

GARDEN BOOKS

(alas, I must also add high-priced!) things; such
published straws show the direction of the horti-
cultural breeze. May this breeze become a wind
strong enough to bear to us interested in the best
development of gardening in America books by
our own amateurs so delightfully and intelligently
written that what is there set down shall help the
matter with every page.

To return again to catalogues for a moment —
two or three American lists show great care and
constant improvement in this direction, but none
as yet, I believe, quite approach those of R.
Wallace and Sons, of Colchester, England; of
Barr & Sons; of T. Smith, of Newry, Ireland.
Smith's list of spring-blooming plants and al-
pines is of immense value to all as a little refer-
ence-book, complete botanically and with admi-
rable descriptions of color.

Misleading pictures appear to this day in some
of our seed-lists — the beribboned curving drive
through an estate; the copious and vicious use of
some of the early tulips such as Keizerkroon (whose
publicly declared enemy I am and shall be until
it is better used); the round bed which, as an
agreeable man of my acquaintance says, "used to
bust up the front lawn." All these things are still

233

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

forced upon the innocent and ignorant and much
do I wish that a seed and bulb list might be given
us in which there should not be a single actual
error of taste in suggestion, even though that
taste could not meet the wishes of all readers.

Under luxuries in garden books falls a group
whose contents are an addition to letters as well
as to gardening. How rare and choice these are,
and what a pity that all books on so beautiful a
topic cannot be beautiful in themselves, I mean
in their manner of writing! When such do fall
in our way we have very real reason for thanks-
giving, and first in my own affections always stand
the writings of the Honorable Mrs. Boyle, "E.
V. B." — those books

"whose names
Are five sweet symphonies " —

"A Garden of Pleasure," "The Peacock's Pleas-
aunce," "Sylvana's Letters to an Unknown
Friend," "Seven Gardens and a Palace" — prose
as beautiful as any poetry, wandering on over
page after page, all on the delectable matter of
flowers; and in A. F. Sieveking's book a "Proem"
from the same golden pen, which for charm and
grace exceeds all that I have ever read on gar-
dening. It is my fixed belief that the more we

234

GARDEN BOOKS

read books of this high quality the more beauti-
fully shall we garden.

To return for a moment to books of the kind
and type of Miss Waterfield's — the two or three
others which come to mind are Elgood's and Miss
Jekyll's "Some English Gardens"; Sir Herbert
Maxwell's "Scottish Gardens"; "Houses and
Gardens/' by Baillie-Scott. To read these books,
to study their most charming pictures, is not
only to revel in their own beauty, but to be well
started on the way to achieving one's own. Every
illustration in "Some English Gardens" gives
practical suggestion of a principle of beauty, and
with the illuminating text the several lessons are
complete. I would rename this book, and "Per-
fect Gardens" is the daring title I should bestow
upon it.

For books whose color illustrations are worth
possessing, books on flowers of other lands than
England, the lovely volume by the Du Cane sis-
ters is always good to open — "Flowers and Gar-
dens of Japan." Full of charm, too, are Flem-
well's "Alpine Flowers and Gardens," and "The
Flower Fields of Alpine Switzerland," with pic-
tures finely reproduced from beautiful originals.
"Dutch Bulbs and Gardens," by Nixon, Silberrad,

235

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

and Lyall, is a book full of character and beauty
and of special interest to the spring gardener.

Of finer books for those interested in garden
design are Mr. Guy Lowell's "American Gardens"
and T. W. Mawson's "The Art and Craft of
Garden-Making." Two volumes of less size but
of much value are Reginald Blomfield's "The
Formal Garden in England" (whose brilliant first
chapter refuting some of the Robinsonian doc-
trines is greatly to my liking !) and Miss Madeline
Agar's "Garden Design," a very practical recent
book. William Robinson's great book, "The Eng-
lish Flower Garden," has its place, and has ful-
filled, indeed over-fulfilled, its purpose to do away
with "bedding out" and to return to natural
methods of planting; but the extreme views there
set forth, views necessary to convince a settled
public, are better in theory than in practice.

"Studies in Gardening," a book whose contents
first appeared in the form of letters to the "Lon-
don Times" (that journal strictly under promise
not to reveal the name of the author), is a remark-
able book on gardening. Written in a direct and
charming style, full of sound knowledge most
tactfully imparted, it is valuable and captivating
to a degree, and happy is the writer in whom these

236

GARDEN BOOKS

qualities are combined. Unfortunately, this book
is out of print.

Of Mr. E. Augustus Bowles's two newly pub-
lished volumes of the horticultural trilogy, "My
Garden in Spring," "My Garden in Summer,"
and "My Garden in Autumn," I would echo the
comment of an English journal: "We are loath to
close the book, which every true gardener should
read and read again. Like the author's garden,
it is a ' thing of beauty and a joy forever." It
is impossible not to be caught up by so strong a
wave of enthusiasm for plants and the growing of
them as sweeps along these pages. The writer's
learning and his delight in his gardening pursuits
are everywhere in evidence; yet all is so sponta-
neously told that learning and delight are equally
agreeable to the reader. There is in these books
a true ecstasy in gardening.

Before these of Mr. Bowles's there were a few
such books — books carrying this quality of a
spirit of joy in the work among flowers. Such is
Mrs. Stephen Batson's "The Summer Garden of
Pleasure," with such pretty chapter headings as
"Incoming Summer," "High Summer," "The
Rout of August," "Waning Summer." "The
Guild of the Garden Lovers," by Constance

237

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

O'Brien, is to me enchanting in its charm, though
many serious-minded gardeners would think it
but a trifle. "The Garden of Ignorance," by Mrs.
George Cran, also has its diverting niche in my
affections; and last Miss ChappelPs tiny vol-
umes, "Gardening Don'ts" and "More Gardening
Don'ts," which I charge my readers not to miss, if
they are of those who would be light-hearted as
they garden !

So many are the books, so short the time for
reading, even for naming, them ! Let me beg any
reader of my lines to fill his shelves with fine gar-
dening publications as eagerly as he would furnish
his garden-beds with plants, that his borders may
reflect a well-stocked mind and his pleasure in his
flowers then increase a thousandfold.

238

XVII
VARIOUS GARDENS

"Others, again, amongst whom I number myself, love
not only the lore of flowers, and the sight of them and the
fragrance of them, and the growing of them, and the pick-
ing of them and the arranging of them, but also inherit
from Father Adam a natural relish for tilling the ground
from whence they were taken and to which they shall
return."

— "Letters from a Little Garden," JULIANA HORATIA
EWING.

XVII
VARIOUS GARDENS

FF, on reflection, I have an ungratified wish in
•*• gardening, it is the wish to live in a country
where were many fine gardens within easy dis-
tance from my own. There is no sight so stimu-
lating to the gardener as that of other people's
ways of growing and grouping flowers. Thus it
is that horticultural societies make annual and
semi-annual pilgrimage to fine gardens; amateurs
will soon group themselves into such bands as
these, garden clubs go forth bent upon searching
out such lovely and informing sights. For many
of us still, however, all our adventures, like those
of the Vicar of Wakefield, must be by the fireside,
all our travels from the blue bed to the brown.
For these the photograph, the printed page, must
serve for the charming sights themselves.

This book began pianissimo with a rather hesi-
tating account of my own attempts at gardening;
it has continued crescendo as my experience

Mi

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

seemed to broaden and pleasure certainly to in-
crease in planting, working, and writing. And it
ends, thanks to the goodness of stranger and
friend alike, fortissimo and allegro too, with gar-
den picture and garden sketch in writing, the latter
intimate and fresh to a degree, since in most in-
stances it is supplied by the garden's owner. It
will be readily seen that these, like Sir Thomas
More's Utopians, "sett great stoore be theyr
gardeins."

From East to West these gardens lie in a sort
of dipping line across the continent, with the ex-
ception of the Philadelphia example. But before
setting forth on this horticultural journey, there
are here to be noticed pictures of two gardens at
a London flower show — one, though in an unfin-
ished state when photographed, giving excellent
suggestion in design; the other beautiful, rarely
so, for its flower grouping. These were examples
of fine gardening on exhibition at the International
Show of 1912 in London by the English firm of
Wallace & Company, of Colchester — at that
show which will live in the history of horticulture
as the largest and best ever held in Great Britain.
The little sunken garden carries with it a quiet
charm of line and proportion. Perhaps the dry

GARDEN AT LONDON FLOWER SHOW OF 1912

DETAIL OF ANOTHER GARDEN AT LONDON FLOWER SHOW, 1912

VARIOUS GARDENS

wall (farther left of picture) might have been more
beautifully laid, but from the photograph one
catches the precious quality of serenity in a gar-
den. The use of flowers is apparently somewhat
restrained. Eremuri, it will be noticed, are used
at regular intervals, and beside these there are
in this so-called English border iris, anchusa
Dropmore, habranthus, Nepeta Mussini, cerastium,
erigeron (a low, daisylike flower not often seen in
our own gardens), and dianthus.

In the illustration showing the old stone seat —
a vision of beauty and a most lovely example for
the American gardener — the things which sur-
round the seat are for the most part plants with
scented foliage. Campanula Carpatica, however,
may be noticed here; also irises, hypericum, and
again erigeron, a variety by the name of Quaker-
ess. The masses of delicate aspiring flowers back
of the seat and below the Madonna lilies are, I
fancy, either anchusas or heucheras in bloom.
And, may I ask, was ever that flower beloved of
poets and writers of songs, the water-lily, as
perfectly set as in this place? Notice, too, the
small ferns so cunningly placed as to overhang
the pools. In this picture nothing is overdone —
the walls are not smothered under flowers nor is

243

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

the dark water hidden by mats of uninteresting
lily-pads, as is too often the case when one has a
fancy for aquatics.

Taking now our gardens in non-geographical
order, but in their general groups as Eastern,
Western, and Middle Western, we will look first
at the two in the Middle West. This, happily, we
may do through the medium of the pens of the
gardens' owners. The first description is of an
Ohio garden at Gates Mills, not far from Cleve-
land; the second a lawyer's garden in the lively
and agreeable city of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The descriptions follow as given me, even to the
humorous thrust in the line which concludes the
second.

"My garden is like my house; perhaps that is
what all gardens should be. But it has pleased
me to play that the old lady, with New England
traditions, who built the little cottage seventy
years ago, made a garden to go with it, which has
gone on seeding itself and tangling all sorts of
things up together.

"There is an uneven stone walk leading from
the gate to the front door, and before the deed
of the place was in my possession I had planted
on either side of it a border which blooms from

244

TERRACE PLANTING, GARDEN ON NANTUCKET

PHLOX TIME, GARDEN AT GATES MILLS, OHIO

VARIOUS GARDENS

February, when the snowdrops appear, until De-
cember, when the snow covers the chrysanthe-
mums still gayly flowering.

"Old-fashioned flowers have always had the
preference, though I have had to slip in the
lovely blue salvia, Japanese anemone, summer
hyacinths, and others which, alas, the first owner
of my bit of ground never knew. There must be
the historic 'fifty-seven varieties' in these borders,
which are my chiefest joy. Next is the bed
around the sun-dial with its foundation of an old
millstone — for this is a Gates Mills garden. Here
only things with spiky leaves are allowed to grow.
The crocus begins the season; daffodils, scillas, all
sorts of iris, yellow lilies, yuccas, gladioli, mont-
bretias follow in procession until summer hya-
cinths and red-hot poker end the summer in a
charming combination, and not one of them but
has the long, slender leaves. My latest joy is
my white border connecting two sets of beds where
many old and some new fashioned flowers are
massed according to a plan which does change
somewhat every year, as my visions of color com-
binations vary. What a lot of white flowers one
can find to crowd in front of the background of
tall white phlox! For close planting carries out

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

my pretending that it is really Mrs. Gates's old
garden instead of an imitation of a dozen years'
growth.

"Here are all the white-flowering bulbs, and
rock-cress, sweet-william, columbine, lilies, peo-
nies, Japanese anemones, achilleas, the lovely
Campanula pyramidalis, summer hyacinths, fever-
fews; and after the bulbs have faded away every
spot is filled with white annuals.

"This border has just had its first birthday, but
in my imagination — that first necessity of a
garden — a charming and still more charming
future stretches out before this band of lovely
whiteness.

"These and the long arbor with its flowering
vines are the parts of my garden nearest my
heart, the rest is just garden."

The description of the Grand Rapids garden
is next in order.

"The conditions to which my flower garden is
subject have made it what it is. These condi-
tions are:

"1. It is close to my house and not so large
but that every part of it is always in full view
therefrom.

"2. I restrict myself to a garden which I can

246

VARIOUS GARDENS

care for without a regular gardener and with only
occasional hired help.

"Because of the first of these conditions, the
garden is always on parade. It must, therefore,
be always sightly throughout its entire extent.
So it must be treated as a whole; for pleasing
beds, or groups of flowers, without regard to the
condition at all times of the rest of the garden,
will not produce a result always beautiful in its
entirety. That effect will be the result not of the
flowers alone, but of flowers, plants, and foliage,
so massed and grouped as always, throughout the
season's changes, to convey to the eye a pleasing
impression of the garden as a whole. This involves
consideration of the flowers, foliage, and habit of
growth of each of the plants used, and of the
time of its growth, its bloom, its decline and
decay. It requires the proper grouping of all
that the garden contains, so as to cover the
ground, to hide unsightly plants in their decline,
to present always a pleasing sky-line, and to se-
cure harmony of color in foliage as well as in
flowers. This is to treat the garden as a picture;
and these things are the main factors in its com-
position. To make the picture effective in its
place there must be a relatively large quantity of

247

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

flowers, the high lights of the picture, and also an
unbroken succession of bloom. The flowers chosen
for this purpose should be reliable and prolific
bloomers, and I think that only such kinds should
be used as yield the most beautiful and effective
flowers that can be had at the particular blooming
season of each. Why seek to get results by using
flowers insignificant in themselves when these re-
sults may be got with flowers that are more
beautiful as single specimens?

"To obtain my unbroken succession of bloom
and the other results I have outlined, I have used
the following: crocuses, daffodils, Darwin tulips,
German irises and pink Oriental poppies, peonies,
Thunberg's lilies, larkspurs and Madonna lilies,
Japanese irises, pink annual poppies, phloxes,
late aconites, and Japanese anemones. These may
be called my main-line forces, although nothing in
the garden is planted in rows or in lines or accord-
ing to any set figure or design. May -flowering
scillas, heucheras, Rocky Mountain columbines,
bleeding-hearts, brodiaeas, ixias, lupines, gladioli,
etc., come in as aids or reinforcements to add to
the beauty and gay effect. Peonies and late aco-
nites, on account of their lasting foliage, are used
not only for their flowers but with reference to

348

VARIOUS GARDENS

the sky-line and to desired screen effects. In this
I am greatly aided also by the thalictrums and
native ferns. Out of beds of the last-named come
up many daffodils, tulips, and lilies. The peonies
allow the larkspurs as well as the Dutch bulbs to
retire and hide their unsightliness after they have
bloomed. By the aid of the lasting foliage and
difference in height of these plants, I am able
also to obtain a varied and pleasing sky-line and
to keep the ground from showing bare or unsightly
spots. I have had more difficulty in treating the
garden picture as regards these things than in
matters relating to flowers and color in the
garden.

"My way of treating the garden for succes-
sional bloom and for continuous sightliness in-
volves planting many crops in the same space.
No plant has any exclusive preserve in my gar-
den. All are set in irregular groups or drifts, one
kind crowded on top of another. In the same
space the various kinds come up, put forth leaves
and branches, bloom, and die down, or serve as
ground screen — all in their allotted times, and
according to their respective habits. This pro-
miscuous commingling and crowding of races in-
volves a "struggle for existence'; but since things

249

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

follow in succession it is chiefly a question of suf-
ficient fertilizing, rather than of room or of light
and air, so far as the flowers and garden plants
are concerned. It is the weeds that this struggle
bears most heavily upon; for such thick and con-
stant cover as results from my scheme of planting
holds them down. It also holds moisture and
minimizes the necessity of cultivation, and thereby
I satisfy the second of the conditions which I
stated at the beginning.

"A little thought will show that a garden main-
tained on the plan outlined is no place for an-
nuals or for most of the biennials. It is too
crowded for their development, and, moreover,
too much labor is involved in raising and renew-
ing them. For the same reasons perennials that
are difficult, or that run out in a year or two, are
excluded, although I am still over-indulgent to
the peach-leaved campanulas, the late-flowering
aconites (chiefly on account of their height and
the lateness and excellence of their foliage), and
to the capricious Rocky Mountain columbine.

"It is obvious, too, that color and color schemes
are not the first thought, or the last word, in my
garden. Flowers are not invited to grow there
because they are pink or blue or mauve or this or

250

VARIOUS GARDENS

that art shade. Color is not the test determin-
ing whether a given species or variety can come
in, but, so far as it is a test at all, whether it
must stay out. Even if the color be satisfactory
and harmonious, yet if the plant is bad in its
habits, if it sprawls and is unsightly, if it is hog-
gish and overruns its neighbors, it cannot get in.
Color in this garden is a material factor in making
the picture, only in the same way as beauty of
foliage or of sky-line. Its importance may be
greater, but that is a matter of degree only.
Beauty of color and color harmony are essential,
because if the colors are bad, or if they jar, the
effect of the picture will be spoiled. Color com-
binations and color schemes have no other recog-
nition, however.

"If this be treason, make the most of it."

Now come four Eastern gardens. Two are upon
the Atlantic coast, one in the hills of Berkshire,
and the third in a suburb of the most finished of
all American suburbs, those of Philadelphia.

On Nantucket Island has been created a garden
spot which, from its very pictures, so delights me
that to sometime see it, its lights and shadows,
its lovely watery distances, is a thing to expect

251

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

with special pleasure. This garden is the more
successful when one hears that its space is re-
stricted, that its proportions are perhaps one
hundred and fifty feet deep by fifty wide, and that
the ground was originally the site of an ancient
dwelling. The old levels of cellar and main floor
were scrupulously and closely retained giving the
necessary drop for two short flights of low steps.
Along the street line there is a fence. Stepping-
stones go through the entire garden, which over-
looks at the opposite end the harbor of Nantucket.
As foreground for this lovely picture of water,
tree and flower have been used with a most ex-
cellent eye for effect. The house is connected
with the garden by a terrace of brick and against
the wall of this terrace is a fine border of annual
flowers. The first or lower garden, next the
house, is oblong; the second square; the third
informal in treatment, with the sea-lavender lead-
ing up to a charming little pool with goldfish
— papyrus growing there.

In the cut, page 244, showing a part of the ter-
race wall, one notices the old-time, fan-shaped
supports for roses always a feature of the early
New England garden. Here are seen tall fox-
gloves rising from groups of the wonderful Iris

VARIOUS GARDENS

Kaempferi, the little pointed box-tree at the left
a good foil for the gay colors of the flowers.
Everywhere balance, symmetry — that regularity
which is perhaps more precious for the small
piece of ground than for the large, since it pro-
duces, in little, effects both agreeable and fin-
ished. In the foreground of the highest garden
shown in the illustration a perfect use is made of
Statice latifolia, or, appropriately, sea-lavender.
Below these plants, the beauty of whose purple
bloom against the distant blues can be but faintly
imagined, one may notice little gleams of sweet
alyssum and, looking straight toward the sea,
their flowers shining against the green of the next
lower level, one sees delphiniums most happily in-
troduced into the picture. Flowers found in this
garden are, with others, Shasta daisies and many
purple and yellow Japanese irises; hedges and
box-trees everywhere to form enclosures, to af-
ford backgrounds, to give that richness of dark
green always peculiarly effective near the sea.
The photograph of this garden with its sight of
ocean is one of the loveliest gardening composi-
tions ever falling beneath my eye; I am delighted
that it may grace these pages (frontispiece).
At Swampscott, Mass., set upon a great ram-

253

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

part of rock overhanging the Atlantic, is a series
of small gardens on a property of three acres. The
forms and flowers of these gardens send one's
thoughts swiftly to divers beautiful parts of the
earth. The house in this case has a site of great
picturesqueness. It is also true that good minds
as well as good gardeners have been at work here.
Ingenious, indeed brilliant, use has been made of
boldly varying levels, of the suddenly changing out-
lines of the property as a whole, of the glorious
outlook upon the sea.

Entrance to the house from the highroad is
obtained through a bit of wooded land, passing
on the left the first of a group of gardens on lower
and yet lower levels. This is the sunken garden
of one hundred by fifty feet. Surrounded by a
broad grass walk, bordered on one side by an
arrangement for two periods of bloom of dahlias
and hollyhocks, this is an English garden of per-
ennials. The design shows four balanced beds,
with central features in the form of three circular
ones. Of these the middle is kept in turf, the
endmost circles delightfully planted as color-har-
monizing foci for their gay surroundings, in hues
of lavender and white. One of these circles is
filled with white geranium bordered by lavender-

254

AT SWAMPSCOTT, MASSACHUSETTS

FERNBROOK, LENOX, MASSACHUSETTS

VARIOUS GARDENS

blue ageratum, the other has for occupants helio-
tropes encircled by a band of sweet alyssum.

Terraces are here with fine retaining walls, well-
planted terraces; curving stone steps and walks
also curving follow the line of the precipitous
rock which divides the wild from the cultivated
part of this place; a charming fan-shaped rose-
garden occupies a secluded spot but with its own
view of the ocean. A little platform of green-
sward enclosed by a square-clipped hedge of privet
forms a base for the fine Italian well-head with
its "overthrow" of restrained design shown in the
illustration. All this clear green and dazzling ar-
chitectural whiteness shines against the blue ex-
panse of sea and sky. And in another portion of
the place such blooming of Iris Kaempferi takes
place as is seldom seen away from the Flowery
Kingdom. (By the by, why does not some one
have the sense and grace to call his or her garden
by this ever-charming title ?)

It is with the mind's eye only that I have seen
this garden. May it be my happy lot to walk in
it at no distant time. While the work it requires
is done, its mistress assures me, only by herself and
her Italian gardener, the harvest of flowers here
above the "unharvested sea" is truly remarkable.

255

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

There is at Lenox, in the Berkshire Hills, a place
with the musical name of Fernbrook Farm. It
is high on one of the glorious hillsides between
Pittsfield and Lenox and reached by a romantic
drive through pretty by-roads. The house itself
is of white stucco and dark wood and here the
eye catches first of all, perhaps, the decorative use
of fruit, especially of rich black grapes, as the
vines are caught upward above windows of the sec-
ond story. The clusters hang clear and beauti-
ful from the stem all the way up; few leaves are
allowed to remain. Japanese plums and crab-
apples grow as espaliers, and the effect of this
bold decoration of fruit and leaf against the white
stucco gives an Italian touch, a lovely reminis-
cence of that land of sun and shadow.

At the back of this house, looking into the
mountainside, there is first a grass terrace in a
court made by the projection of two wings of the
house upon it; a few steps down a second and
much larger terrace. Here is a fine sun-dial, a
bronze cupid astride a globe — "Love Ruling the
World," modelled by the artist-owner of Fern-
brook. Flowers are so disposed about the ped-
estal as to beautifully adorn it. At the farther
side of this main terrace, through a small per-

256

VARIOUS GARDENS

gola covered with berried matrimony-vine occurs
a descent of a few steps into a long pleached walk
of apple-trees running through the kitchen garden.
In places the steep balustrades leading from the
first to the second terraces are accented by the
use of dwarf apple-trees in pots. These were in
fruit when I saw them, and the shining red globes
in the green leaves against that Italianesque wall
of white were again good to see. Italian gourds
hanging through roofs of light pavilions and
against trellises showed a fine use of what to me
was a new horticultural subject, physalis, the
Chinese lantern plant, with its vermilion fruit
lighting the borders against the house on the up-
per terrace, and higher up its color was repeated
by festoons of scarlet peppers and tomatoes hung
with careless art against the plastered wall. Ac-
tinidia arguta, the fine creeper from Japan, and
our native bittersweet were in evidence here, very
much thinned as to branches but full of fruit.
The garden proper at Fernbrook Farm has been
built on a bit of level and projecting ground be-
fore and to the left of the entrance front of the
house. This is an oblong hedged garden planted
gayly in long narrow beds with delphiniums, roses,
and very fine scabiosas. At the garden's end

257

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

farthest from the entrance is a circular pavilion,
an informal gazeebo, its roof a light framework
of rods or canes. Along these run bold vines full
of blue-black clusters, this fruit of the vine hung
against a distance of valley and mountain rich
in every autumn color and bound together by
that heavenly October haze of blue.

It was in October, too, that I saw another
garden, Fancy Field, at Chestnut Hill, near Phil-
adelphia. In the soft autumnal light the summer
freshness of all green was touched here almost
to the gray-greens of Italy. Would that my
memory of this garden equalled my delight in it !
I might then hope to describe with some degree
of accuracy what I so enjoyed upon that day.
My recollection is of garden after garden, one
out-of-door apartment after another, perfectly
connected, with a most knowing use of structural
green in the way of hedges low and high; of the
quiet effect of broad spaces of hedge-enclosed turf;
of one garden modelled upon the Lemon Garden
of the Villa Colonna at Rome; of another, illus-
trated here, a reproduction of the Dutch Garden
at Hampton Court made in the time of William
and Mary; of a third, a knot or parterre fashioned
after an ancient pattern still existing somewhere

258

VARIOUS GARDENS

among the English dukeries — all these enchant-
ingly enclosed and giving a series of delightful
surprises; and last, a remarkable pergola at the
back of all the gardens and bounding their whole
length. This, very high, was so well proportioned
that to look either at or through it gave instant
pleasure. At the moment, too, all of its great
rose-vines carried but bare stems. In this gar-
den one had everywhere the sense of proportions
finely maintained. The use of dwarf fruit-trees
and of espaliers; of box, of privet, and of poplar
in hedging; of slight but effective bits of terra
cotta, marble, and stone now and again in these
gardens, was exceedingly good. Indeed, a few
pieces of bright Italian faience made one spot in
the garden "si gai et si coquette" that the bright-
ness of summer itself seemed to be caught and
held there for the further beauty of that autumn
day.

Is there not true and tranquil beauty in the
picture of one of these gardens ? — June, with some
late foxgloves just overlapping the first delphin-
iums; and the cleverest introduction of the two
dogs into the picture, quite unconscious that they
are the living repetitions of those lions cut in
stone!

259

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

The end of my chapter comes quite naturally
with those gardens which lie toward the setting
sun.

Two gardens near Tacoma fill me with envy
of that wonderful climate of the Pacific coast.
Lavender flourishes in Tacoma gardens; the broom
is magnificent in May on the prairies which stretch
from Tacoma toward American Lake some ten or
twelve miles from the city; and here the heaths
are at home as well, both Scotch and Mediter-
ranean. The winter is mild, with much rain; the
summer cool but rainless, therefore constant water-
ing of lawns and flowers in the latter season is
the practice. A glorious picture of natural plant-
ing presents itself upon these prairies where superb
spruce-trees are so cunningly grouped in colonies
as to give an appearance of the utmost achieve-
ment in studied art. At the far edge of one of
these great natural parks we drive through a grove
of beautiful dark trees and come suddenly upon
a rustic gateway dripping with pale-pink rambler
roses.

We pass inside the gate between short bordering
beds of hybrid perpetual roses, turn sharply to
the right, and behold one of the most lovely flow-
ering vistas it has ever been my good luck to see

260

VARIOUS GARDENS

real and living. It seems painted; it is too good
to be true, this artist's arrangement of colors
within a long pergola built of saplings with the bark
still upon them. "I made it all myself," delight-
edly exclaims our hostess as our unconcealed sur-
prise and pleasure in this lovely garden pour forth
in excited talk. On the right, entering the per-
gola — a pergola with a raison d'etre, for it con-
ducts from gate to house — are gray foliage of pinks,
Canterbury bells back of those; farther down,
masses of Shasta daisies, gigantic here in stature;
beyond those, clouds of the gray gypsophila; and
then a delicious mass of color in tones ranging
from pale lavender to deepest purple, the flowers
most excellently grouped, an effect of carelessness
which in an informal border is supremest art;
among the flowers used, the hyacinth-flowered
candytuft which Burpee sends out, here appear-
ing in pinkish mauve, deep purplish pink, and
white; purple pansies snuggling among these;
rich purple annual larkspur sending up a few
spires here and there; and climbing above all a
lavender and mauve sweet pea, faint notes of the
color below reflected in the air.

Pictures are here shown of the rustic tea-house,
or recessed arbor, at one end of this pergola immedi-

261

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

ately after its erection (this is now wreathed in
rambler rose Dorothy Perkins); of the pergola
itself in its first summer, a tangle of scarlet dah-
lias; and in the following summer, when annuals
were the mainstay. During the third summer
these were the subjects here: decorative dahlia
Golden West, white dahlias, and a hundred feet
of Burpee's Superb Spencer sweet peas, some un-
usual Spencer seedlings among them, especially
the heliotrope Tennant Spencer. No reds, not a
red blossom in the pergola ! Outside of it are
white dahlias and white sweet peas.

Turning again to the prairie for a mile or so
farther, our road leads again to the lake. Here
is a surprise of a totally different character. Ta-
coma's "year one," as some one has said, is the
year 1889, yet twenty years later, only twenty
years later, here stands, surrounded by giant firs,
between whose columns the blue reaches of the
lake and the greener blues of distant shores are
seen, an English house, a dignified and serene
country house of the earlier Tudor period, with
walled garden and lily-pool. The latter is set at
a suitable distance from the house for effect from
the second-floor windows; and a large cutting-

RUSTIC ARBOR AND PERGOLA IN TACOMA GARDEN — FIRST YEAR

VARIOUS GARDENS

garden, formal in design, lies farther back toward
the prairie. The wonder of the main garden lies
in the fact that it has been most skilfully placed
on an axis with that noblest of American peaks,
Mount Tacoma. Clouds hid the mountain vision
on the day of my visit, but what a sensation to
see Mount Tacoma from one's garden !

To come upon this English picture, this delight-
ful red-brick house, its low outlines possessing much
of the sweetness of the ancient English manor-
house, with its gardens masterly in design and
rich with flowers — to come upon this, in the far-
thest Northwest, in the new country, is to find
a thing almost unbelievable. "And I saw in my
dream" — yet the dream is a reality. One re-
calls the beautiful house of Kipling's in "They"
-it is here in America, in that noble State of
Washington, near Tacoma.

For the following description, full of sympathy
and charm, of the gardens of Glendessary, not far
from Santa Barbara, I am indebted to the owner
herself. Parenthetically may it be said here that
nothing the writer has ever seen in pictures has
so strengthened her desire to see California as
have these entrancing vistas full of color and of

£63

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

sunlight, the roses and the fountains, of this
so evidently cherished garden.

Writing first of the picture shown here, the
garden's owner says: "This is taken from the
edge of a fountain basin looking toward the house.
The trees are Italian cypress, and oaks in the
extreme background.

"The large bushes in the foreground are: right,
the yellow Southern jasmine, Thuya aurea, fifteen
feet high; pale-purple veronicas; the rough stone
copings laid in sand along the paths are covered
with Ficus repens. Left, Southern jasmine, Laurel
nobilisy Swainsonia, and various small things.
This left bed is filled with Camellia Japonica in
different colors, which bloom profusely from No-
vember to May and are too perfect for words.
They are small yet, not more than four feet high.
There are palms alike in each bed, the Chamerops
excelsa, whose very delicate fanlike leaves quiver
with the faintest breeze. At the second steps
there is a high green clipped hedge which encloses
and also separates the Little Garden from the
forecourt, in which there are only the lawn and
the oaks with a stone railing.

"It was in 1902 that we began taking the scat-
tered rocks and bowlders out of the small piece of

264

THORNEWOOD, AMERICAN LAKE, TACOMA

GLENDESSARY, SANTA BARBARA,* CALIFORNIA

VARIOUS GARDENS

pasture, through which an old stream-bed still
could be followed, and built the walls around the
"Little Garden,' as it is called, to distinguish it
from the Orchard, the Rock Garden, and the
Shrubbery, etc. The ideas expressed in this small
place were harmonious color, fragrance, plants
mentioned in literature, and water. There were
several large 'Live Oaks,' as the California oak
is called, in the enclosure, which served as a start-
ing-point for the walls, the seats, and the general
shape of the garden. A formal plan of walks and
beds was decided upon in the first place, varied
slightly by the position of existing objects in the
way that a Turkish rug varies from its pattern
in places. I am told by garden architects that
it is not exact enough, but I could not bear to lose
a single old tree; and the mathematical glories
must suffer a little.

"A garden seems to me a collection of the flowers
one loves best or has a very dear association with
in one's mind from poems or books, and mine began
with Laurus nobilis and orange-trees, jasmine and
ivy, and climbing roses on the walls — Madame Al-
fred Carriere, La Marque, and Olga of Wiirtem-
berg, Celine Forestier and Beauty of Glazen-
wood — the white wistaria in the oak-trees in the

265

THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN

spring and the Daphne odorata and lemon verbena
to lean over and breathe in. ... The pool in the
centre is full of brilliant lilies, and the lotus-tank
below is, in summer, a lovely group of perfect
beauty around which the darting green dragon-flies,
the humming-birds, and bees are constantly seen.
The colors are very carefully considered, and the
flowers are separated by green shrubs and plant-
ings which break the garden into many nooks and
corners.

" Everything will grow in California if the proper
care is taken, and the succession of flowers is a
never-ending source of happiness. The earth is
quite covered, as there are many low-growing
plants, which serve as a setting for their more
ambitious sisters; and, since we cannot easily have
grass, the earth must be covered with tiny plants.
The use of plants in pots is also very helpful in
places where one needs a certain form or color;
and the big, coarse red Mexican jar made in Los
Angeles is a great boon. We have many plants
indigenous to California which are most valuable
to the lover of formal gardening; among them the
numerous agaves and aloes fill many an impor-
tant spot."

It is gardening such as this which gives joy

266

VARIOUS GARDENS

to the discriminating; it is beyond all a question
of the mind and eye. The nobler the intellect,
the more poetic the imaginative vision, the hap-
pier he or she who gardens. And is there any one
so happy as the fortunate possessor of a bit of
ground and the wish to give a loveliness higher
than earth has yet been known to show? He
who has done this should be a supremely happy
man, and "to the supremely happy man, all times
are times of thanksgiving, deep, tranquil, and
abundant, for the delight, the majesty, and the
beauty of the fulness of the rolling world."

267

APPENDIX
NOTE ON GARDEN CLUBS

APPENDIX
NOTE ON GARDEN CLUBS

"Have we progressed in gardening?" asks Doctor Wil-
helm Miller in "Country Life in America"; and then pro-
ceeds to show that, while deprecating all boastfulness on
our part, we have certainly made great strides as to the
amount and the quality of our horticultural growth in the
last ten years. Doctor Miller adds columns of interesting
details to prove his assertion. In a single inconspicuous
line occur these words: "First women's clubs devoted to
gardening." Insufficient emphasis, it seemed and seems to
me, to lay upon the sight of this organization of garden
clubs now proceeding with such amazing rapidity. To those
to whom the art of gardening is dear, to all heart-felt gar-
deners, a significance of the very highest order attaches it-
self at once to the spectacle of these clubs rising in every
direction in our land — a significance which is really a
prophecy, a promise of beauty.

If the Garden Club of Philadelphia is, as I believe it to
be, the first of its kind to come into being in this country,
then it is one of the greatest horticultural benefactors Amer-
ica has seen, and in time to come many gardeners will rise
up and call it blessed. To some people it may seem that the
art of gardening is too gentle, too delicate, to admit of its
devotees' submission to rules made by ordered groups; on
the other hand, it is a complex art; and now so popular a

271

APPENDIX

pursuit that I do not exaggerate when I say that there has
been a suspicion of midsummer madness in the way in which
garden clubs have been springing up month by month in
the years just past. A deep, persistent, and growing inter-
est in gardening seems to have suddenly crystallized in this
charming and most practical fashion, with the result that
fifty or more of these organizations, varying in size and
form, are now in existence. Offshoots of these clubs seem
to be multiplying as rapidly as bulblets from a good gladiolus
in a fair season.

It is not the fault of the garden clubs that they have a
distinctly social side. Gardening at its highest can best be
carried on by men and women of high intelligence, taste, ex-
perience, and — alas that it must be said! — the wherewithal.
With the true gardener this money question, however, is the
last, least requisite, for who that deeply loves a garden
does not know that qualities most rare and fine shine out
oftenest through the flowers of small and simple gardens?
It is, I have sometimes compassionately thought, more diffi-
cult for a richer man to achieve his heart's desire in garden-
ing than for a poorer one. Many are the conventional ob-
stacles to gardening raised in the path of the owners of great
gardens.

The Garden Club of Philadelphia was, I believe, the first
of its kind in this country. It is now twelve years of age.
It has, in these twelve years, had no change in the offices
of president and secretary; and it has been the active agent
in the organization of many other clubs of a like nature.
This society has perhaps fifty members. It meets weekly
from the middle of April to the first of July; twice in Sep-
tember, and has besides three winter meetings; all "for plea-
sure and profit." A paper is read at each meeting on a sea-

272

APPENDIX

sonable topic, the club studying, besides, plants, fertilizers,
insecticides, fungi, birds, bees, and moths, quality of soils,
climate, and so on, care of house-plants, trees, and shrubs.
The club has visited the gardens of Mount Vernon, Hampton
near Baltimore, Princeton, Trenton, and many gardens at
Bar Harbor. Specialists on horticultural subjects have
from time to time addressed them. In the club's library are
more than one hundred papers prepared by members. Their
activities extend beyond their own limits in several direc-
tions, notably toward the movement made by the Society
for the Protection of Native Plants.

Now, as to the age of the garden clubs other than the
Philadelphia I am not informed. In the following mention
of them, therefore, I shall not undertake to give any one
club precedence, but shall first take up the Garden Club
of Ann 4rbor, Michigan, because of its liberal use of the
letter A! This club is unique in its ultra-democratic policy.
Whereas the Garden Club of Cleveland, in two gentle sen-
tences of its rules and regulations, remarks that "eligibility
to membership in this club is limited to: A. Those who are
fortunate possessors of gardens of unusual perfection. B.
Those who plan and develop personally and enthusiastically
gardens of their own design" — the Garden Club of Ann
Arbor declares that only he or she shall enter their ranks
who is possessed of "an active personal enthusiasm and
working interest in one's garden," and follows this with the
rigid exclusion of all others in this explicit language: "Only
amateurs doing individual practical work in their own gar-
dens or yards are eligible for active membership in the club."
An interesting question here presents itself. Were this a
discursive article, I should be tempted to set forth my rea-
sons for believing that the Cleveland Club has the best of it !

273

APPENDIX

The Garden Club of Cleveland, of which mention has just
now been made, has this fine sentence in its charter: "The
purpose for which this corporation is formed is to cultivate
the spirit of gardening in its fullest sense, together with an
appreciation of civic beauty and betterment in and about
Cleveland." No mean ambition here; though, as their sec-
retary says, their aspirations are far more numerous as yet
than their experiences ! Seventy-seven names are upon the
roster of this club. The meetings are in summer weekly, in
winter monthly. Mr. Charles Platt has spoken at one of
these on formal gardening, a lecture on peonies has been had,
and the prizes are already offered for this summer's flowers,
one for a rose contest.

New Canaan, Connecticut, has, it would appear, the largest
membership of the garden clubs. It carries the name of its
dwelling-place and shows a membership of about two hun-
dred — all this within three years of life ! In each of these
years an exhibition of flowers has been held, with none but
professionals as judges. This powerful club has helped sev-
eral other similar societies to come into being, and is a mem-
ber of the Plant, Fruit, and Flower Guild, assisting that or-
ganization in its work.

It may be that the Garden Association of Newport might
be called the most ambitious of the newly formed gardening
societies, as may be seen by mentioning in order its objects.
These are: "First: To increase the knowledge of owners of
gardens in Newport by means of lectures and practical talks
in the garden during the summer months by well-known au-
thorities on trees, lawns, roses, hardy flowers, perennial
borders, and so on. Second: To provide a corresponding
secretary who will keep the association in touch with the de-
velopment of new ideas and improvements in the varieties

274

APPENDIX

of flowers among the seedsmen and gardeners of France,
Germany, and the East. Third: To establish a bureau
where the seeds of novelties from abroad can be obtained.
Fourth: To develop by means of illustrated lectures on the
gardens of England, Italy, and other countries more art, in-
dividuality, sentiment, and variety in the planting of flowers,
shrubs, and so forth. Fifth : To increase the practical knowl-
edge of the care of trees and plants by demonstrating the
methods used in Europe in the cultivation of flowers, fruit,
and vegetables, and in forestry."

Objects, these, most excellent, and most excellently set
forth. In my judgment the Newport association is right;
we still must go abroad to find most of that which is highest
and best in gardening. This remark may provoke criticism.
It is still true. The fine gardens, the great arboreta (with
the exception of our own Arnold Arboretum, whose dollar
bulletins no garden club should fail to get and read), the most
perfect use of trees, shrubs, and flowers, are not yet found
generally in this country. And the sooner incisive sugges-
tions, such as these of the Newport association, wake us to a
sense of what we have not, and where we should go to find
it, the better for us. On the other hand, the library of the
Newport society seems wofully behind, in that it has no
books but English books, and that those, indeed, seem to me
to be more the suggestions of an English gardener or super-
intendent than of the fine English amateur. Six books
wanting from this list, some English and some American, are
"in my foolish opinion" indispensable to the serious ama-
teur in this country, the gardener whose one desire is to call
forth true beauty from the earth.

The Newport association has had lectures or talks during
the summer of 1912 on the subjects of soil, the art of

275

APPENDIX

planting, and roses. No object-lesson in the advancement
of gardening could be more effective than that of the
decision of these dwellers in Newport — some of them pos-
sessors of as fine gardens as America has to show — no
object-lesson could be better than their admission that still
they need to learn; that their gardens, some of them con-
sidered practically perfect, still need contributions from the
charming flowers and plants of that older world beyond
the Atlantic.

The Shedowa Garden Club, of Garden City, New York, has
for president and secretary two whose brains are never idle in
working for a progressive policy for their club. (Shedowa is
an Iroquois word meaning Great Plains.) Their fifty-odd
members meet about every fortnight. They have had sev-
eral authorities address them during their first year's exist-
ence, they have already a library of forty volumes, and they
have taken much interest in improving the flower exhibit
at the Nassau County Fair. The president of the club is
now exerting herself to get the various plantsmen and seeds-
men of the country to adopt the fine color chart of Doctor
Robert Ridgway, "Color Standards and Color Nomencla-
ture."

From an account of this club by its secretary I quote:
"The management of the Shedowa Club is entirely in the
hands of the executive committee. The membership is not
limited; the dues are smaller than those of the average gar-
den club, and men of the community are admitted as asso-
ciates (since they cannot attend afternoon meetings) for a
still smaller fee. The club is an all-the-year-round one, with
meetings each month, and an occasional extra talk. The
speakers and their expenses, prizes (except for four cups of-
fered at each large flower show by members and not per-

276

APPENDIX

mitted to exceed two dollars and fifty cents in price), and, in
fact, all expenses, are paid from the club treasury. An en-
trance fee for members, and admission to non-members, are
charged at the spring and fall shows, and occasionally a
small admission fee is charged to non-members for some of
the illustrated lectures; but, as a rule, non-members are in-
vited as guests; and no admission fee is ever charged to
members except for the shows. Neither fee nor admission
is charged for the little shows at meetings. Members are
never assessed beyond their annual dues."

At Short Hills, New Jersey, is a small but vigorous garden
club, with so informal an organization that there is no officer
but the president. Membership here is limited; but meetings
are frequent, in summer as frequent as once a week, "thus
enabling us," to quote a member, "to watch carefully the
development of color schemes and artistic planting, so en-
thusiastically started in the previous season; and to note
the growth of plants tried in our locality for the first time."
The writer further remarks upon the incentive established by
the frequency of meetings — and that in time of failure the
meetings prove a consolation as well. The Short Hills Club
has also for several years had dahlia shows. In this short
account the most excellent suggestions are interesting novel-
ties in plants, a subject which always touches one nearly,
and an exhibition devoted to a particular flower.

The Garden Club of Trenton, New Jersey, with a member-
ship of twenty-four, is limited to twenty-five. (One cannot
help envying that twenty-fifth member !) It holds its regular
meetings on the second Monday of each month, with an
extra meeting sometimes on the fourth Monday. The letter
of the Trenton club's secretary is so beguiling that I yield
to the temptation to quote a part of it verbatim — "We

277

APPENDIX

started our club a year ago, and being perfectly overrun
with clubs and rather tired of them, we have tried to make
it as unclublike as possible. It has been the greatest suc-
cess. We have had delightful meetings, with papers and
talks by our own members. We have had two days in the
country with the wild flowers, which were intensely enjoyed.
Those who were able went to a lecture by Hugo de Vries, at
Princeton; and in the spring some of us visited the garden
planned by the late Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, doubtless one of
the most beautiful smaller gardens in this part of the country.
During the summer a number of meetings were held at the
seashore, where most of the members had come together and
studied the flowers of the coast, both wild and cultivated.
Some of our topics are: 'Flowers in Mythology and History,5
'The Christmas Tree,' 'Evergreens from Prehistoric Ages to
our Gardens/ 'Orchids, Wild and Cultivated,' 'English Gar-
dens,' 'French Gardens,' 'Italian Gardens,' 'Kew and Its
Research Work,' 'Flowers in Poetry,' 'Insect Pests,' 'The
Hardy Border,' 'Roses,' 'Bulbs'; and always we have prac-
tical discussion for the last hour." The range of suggestion
here set forth is remarkable, and, if I am not mistaken, the
enthusiasm warming every word of this short letter will
affect others who may read it here, as it has already af-
fected me.

The Garden Club of Lenox, Massachusetts, has the great
good luck to exist where backgrounds, both near and far, are
pictures; where planting, however little, cannot fail to be
telling. Disadvantages may exist. Frost surely arrives too
soon; soil on those glorious hillsides may be scarce; yet
where every prospect is one of beauty, the stimulus toward
the creation of beauty must be unique. Add to this the
fact that for at least a year a painter and sculptor was their

278

APPENDIX

president, and could the most eager garden club ask for
more?

In this club men and women are again associated. The
membership is limited to one hundred and twenty-five, and
has, I fancy, barely reached that number. Regular meet-
ings are held on the first Mondays of July, August, Septem-
ber, and October. Two novel and highly interesting sections
occur in the by-laws of the Lenox Garden Club. The first
is this: "On the third Monday in June, July, August, and
September there shall be meetings of the officers and council
for the closer study of gardens and gardening problems and
the general management of the club. All eligible to the
council must do manual work in their gardens, and bring to
the meetings, twice during the season, interesting specimens
of plants, blights, or insects, giving their personal experience
with them."

The second follows and concerns a plant exchange : " Mem-
bers having plants to exchange or give away may send a
postal giving names and quality to the recorder. Members
desiring plants may send in applications in the same man-
ner. The recorder shall keep a list of both and shall
bring the same to all meetings, that members may refer
to it."

The younger clubs naturally profit by such wise arrange-
ments and suggestions as these. Thus it is not strange to see
rules on these general lines in the book of the Garden Club
of Long Island, whose membership seems to centre about
Lawrence and which, though in existence only since Septem-
ber of 1912, has the astonishing membership "already yet
so soon, " as an old German gardener of my acquaintance was
wont to say, of ninety-one ! This club meets twice a month
in summer. Miss Rose Standish Nichols has spoken to them

279

APPENDIX

on "Gardens," Miss Averill on "Japanese Flower Arrange-
ment," and Miss Coffin on "Color and Succession in the
Flower Garden."

Returning again to the Middle West, we have the Garden
Club of Cincinnati, which, to quote from a recent letter,
"limits its membership to thirty."

"The By-Laws read rather insistently upon its members
being active workers in their gardens, although there are
included a small number of associate and honorary mem-
bers. From its inception the greatest enthusiasm has been
shown by the members of this club, whose meetings are held
fortnightly during most of the year. Lectures by profes-
sionals have been given and papers read by the members.
The bulletins have been most interesting, and the exhibi-
tions have embraced displays of all sorts of bulbs, forced
and outdoor grown, roses, delphiniums, iris, dahlias, cosmos,
chrysanthemums, and floral arrangements for different oc-
casions. These exhibitions have been accompanied by de-
bates and prizes have been awarded.

"The last dahlia show was given in the pergola of the
Zoological Gardens and was on a large scale. Thousands
of blooms were shown by amateur and professional growers.

"One of the important aims of this club has been to
beautify the city and adjacent country roads. Ten thou-
sand pink ramblers have been planted, and seeds and bulbs
are being scattered along the rural ways.

"Meetings have been held with the botany class of the
university, and the club now hopes, with encouragement, to
establish a chair in gardening at this institution.

"The oriflamme of the Garden Club of America is also car-
ried by the Garden Club of Cincinnati, and it further aims to
put Botticelli foregrounds in all of Cincinnati's landscapes."

Now for the club in which I am most at home — the

280

APPENDIX

Garden Club of Michigan. This was patterned mainly upon
that of Philadelphia, and I here acknowledge with renewed
gratitude our debt to that organization, which was most gra-
cious in its assistance; and to the New Canaan Garden
Club, also a friend in need. Our club, like the Philadelphia,
has sixty members. We have had, during our first year's
existence, seventeen meetings, with lectures upon such sub-
jects as roses, new flowers, gardens of England, garden books,
color in the garden, the making of an old-fashioned garden,
the grouping of shrubs, and the planning and planting of
home grounds. "We have learned," writes our secretary,
"much about gardens, gardeners, and gardening; also that
even garden clubs do not grow of themselves ! "

For our club I have prepared from time to time a list of
color combinations in flowers, simple ones, easily produced
— a list of my own preferences in seedsmen and plantsmen,
including specialists in this country and abroad, drawn from
dealings of twenty years past. If a seedsman sends me a
specially good sheet of cultural directions for a given flower,
I do not hesitate to beg at once for sixty for our next meeting.
Little piles of these things on the secretary's table do wonders
in shortening the hard road to good gardening. We have, as
a club, joined two or three plant societies, and during the
coming year we hope to help in some public horticultural im-
provement in Detroit, for in that city lies the balance of our
membership. The annual dues of our club, which were two
dollars, have now been raised to five. The dues of the va-
rious clubs average this sum; though in one club the sub-
scription is fifteen. In all clubs the meetings are held, as a
rule, in the houses or gardens of members.

Expeditions are undertaken by some of the clubs — jour-
neys to fine gardens, public or private. This is as it should
be. In England it is a common sight, that of horticultural

281

APPENDIX

societies going about, en masse, forty or fifty strong, inspect-
ing gardens. Many of these must knock daily at Miss
JekylPs "close-paled hand-gate." I would suggest to mem-
bers on the eastern seaboard that they avail themselves of
the beauties of the Arnold Arboretum in lilac time, or hi
mid-June — and never without a note-book, for, as at Kew,
every tree and shrub is labelled to perfection.

Other clubs there are of which mention should be made,
as the Garden Club of Warrenton, Virginia, an offshoot of
the Philadelphia Club; the Garden Club of Princeton, New
Jersey; "The Weeders," of Haverford, Pennsylvania; the
club at New Rochelle, New York; one forming at San Antonio,
Texas; indeed, at the time of writing, the whole number of
clubs known to me in this country is forty-nine ! Twenty-six
of these have combined to form the Garden Club of America
(founded by the Garden Club of Philadelphia), whose hon-
orary president was the late Mrs. C. Stuart Patterson, and
whose president is Mrs. J. Willis Martin. The stated objects
of this society are: "To stimulate the knowledge and love
of gardening among amateurs, to share the advantages of
association through conference and correspondence in this
country and abroad, to aid in the protection of native plants
and birds, and to encourage civic planting." In "American
Homes and Gardens," August, 1914, appears an article on
the association, by Mrs. Arthur H. Scribner, written with
sympathy and charm.

The best garden club is doubtless yet to be formed; it
can now be a composite. It will adopt the more important
and practical plans of those already in existence; it may start
with the benefit of their experience. Existing clubs are al-
ready recognized, reference to our gardening journals shows,
as powerful factors for the right development of horticulture
in America. May their tribe increase !

282

INDEX

INDEX

ACHILLEA PTARMICA, 23, 32, 34;

pearl, 50; white, 246
Acidanthera bicolor, 177
Aconites, late, 248, 250
Actinidia arguta, 257
Ageratum, blue, 70, 71, 73, 255;

Stella Guraey, 148, 152, 156, 175
Alpine Flowers and Gardens of Japan,

Flemwell, 235
Altheas, 95
Alyssum, 30, 84; saxatile, 104; sul-

phureum, 132; hardy, 136; sweet,

253, 255.

American Gardens, Lowell, 136
Anchusa Italica, 47; Dropmore, 69,

112, 141, 168, 243
Anemones, Japanese, 151, 198, 245,

246, 248

Antirrhinum, Purple King, 177
Apple-trees, dwarf, 257
Aquilegia chrysantha, see columbine
Arabis, 10, 30, 31, 49. 50, 228
Arbor, 246
Arnott, S., 99
Art and Craft of Garden-making,

Mawson, 236
Aster, hardy, 36, 37, 43, 44, 74;

Ostrich Plume, 146; James Ganly,

148, 177
Aubrietia, 10, 92, 124; with tulips,

140, 228

BABY'S BREATH, see gypsophila
Bailey's Encyclopaedia, 221, 222
Balsams, salmon-pink, 110, 151
Basket, Vickery Garden, 181, 184;

Munstead, 185; sweet-pea, 186;

bucket-shaped, 187

Begonia, 10

Bittersweet, 257

Blanket flower, see gaillardia

Bleeding-heart (dicentra), 18, 248

Bloodroot, 16, 50

Border, double, 131, 202, 244;

white, 246, 247; of annuals, 252
Bowles, E. A., 96, 99, 185; books by,

237

Box-tree, 253
Boyle, The Honorable Mrs., books

by, 234
Brodiaeas, 248
Buddleia, 176
Bulb Planter, Cross-roads, 187

CALENDULAS, Orange King, Sul-
phur Queen, 42

Camellia Japonica, 264

Campanula, hardy, 32; Die Fee, 45;
pyramidalis, 45, 48, 110, 246;
persicifolia, 159; carpatica, 243;
peach-leaved, 250

Candytuft, hardy, 11; hyacinth-
flowered, 261

Canterbury bells, 31. 32, 46. 48-50,
109, 111, 161

Century Magazine, The, 67

Cerastium, 243

Chamomile, 35

Chrysanthemum, Garza, 153 ; French,
172, 245

Chrysanthemum Society of France,
7, 15, 226

Cinerarias, 10

Clarkia elegans, 36; Salmon Queen,
186

Clematis, purple, 13; recta, 61

285

INDEX

Color chart, 15, 226, 227

Color effects, Ruskin quoted, 1, 2;
use of trial garden for, 53

Color in the Flower Garden, Jekyll,
13; quoted, 14, 15, 222-224

Color Standards and Color Nomen-
clature, Ridgway, 227

Columbine, early, see Aquilegia
chrysantha, 27, 32; yellow, 45;
white, hybrid, 108; with iris, 141;
Rocky Mountain, 248, 250

Cosmos, 48; early-flowering, 178

Crambe cordifolia, 11, 54; orientalis,
33

Crocus, purpureus, 17, 79-81; Maxi-
millian, 78, 95; Reine Blanche, 79,
82, 94, 95; collecting, 88; Mont
Blanc, 93, 95; Mme. Mina, 95, 96;
Susianus, 97; Sieberi, 97; Korol-
kowi, 98; "Scotch," 98; Tom-
masinianus, 98; May and Doro-
thy, 98; Kathleen Parlow, 99

DAFFODIL, double 16; cream- white,
43; Jacobs's list, 58, 60, 88;
trumpets, yellow, white, and
bicolor, 58; yellow perianths,
pheasant eyes, doubles, and
bunch-flowered, 59; Eyebright,
Firefly, and Elvira, 59, 60; with
peonies, 87, 88; true place for, 139;
books on, 229, 230, 245, 248

Daffodils, Jacobs, 229, 230

Dahlia, 6, 145; in border, 254;
scarlet, white, and Golden West,
262

Daisies, common, 32, 159; Shasta,
33, 202, 253

Daphne odorata, 266

Delphiniums, blue, 10, 11, 13; pale-
blue, 32; Belladonna, 33; Cantab,
33, 160, 232; chinensis, 34, 46, 72;
dark-blue, 159; La France, 159.
160, Mme. Violet Geslin, 160;
Kelway's Lovely, 160; Persim-
mon, 160; Statuaire Rude, 161;

Alake, 161 ; Moerheimi, 162 ;

early, 259

Deutzia Lemoineii, 107
Dianthus, 36; hardy, Her Majesty,

43

Divers, W. H., 228
Dogtooth violet, 77
Dragonhead, 47
Dutch Bulbs and Gardens, Nixon,

Silberrad, and Lyall, 235

EGAN, W. C., 9; use of Bordeaux
mixture, 188

Elder, common, 21

English Flower Garden, The, Robin-
son, 236

Eremuri, 243; Erigeron, 243

Eryngium, 163

FARR, Bertran<3 H., his list of
Oriental poppies, 167

Ferns, 243, 249

Feverfews, 246

Flower Fields of Alpine Switzerland,
Flemwell, 235

Flowers and Gardens of Japan, Du
Cane, 235

Flowers of the Alpine Valleys, Flem-
well, 77

Forbes, 54

Forget-me-not, see Myosotis

Formal Garden in England, The,
Blomfield, 236

Foxgloves, 32; perennial, 159, 252,
259

Fruit-tree, dwarf, 72

Funkias. 11

GAILLARDIA, 21, 22

Galtonias, 145

Garden, formal, 11; experiments
with, 65; clipped trees in a, 68,
195; trial, 53-57; of phloxes, 55;
"wild," 67; Mrs. Tyson's, at
Berwick, Me., 67; Miss Will-
mott's, Warley. Eng., 72; Mr.

286

INDEX

Chas. A. Platt's, Saginaw, Mich.,
73; repetition in, 74; flower cut-
ting in, 194-196; sunken, 242, 254;
at Gates Mills, O., 244, 245; at
Grand Rapids, Mich., 246-251;
on Nantucket Island, 251-253; at
Swampscott, Mass., 253-255; ter-
raced, 255; Fernbrook Farm, at
Lenox, Mass., 256-258; Fancy
Field, at Chestnut Hill, near
Philadelphia, 258, 259; near Ta-
coma, 260-262; walled, 262; for-
mal garden near Mount Tacoma,
262, 263; lily-pool in, 263; of
Glendessary, 263-266

Garden, The, Rev. Joseph Jacob,
quoted, 58

Garden Color, Waterfield, 227, 228

Garden Design, Agar, 236

GardenMagazine, The, Miller, quoted,
33, 182, 203

Garden Month by Month, The,
Sedgwick, 15, 225

Garden of Ignorance, The, Cran, 238

Garden of Pleasure, A, Boyle, 234

Gardener, the, attitude toward, 208-
211; classification of, 212; salary
of, 214-218; training of, 214

Gardeners' Chronicle, 134

Gardener's Year, A, Haggard, 230.
231

Gardening Don'ts, Chappell, 238

Geranium, 23; BeautS Parfaite, 151;
pink, 199, 200; Vincent list, 200;
Regal pelargonium, 201; cactus-
flowering, 201 ; Berthe de Presilly,
201; Alpha, Baron Grubbisch,
Rosalda, 201; white, 254

Gladiolus, Baron Hulot, 7, 28, 153,
172; purple, 13, 28, 48, 69;
William Falconer, 37, 69, 155;
Niagara and Panama, 145, 147,
148; Badenia, 146, 174; Amer-
ica, 147, 155, 172; Peace, Dawn,
and Afterglow, 149-151; Taconia,
Philadelphia, and Evolution, 151;

Rosella, 153; Senator Volland,
153; Buchanan, Snowbird, La
Luna, California, and Princess
Altiere, 154; Sulphur King, 155;
Kunderd's Glory, 155; Mrs. Frank
Pendleton, Jr., 155, 171; primu-
linus hybrids, 165, 170; Display,
166, 170

Gladiolus Grower, The Modem, 146
Gladiolus Society, American, 7, 146
Guild of the Garden Lovers, The,

O'Brien, 238

Gypsophila, 11; annual, 32; pani-
culata, 32, 33, 50, 164, 169;
elegans, 73; in bud, 110; in mass,
162; double, 165; gray, 261

HABBANTHUS, 243

Happy England, Allingham, 77

Hedges, privet ibota, 35, 253; box,

privet and poplar, 259; enclosing,

264

Helianthus orgyalis, 177
Heliotrope, 7; deep purple, 34, 65.

70; dark, 156, 198, 255; Tennant

Spencer, 262
Hepatica, 77, 79
Heuchera, 11; sanguinea, 34, 55-57,

127, 243, 248
Hollyhocks, 10, 11, lemon and white,

35, 50, 66, 72; rose-pink, 163;

border of, 254

Honeysuckles, bush, 107, 111
Houses and Gardens, Bailiie-Scott,

235
Hyacinth, Wood, 3, 8; Holbein, 20,

83; Heavenly Blue grape, 28, 43,

78, 92, 93; Lord Derby, 80, 81, 83;

summer, 245

Hydrangea, white, 11, 126, 164
Hypericum, 243

IBERIS Gibraltarica, 30, 50

Iris, 5; German, English, Siberian,

and Dutch, 5; reticulata, 14, 79;

dwarf. 18; Germanica, 19, 48, 66,

287

INDEX

135, 141 ; pallida, 110, 127, 132, 136;

English, 111; Kaempferi, 132, 133,

253, 255; Mauve Queen, 132, 133;

Japanese, 5, 133, 253; Crusader,

139, 243, 245, 248
Italian cypress, 264
Ixias, 248

JACOB, Reverend Joseph, quoted, 91,

92, 229

Japanese quince, 80, 83
Jar, Mexican, 266
Jasmine, yellow Southern, 264
Jekyll, Miss, quoted, 13-15; on use

of sea-holly, 22, 57, 86, 184, 199;

books by, 224, 228, 235
Jonquils, Campernelle, 30

LABELS, 62, 185

Lamium maculatum, 85

Larkspur, annual, 12, 32, 261;
Salvia patens, 46

Laurel nobilis, 264

Lemon verbena, 266

Lilacs, 18, 85; with tulips, 140

Lilies, white, 10; orange, 10; Lilium
elegans, 21; longiflorum, 33; can-
didum, 35, 48, 50, 66; plantain,
73; orange, superbum, 170; Ma-
donna, 243, 248; water-lily, 243;
yellow, 245

Live Oaks, 165

Loniceras, 108

Lotus-tank, 266

Love-in-the-mist, 36

Lupines, 127, 248

Lyme grass, blue, 37, 69; with
gladioli, 149

MAHONIA, 16, 83

Mallow, 14

Mertensia Virginica, 125

Michaelmas Daisy, see Aster

Montbretias, 245

Mullein, 72

Muscari, see Hyacinth

My Garden, Philpotts, 231, 232
My Garden in Autumn, Bowles, 237
My Garden in Spring, Bowles, 237
My Garden in Summer, Bowles, 237
Myosotis, 19, 29; early, 28; dis-
sitiflora, 43; Button's Perfection
and Button's Royal Blue, 43, 124;
hardy, 84, 93, 132-135, 138

NARCISSUS, Orange Phoenix, 16;
poeticus, gardenia, 16, 226; Em-
peror, Cynosure, 41; listed, 58

Nemesia, blue, 13

PALMS, Chamerops excelsa, 264

Pansy, 4; purple, 261

Peacock's Pleasaunce, The, Boyle, 234

Peas, purple, sweet, 13; Countess
Spencer, 27; everlasting, 47;
Sterling Stent, 165; lavender, 261,
262; white, 262

Pentstemon, 163, 202

Peonies, 31, 32, 49, 50, 57, 88;
Mme. Emile Galle, 132, 159, 160;
white, 246, 248

Pergola, 259; sapling, 261

Petunia, 7; single, 13; velvet-
purple, 146

Phloxes, perennial, 3, 4, 61; annual,
11; purple, 13; Pantheon, 22, 36,
61, 163, 175; Eugene Danzanvil-
liers, 4, 23, 34, 61, 148; Drum-
mond, Chamois Rose, 31, 34, 37,
69; Antonin Mercie, 4, 6, 61, 163,
176, 177; Lord Rayleigh, 4, 6, 32,
34, 61, 70; Fiancee, 36; pink, 43;
white, 50; dwarf, 54; garden of,
55; Aurore Boreale, 23, 36, 68;
Von Lassberg, 4, 23, 36, 71;
Jeanne d'Arc, 71, 176; R. P.
Struthers, 61, 163; Coquelicot, 23,
36, 62, 163, 175; Fernando Cortez,
22, 36, 62, 69; Tapis Blanc, 72,
163; Von Hochberg, 148; su-
bulata, 83, 84; divaricate, 84, 124;
decussata, 149; Goliath, 173;

288

INDEX

Rhynstrom, 175; Von Dedem, 175;
Braga, 175; Widar, 175

Photography, garden, 188

Physalis, the Chinese-lantern plant,
257

Physostegia (Virginica rosea), 6, 36,
47; white, 69; rosy, 154

Pinks, 31; annual and hardy, 32;
scented, white, 44, 261

Planting, balanced, 68, 253; alter-
nate, 202; planting-cards, 203;
successive, 249

Platycodons, 48; grandiflorum al-
bum, 166; pearly-white, 178

Poker flower, 73, 245

Poppy, 34; White Swan, 42; Ice-
land, 42; Oriental, 44, 127, 128,
166, 248; double, pink, 112, 165;
Princess Victoria Luise, 167; com-
binations of, 168, 169; see Farr
list, 167; Shirley, 167; Mahony
and Rose Queen, 168

Present Day Gardening, Jacobs, 229

Primrose, 4; Munstead, 30, 49, 84;
pale-yellow, 124, 228

Puschkinia, 81, 82, 107

Pyrethrum, rose, 31; single, 159

Pyrus Japonica, 82

RAFFIA tape, 183, 194

Repertoire de Couleurs, 7, 15, 226

Rhododendron, 3

Ribbon grass, 124

Rodgersia, 33

Roses, 3; Frau Karl Druschki, 27;
climbing, 34, 265; yellow, 44;
ramblers, crimson, 3, 10; baby, 34,
49, 62; pink, 260; yellow, 44; Lady
Gay, 34, 62; Excelsa, 62; Rosa
Nitida, 110; Wichuraiana, 20;
spinosissima, 141; with gladioli,
149; Annchen Mueller, 160; Con-
rad F. Mayer, 163; Mme. Alfred
Carriere, La Marque, Olga of
Wlirtemberg, Celine Forestier, and
Beauty of Glazenwood, 265

Ruskin, quoted, 3, 80
Rustic tea-house, 261

SALPIGLOSSIS, 11, 13; Faust, 148
Salvia, blue, 13; patens, 36, 37, 46;

farinacea, 37; azurea, 146, 153,

245

Scabiosa Japonica, 34
Scilla Sibirica, blue, 16, 17, 79, 94;

campanulata, 28, 104, 108, 109;

Excelsior, 141; 245, May-flower-
ing, 248

Scottish Gardens, Maxwell, 235
Scribners Magazine, "The Point of

View," quoted on geraniums, 199
Sea-holly, 22, 36, 62, 162, 163, 164
Sea-lavender, see Statice
Seasons in a Flower Gardent The,

Shelton, 15, 225
Seven Gardens and a Palace, Boyle,

234

Shasta daisies 23, 33, 261
Shelton, Louise, 225
Snapdragon, 35, 146
Snowball, Japan, 73
Snowdrop, 50, 245
Some English Gardens, Elgood and

Jekyll, 235
Spireas, 33; Spiraea Thunbergii, 84;

Astilbe Arendsii, Die Walkiire,

132, 136; Van Houteii, 137
Sprays, Bordeaux mixture and

X. L. All. 188
Spring beauties, 77
Spring Gardening at Belvoir Castle,

228

Stachys lanata, 110
Statice, 11, 27, 34; incana, 110, 164;

bonduelli, 163, 164, 169. 177;

latifolia, 164, 253; sinuata, mauve,

169, 252
Stocks, 13; white and purple, 34, 36;

pink, 37; Sutton's Perfection, 45
Stokesia cyanea, 34, 46
Studies in Gardening, quoted, 208,

236

289

INDEX

Success in Gardening, Frothingham,

225
Summer Garden of Pleasure, The,

Batson, 237
Sun-dial, 245, 256
Sunflower, Dwarf Primrose, 177
Swainsonia, 264
Sweetbrier, 31
Sweet-william, 31; dark red, 46;

Button's Pink Beauty, 56; white,

246
Sylvanas Letters to an Unknown

Friend, Boyle, 234
Syringas, 31

THALICTEUMS, 249

Thermopsis Caroliniana, 28, 32, 68

Thrift, 10

Tools, 184

Tritoma, 73

Trowel, 181

Tulips, 8, 19; Kaufmanniana, 16, 17,
82, 94, 99; double, 20; retroflexa,
28, 30, 43, 93, 138, 142; Keizer-
kroon, 8, 233; Vermilion Bril-
liant, 41, 83, 124; Flora Wilson,
30; Yellow Rose, 44, 132, 134;
Cottage Maid, 49; Gesneriana, 49;
Vitellina, 82, 104 ; La Merveille, 83;
Couleur Cardinal, 20, 30, 83, 124,
138; Darwin, Clara Butt, 19;
Ewbank, 19, 122; Rembrandt, 85,
140; La Tulipe Noir, 85; Krelage
list, 86; Vitellina, 82; La Merveille,
84; Fanny, Count of Leicester,
Wouverman, Carl Becker, Giant,
and Kb'nigin Emma, 85; Bouton
d'Or, 125; Darwin: Fawn. 105,

and Faust, 106; grouping of, 104;
varieties of, 106; Breeder, 106;
Flava, 117, 141; Nauticas, 118;
Mauve Clair, 119; Zomerschoon,
119, 123; Moonlight and Spren-
geri, 120; Francis Darwin and
Edmee, 12iL; Le Reve, 125, 137;
border suggested, 125, 127; Ag-
neta, 132, 134; Gudin, 134; Wil-
liam Copeland, 134; La Fiancee,
137; Heloise, 138; Hohenberg, 138;
May-flowering, 123; combination
with other plants, 124; Picotee,
124; Jubilee, 137; Avis Kennicott,
137; among evergreens, 138;
Bougainville Duran, 140; with
lilacs, 140; Ewbank, Bleu Celeste,
Morales, Innocence, and La Can-
deur, 141; "lily-flowered," 141
Tulips, Jacob, 126

VERBENA, 7, 11; Beauty of Oxford.

23, 35, 49; Dolores, 149, 174, 177
Veronica, pale-purple, 264
Vines, Vitis Thunbergii, Californica,

aconitifolia, megaphylla, 231
Violas, 13, 30; white, 50, 228
Violet, wild, 4; sweet, white, 50;

dogtooth, 77

WATERFIELD, 235

Wistaria, white, 265

Wood and Garden, Jekyll, quoted, 14

YUCCAS, 245

ZINNIA, 36; "Flesh-color," 42, 70,
136; cream-white, 164, 202

290

i

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