palatal eit, Savery eeat st bjeidyonsye! a 4 Wte persia: ee sey? uate -siwabae sors: te Me eter its te) ereseeerereata! rie pie rie Binge) erie vel Deity nets Pt) 4 behest + webieleteied my i aly Pe, THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN NdGUVD LAMONINVN V NI WOINIHdTAG GNV YAAGNGAVI VAS THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN BY “usta (youn MRS. FRANCIS KING” ILLUSTRATED WITH PREFACE BY GERTRUDE JEKYLL CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS NEW YORK :: :: :: MCMXV CoprrnricHt, 1915, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS Published May, 1915 MAY --5 1915 Ociasgseg2 TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF 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. Orcuarp Howse, Atma, MIcHIGAN. | 4 Y 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. 1x 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. CHAPTER CONTENTS Coton Harmony ... . CoMPANION Crops SUCCESSION, CROPSH ne oa an JOYS AND SORROWS OF A TRIAL GARDEN . BALANCE IN THE FLOWER GARDEN . Cotor HARMONIES IN THE SPRING GARDEN . Tue Crocus anp Orner Earty Buss . Cotor ARRANGEMENTS FOR DARWIN TULIPS AND OTHER SpRING-FLOWERING BULBS Notes oN Spring FLrowers .... . A Sma Spring FLower Borper . Notes on SoMe oF THE NEWER GULADIOLI MipsumMerR Pomes .... GARDEN ACCESSORIES GARDENING EXPEDIENTS THE QUESTION OF THE GARDENER . NECESSITIES AND LUXURIES IN GARDEN Books Various GARDENS ASPPENDEX scl ee enieiio veces INDEX): oh ceee 101 115 129 143 157 179 191 205 219 239 269 283 Nae Hig Mr ILLUSTRATIONS Sea Lavender and Delphinium in a Nantucket Garden Frontispiece FACING PAGE Tulip Kaufmanniana with Scilla Sibirica Tulips Reverend H. Ewbank and Clara Butt, below Blooming Lilac Sea-holly and Phlox Pantheon Phlox Aurore Boréale, Sea-holly, and Chrysanthemum Maxi- mum Muscari Heavenly Blue, Tulipa Retroflexa, and Myosotis along Brick Walk Arabis and Tulip Cottage Maid Double Gypsophila and Shasta Daisy Gypsophila and Lilies in the Garden The Time of Lilies and Delphiniums Borders of Pale Blue, Blue-Purple, and Pale Yellow . Tulip Cottage Maid with Arabis Alpina Munstead Primrose and Tulip White Swan on Slope below Poplar and Pine . Peonies and Canterbury Bells Discreet Use of Rambler Rose, Lady Gay . Xlil 16 16 22 22 28 28 28 32 36 42 42 46 48 48 ILLUSTRATIONS PACING PAGE Heuchera Sanguinea Hybrids 56 Rambler Rose Lady Gay over Gate 56 Hybrid Columbines below Briar Rose Lady Penzance 60 Narcissus Barri Flora Wilson 60 The Time of Gypsophila . 68 Hardy Asters in September 72 Puschkinia below Shrubs . 80 Tulip Kaufmanniana in Border . 80 Crocus Mont Blane 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 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Delphiniums the Alake and StatuaireRude . . . . . 164 Buddleia Variabilis Magnifica, White Zinnia below . . . 172 The Trowel, the Label, and Various Baskets . . . . . 186 aptisia Astras’. ° ihc (ote ane Gia o Umea ae aE Oe SOE 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 . . . . . gs QA Atowanmpscott, Massachusetts) i ys Gee ee ed Fernbrook, Lenox, Massachusetts . . . . . . . . Q54 Fancy Field, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania . . . . . . 258 Rustic Arbor and Pergola in Tacoma Garden—First Year . 262 Thornewood, American Lake, Tacoma FANE IN ar eke APRS FY.) Glendessary, Santa Barbara, California NT? heen ee ea be ase ROG Elanting: Plans for Coloryaie ancien we hie) 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 XV 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. I COLOR HARMONY HE very broadest consideration of color in gardening 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 (ferruginewm), 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, Eugene Danzanvilliers and Antonin Mercie; for whites, the wondrous Von Lassberg and the low but ef- fective 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, KGnigin, General von Heutz, Selma, Bridesmaid, General Chanzy, Jules Cambon, and Elizabeth Campbell (already an established favor- fe 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 Ivzs reteculata 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 ‘‘Répertoire des 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 tf 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: “T 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; aubrieta 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- schén, 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. Itis 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 “Répertoire des Couleurs”’ sent out by the Société Francaise des Chrysanthémistes. 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 Phcenix carry along the tone of the cream-white tulip. Narcissus Orange Phee- 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 Bes ae 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 dafiodil-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), Président Grévy (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 18 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 Wichurarana. 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- 21 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. Wallacez, among the gaillardia below the taller lies. 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 trusses of tall rose-pink flowers, against the cloudy masses of sea-holly (Eryngium amethystinum). 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 22 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 Eug. Danzanvilliers raises its lavender heads above another mass of sea-holly, a few spikes of the white phlox Friulein 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. 24 Il COMPANION CROPS ““A Garden!—The word is in itself a picture and what pictures it reveals.”—E. V. B. II COMPANION CROPS T 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 chrysantha) 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- fleca 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 MYOSOTIS ALONG BRICK WALK ARABIS AND TULIP DOUBLE GYPSOPHILA AND SHASTA COTTAGE MAID 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; 1t 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 Réve, 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, Muscart botryoides, var. Heavenly Blue; Scilla campanulata, var. Excel- 29 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN sior; tulip Rose 4 Merveille, Campernelle jonquil, Narcissus Barri, var. Flora Wilson; Narcissus Poetaz, var. Louisa; Tulipa Greigi, Iris cyanea, var. pumila (a lovely variety, the blue of the sky), Phlox divaricata, var. Canadensis (the new variety of this, Laphamt, is both larger and finer), so beautiful back of masses of Alysswm sazatile, 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 Sutton’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 ae ay 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 are both a whiter gypsophila and a grayer. The former is the variety flore pleno, 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. Lilum 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- 33 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 Eugene Danzanvilliers, masses of palest lavender; Physostegia Virginica, var. alba; the lovely lavender-blue Stokesia cyanea, Scabiosa Ja- ponica, 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 Sutton’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 Van Lassburg and Fiancée, zinnia in light flesh tones, the good lavender-pink physostegia (Virginica rosea), 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 Salma 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 salvia just 36 SWOINIHdTAG GNV SATIIT AO GNIL GAL ve ‘ os Wied x 1 Y i 4 i 4 — is ow * , ~ As a 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 Drummondi 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. 38 III SUCCESSION CROPS ““Give me a tree, a well, a hive, And I can save my soul alive.” — “Thanksgiving,” KaTHARINE TYNAN. III SUCCESSION CROPS ASY 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 TULIP COTTAGE MAID WITH ARABIS ALPINA (V3 ni he pee ayes 4 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 Sutton’s Perfec- tion and Sutton’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 Sutton’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 sereen 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 Sutton’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 usualiy the centres of colonies of annual asters (my great favorites are the single Aster Sinensts, 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 ky feAina 43h 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- thyrus 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- nensis or grandiflora, 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 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. f 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 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 arabisinitssingleand 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 A 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,” Evretyn UNDERHILL. IV JOYS AND SORROWS OF A TRIAL GARDEN HE 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 Seotch 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 Sutton’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. sanguinea 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 RAMBLER ROSE LADY GAY OVER GATE A TRIAL GARDEN sont (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 (Johnstont). 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, Barrz 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 NARCISSUS BARRI FLORA WILSON \ el .. r ‘ ~~ 4