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VARIETY m THE LITTLE GARDEN

A Sprmg Garden at Jlochpster, New York

VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

BY

MRS. FRANCIS KING

Author of ''The Little Garden," etc.

With Illustrations and Plans

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOSTON

Copyright IQ23 By Louisa Yeomans King

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

To F. K.

SI 23794

3(44

The writer wishes to thank the editors of The House Beau- tiful and MeCalVs Magazine for permission to reprint in this book material which has appeared in their publications.

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CONTENTS

I. Variety ix Spring Flowers 3

II. Variety in Flowers of Early Summer 17

m. Variety in Annual Flowers 29

rV. Variety in Perennial Flowers 45

V. Variety in Newer Flowers 61

VI. Variety in Shrubs 76

Vn. Variety in Trees 97

Vm. The Meaning of the Garden 108

ILLUSTRATIONS

A Spring Gabden at Rochester, New York Frontisjnece

Late Tulips below Pink Dogwood 12

A Rose Garden in Gloucestershire, England 24

Gypsophila and Hollyhocks Finely Used along a Garden

Walk 50

Ipomcea Rubro-ccerulea and Clematis Stella Dwyer. ... 68

"A Single Flowering Shrub, Rightly Placed, Has Your

Eye to Itself" 78

A Pleached Alley of Lime Trees 100

Gardener and Friend 116

Plans and Tables

Plan for Formal Flower-Garden for the Smaxx, Place .... 56

Flower-Planting Plan for Beds of the Garden Shown

Above 56

Tables of Pruning-Dibections 94

VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

The Seed Shop

Here in a quiet and a dusty room they lie. Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand. Forlorn as ashes, shriveled, scentless, dry — Meadows and gardens running through my hand:

Dead that shall quicken at the call of Spring, Sleepers to stir beneath June's magic kiss, Though birds pass over, unremembering. And no bee seek here roses that were his.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams; A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust That will drink deeply of a century's streams; These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death. Sealed in their shells a million roses leap; Here I can blow a garden with my breath. And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

Reprinted by permission from Poems by Muriel Stuart William Heinemann, London

I

VARIETY IN SPRING FLOT\^RS

In our spring gardens there are as many excitingly different subjects as may be found for those of any other season of the year. Let me WT-ite of bulbs as though the Department of Agri- culture, through the Federal Horticultural Board, had never placed them under quarantine. Almost as I dip my pen the em- bargo upon many of these things has been lifted and we may secure our hearts' desires in little smooth-skinned roundlings to plant in October and November for the painting of spring pictm-es. True, m three years, no more daffodils will be per- mitted entry into America; still it is moderately certain that a way will be found to give us again those special flowers without which spring cannot be spring, and which we shall so sorely need for our borders.

First then, the snowdrop (Galanihus). Fortunately this is one of the group which may now be freely imported, for it is an essential to all spring gardening; there is no sight so dear as that of the first snowdrop. After the December blooming of the Lent hellebore there can be no flowers in our northern climate till middle or late February when the snowdrop appears, and when this little flower pierces the ice, or stands whitely clustering about the foot of an old apple tree, where I come upon it as a surprise, it is then — then — that my heart dances, not waiting for the daffodils to bring that joyous sensation of the spring.

UMbkltY K. C. StaU College

4 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

The common variety of the snowdrop is called Galanthus nivalis. A far finer one, to my thinking, is G. elwesii — taller and for that reason more easily gathered, and more efiFective in the border. One cannot imagine a stiff planting of snowdrops, ex- cept perhaps in the hands of a child, who naturally sets things out in lines or squares. The two great points in setting these things in the October earth are to plant in loose groups for an easy effect, and in far comers if possible, for once sown, they should never be touched. If they are not, the chances are that they will increase fairly fast and grow according to one's hopes by spreading in their own inimitable way.

The Puschkinia is another of these delicious little early things. Its nodding flower is held on a stem about four inches high, and is striped, bluish and white. On our ground it is fair to see, for it has spread itself about from the first sowing till long reaches of it now appear imder lilacs, and the interesting thing is to see the amount of fine grass-like leaves among the newer blooming bulbs. All these leaves give promise of flowers within a year or two. In fact, when the blue- white mist of Puschkinia lies around a little semicircular brick platform, — used as a sitting-place just at one side of the garden, — runs off through pale yellow tulips, and rises through the handsome leaves of Euonymus skirting the curve of brick, I think this one of spring's most endearing moments.

Puschkinias, however, bloom after crocus, and in the crocus we have a whole boxful of colors with which to paint the surface of our bit of ground in April. There are pinks, mauves, violets, lavenders, and rich waxen whites; there are stripes and flakes of color upon white; there are tall and short flowers, slim or round- ing flowers, and when grown among myrtle, as now many of ours are, they sometimes rise for air and light to a height of eight or nine inches in the border. Let me give here the names, first of

VARIETY IN SPRING FLOWERS 5

some beautiful species crocus, and then of certain of the larger type knouTi as florists' crocus.

Crocus korolkowi is a very early flower, low, small, bright yellow with brownish outer color. Crocus Sieberi is a clear lavender. Crocus susianus, bright yellow, and Crocus Tommasin- ianus, in spite of its fearsome adjective, is a beauty of slender- form and of a delightful tone of clearest lavender. This crocus I grow among snowdrops. It blooms with them and the little white and lavender spring flowers together are a welcome sight. WTiy is it that colored flowers in April are surprising as well as lovely? Perhaps because in our cold climate the first green of the grass is all that we expect. When

. . . fades the last long streak of snow,

that green in itself gives us the glow of pleasiu-e which is hope. And when, breaking upon this brilliant green, appear these small and starry flowers, our cup of joy in spring runs over: we feel spring more than a promise. It is a fulfillment.

Leaving the species crocus, let me suggest a grouping of the large named varieties which has been most successful with us. In their order as they lie, rising among the dark foliage of mj-rtle (Vinca minor), they are these: Pallas, Tilly Koenen, Julia Gulp, Mikado, Pallas once more, Ovidius, and among these a little, say one eighth as much of the crocus known as "largest golden yellow," but only in one loose group or drift. Among the lavenders, whites and purples of this group the yellow is a high light. I remember someone saying to me, as we looked upon these cups of color and of light, "This reminds me of nothing quite so much as of the effect of the prettiest possible French hat ! " A feminine remark, you say? Yes, but remember there is nothing serious about a crocus. It is one of the most daring and coquettish flowers we have. It has the two great

6 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

qualities of bravery and mirthfulness, else how could it venture forth, as too often it does, smiling, to its own destruction?

It happens that all our crocuses ^- and now through their habit of multiplying there are sheets of them — lie in and out of a high wire fence around our ground, a fence hidden by shrubs. Many of them, therefore, are near the public walk and all be- neath the public eye, and part of the pleasure of these fine flowers in spring is that enjoyment of them by all who pass by. Another welcome pleasure is the sight of groups of small chil- dren, shepherded by their teachers to the crocus borders, the sound of their little squeals of delight in the flowers and of fear of that ever-present bee in the crocus cup.

The crocus is sold by all dealers, and the various species crocus, like the named sorts, can be brought in freely from Europe. There is no quarantine against this bulb at the time of writing. And now we may even more enjoy the crocus in the little garden — enjoy it entirely — because we may have again the blue of scilla. The scilla is no longer prohibited by the Government. Scilla sibirica is, luckily for us, the companion in time of bloom of much purple crocus, and very beautiful is this effect along the ground. Scilla campanulata excelsior is a later- blooming flower, tall, with lavender bells of a specially delicate loveliness when associated with Myosotis. The beauty of these is such that it is impossible not to include them among the treasm-es of the American spring, and without them we are left without rich and essential color for the painting of our spring borders.

Like the crocus too, there is to me nothing serious about the hyacinth. In fact, these are pure fun. They have no form to commend them except in the singles. They are heavy, stiff, bungled-looking as to shape, but for the range of their col- ors and for the clear tones of those hues they are magnificent. We use not many, but a few which have become treasures.

VARIETY IN SPRING FLOWERS 7

Among these are Oranjeboven, of a pale coral color, some of the lavenders and violets, Enchantress, King of the Blues, Schotel, Grand Maitre and Adelaide Ristori and Yellow Hammer for pale yellows. For white hyacinths I have no fancy, but those above mentioned will always charm: the violet group among yellow daffodils; the coral-colored one below the flowers of the paler Japanese quince.

With daffodils we enter the poetic walks of spring; modesty, grace, beauty — all figure in these flowers. But to choose is difficult. Numbers of beauties are listed everywhere; therefore, to name a few of one's own favorites is the practical thing. White Lady, a delicious Leedsii daffodil; Ariadne, cream-white throughout, and swayed by every lightest air; Mme. de Graff, a noble white trumpet-daffodil; Barrii conspicuus, primrose- yellow with a cup of orange-scarlet — all these I commend for the little garden's variety in May. Prices change, but at this writing these are some of the least expensive of daffodils. King Alfred's glorious yellow color, its tall and splendid flower, occurs to me here, but its cost is still very high, its behavior as to flowering a bit uncertain.

The thing to remember about the daffodil tribe, especially in the little garden, is, never let them bloom alone. Give them the company of other flowers. Let the blues of Mertensia virginica, of Myosoiis, — Royal Blue or Perfection, — mingle with their yellows. Sow the seed of late Myosotis in July for the forget- me-nots' pale blue among the creamy flowers of Ariadne and White Lady; carpet the ground before your daffodils with single or double Arahis or rock-cress, or with pansies. As for the Arahis, its flowers will have departed before the daffodil ar- rives, but the gray green of arabis foliage will enhance the charm of the tall straight flowers of daffodil above it. The use of daffodils with other flowers is a large part of this subject.

8 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

How charming is the contrast of the straight lines and stems of daffodils with the round low forms of pansies, for instance, be- low them; yet how perfectly the two types of flowers are brought together by the yellows in both. It is a simple matter in such a climate as ours to have fresh crops of pansies every spring from seed sown the August before. This we do on our small place, getting perhaps half an ounce of seed from the finest American source, — some day the whole world will be reopened, — sowing it at once and transplanting seedlings in September to their permanent place. This year that place was the upper garden- walk where a magnificent purple pansy, known by the unpre- possessing title of "Elks' Purple," was thickly set along either border of the walk for fifty feet. Among these pansies in Oc- tober we planted long groups of yellow tulips, of varying times of bloom. These were all in clear tones of yellow, from light to dark, and in the season now upon us should make a delicious planting of spring flowers.

The clustering habit of the pansy is half its charm. " Cuddle- me-to-you" happens to be one of its old English names. Its form, color, and texture set it apart from all other early flowers for rich, yet modest, beauty. As for the sentiment which always hovers about the flower, I will let others speak — as speak they do in ways which seldom please me — and will only echo, in ending, the remark of an old English writer on pansies, that they make "a pretty Show in Borders."

"I was gazing," writes Havelock Ellis, "at some tulips, the supreme image in our clime of gayety in nature, their globes of petals opening into chalices and painted with spires of scarlet and orange wondrously mingled with a careless freedom that never goes astray : brilliant cups of delight serenely poised on the firm shoulders of their stalks, incarnate images of flame under the species of Eternity."

VARIETY IN SPRING FLOWERS 9

Tulips bring to the garden, besides this quality of gayety, those other qualities of dignity, of bright or sombre beauty; indeed with some of the sorts, like Mr, Groenwegen, Garibaldi, Cardinal Manning, and Louis XIV, a certain grandeur of form and color attaches to these flowers. The earlier tulips, species tulips so-called, like the species crocus, — all flowers with few or no common names, only the Latin, but easily mastered when one is interested, — the species tulips are, for the most part, both small and gay. Everyone should leave a corner for a small collection of these. There are, for instance, tulip Greigii, with its red and yellow flowers, and its spotted leaf like that of the dogtooth violet; tulip Clusiana, the Lady tulip, a tiny white flower with bright rose outside; tulip Fosteriana, a magnificent scarlet flower from Bokhara, and the lovely Kaufmanniana, called with reason the water-lily tulip. I write only of those I know, but these tulips are vitally interesting to all who grow spring flowers, and as it becomes more and more simple to procure scillas, puschkinias, and grape hyacinths, so it will be- come more and more fascinating to try these tulips from the Orient and arrange them in clusters with the tiny flowers of blue and violet just mentioned.

The so-called early tulips we must consider, as they are valuable for effects upon the ground; yet I would have the reader remember that the species tulips of the last paragraph are much earlier in bloom than the "early" ones of our bulb list. Among the "single earlies" as they are called. Cottage Maid shines out to me as an old friend of the borders. It is rose-pink with a white flush. Cerise Grisdelin and Rose Gris- delin again have delicious tones of rose. Brunhilde is of yellowish white and, in the group of yellows, Jaune Aplatie, King of the Yellows, Yellow Prince, Chrysolora, are all excellent for clear color. All these early pink and yellow tulips suggest forget-me-

10 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

nots as companions: either pink tulips and the myosotis, or yellow tulips with the same flower. Occasionally, and with great care in their choice and disposition, I should use the rose and yellow both with the little blue myosotis, but it is safer not to do this until the bulbs are familiar and their colors known. Since there are almost a hundred named early tulips to be had, it will be seen that I have skirted the subject by mentioning half a dozen. If I shall have tempted someone in this direction I will leave the rest, with great ease of mind, to himself and his bulb list.

Double tulips have their own interest, but beware of Yellow Rose, of a wondrous yellow truly, but weak-stemmed and only to be used where other foliage abounds as a support. Tea-rose or Safrano is delightful in its pinkish-yellow color, and this with Myosotis makes a picture unforgetable. Bleu Celeste is a superb upright flower of moderately deep violet. This also we use above the forget-me-not for color and form as well; for the loose rosette of the flower stands upon a straight stalk. Bleu Celeste is not obtainable everywhere, but it is worth a search. Miss Jekyll has grown it in her garden in England and it was from her delightful books that it became known to me. It is a double late tulip. Count of Leicester in this group gives a magnificent effect of orange either for cutting or for out-of- door use.

If it is an excitement to dwell on these early single and double tulips, what are one's feelings as the great Darwin and Cottage groups come to mind? While it is true that these magnificent flowers are now generally known to our people through private and public gardens, the choicer uses of them, their best placings and groupings, are not known. And it is here that the amateur has his opportunity. The great oblong of Darwin tulips Clara Butt, stretching monotonously along a public gravel-walk, sue-

VARIETY IN SPRING FLOWERS 11

ceeded probably by a like oblong of Professor Francis Darwin — how stupid, how intolerably dull ! one might as well be in the Holland bulb-fields. Nothing is taught by these blocks of flowers; it is a mere showing of samples: I would not exchange for these thousands one small fifteen-foot corner of our own where the late single tulips, Hobbema (Le R^ve), bloom each spring among a host of blue Mertensia flowers — the simplest possible naturalistic arrangement, but appealing, truly. There- fore the chance for variety in the use in the little garden of these tall colored flowers, the late tulips, cannot be measured. There- fore, also, instead of giving short lists of those familiar to me, I shall suggest the buying of ten of a kind for trial of unknown sorts, and the planting of these among or back of other spring flowers to give each subject its highest effect.

The late Myosotis is ever beautiful among Darwin and Cot- tage tulips. It matters not what the tulip's color is ; these delicate blues are enchanting below all. Myosotis Perfection and M. Royal Blue are marvelous blue flowers. The new Anchusa myosotidiflora will, when better known, prove a great help in color-grouping of tulips. Its beauty is little known now, but its bright blue upright flower, its handsome rounding leaf, and its generally alert habit make it a fit companion for the brisk bloom of the Darwin. Barr's Alpine Blue Myosotis is of a rare color and very free flowering. Send abroad for a packet of this.

Be eclectic in your seed-buying, unafraid to try foreign seeds now and again. Foreign catalogues enlarge enormously one's gardening outlook, and often provide tremendously interesting surprises and give new ideas. The bulk of our seeds should naturally be bought in our own land, but it is both friendly and wise to go abroad each year for novelties and varieties not on our own market. As I write, I know well that the mail bags on many a boat between this country, England and France, are

12 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

rattling with seed packets, and is there a better shuttle with which to weave the threads of pleasant intercourse than the packet of flower seed? A harmless — no, a beneficent messenger, and one whose numbers, let us hope, may increase from year to year. I look forward to a time when foreign journals of gar- dening will list our firms as advertisers and vice versa. Such international intercourse will be well worth while. To a very limited extent this is done now; it should be general.

But we are far afield. That thought of broad waters and of ships carries us dangerously far. Returning to our moutons of American garden borders — let us mention some superb Darwin tulips, which, if grouped, give beauty unparalleled for the month of May. First, a fine picture of violet and bronze to bronzy rose is given by planting in the order set forth: Socrates (Violet Queen), Washington, Marconi, Garibaldi, Melicette. Garibaldi is one of the noblest of the group — a tawny straw-yellow flushed with pinkish lavender. Tulips Solferino, Twilight, and Albion are fine company for each other. Saloman and Mrs. Kerrell — that beautiful rosy Mrs. Kerrell — are delightful neighbors. So are Miss Willmott and Lord Cochran. For more varied group- ings I commend these: Princess Elizabeth, Mr. Groenwegen (a great favorite with me, this last). La Tulipe Noire, and Olifant; or Plutarchus, Don Pedro, Alice. A magnificent array would be Solferino and Garibaldi with Elegans lutea maxima^ Avis Kennicott, Bouton d'Or, and Panorama, palest lavender and straw color through yellow to a bright orange. These should be set in the order given.

A considered planting of tulips in a certain garden (that of Mr. Sidney M. Colgate of Orange, New Jersey), pictured op- posite this page, shows these flowers below a pink dogwood in full flower; the tulips used were of rose, and dark and pale violet, all harmonizing perfectly with the lovely tree above them. Their

Late Tulips below Pink Dogwood

VARIETY IN SPRING FLOWERS 13

names were, in groups as they were to be planted: Clara Butt, Electra, and Dream; or, Sir Trevor Lawrence, Mystery, Sir Harris and John Ruskin. The garden beds are bordered with low box hedges and the planting is supposed to supply bloom mainly in spring and autumn. The dogwood tree is a very old one; great care was exercised in building the brick wall which now partly encloses it, to do no harm to the roots of this inval- uable possession. The pink dogwood is a sport of the white; one sees it occasionally in the woods of the middle Solith, and it is one of the choicest subjects for the embellishment of northern gardens, especially in the eastern states, bringing as it does the softest cloud of warm pink into the spring landscape.

In a charming book describing her long visits to an Italian farm near Venice, Margaret Symonds sets down this sentence, "On this earth, one season is usually spent in looking for signs of the next." In winter, the gardener thinks not alone of winter but of spring. What shall I see in this or that place next spring? Shall that spot be bare or beautiful? Shall it be dull and color- less, a space of uneven soil, a breeding-spot for weeds, or shall I plan now for a lovely flower-embroidered oblong to rejoice the eye next spring in April or May? There is but one answer to be made to this question, and it can be given in three simple words : Plan, Prepare, Plant.

The kind of beauty, the height of beauty, is made or marred by the plan. Let us discuss now for the little garden two pos- sible plans, one for a border of spring flowers from ten to twenty feet long by two wide, the other for a small formal garden of such things. The choice may be made easily between them, but let me add that no one who has not tried it can possibly guess at the delight that comes from a garden of bulbs, complete in itself, a little entity of gay spring color. And now I think of a most lovely picture in Miss Waterfield's book. Garden Colour.

14 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

It is called "May Tulips" and shows a little border of spring flowers near a farmhouse in England. The foreground is a bit of level ground through which runs a narrow brick walk, widening into a square in one place — a square on which a sundial is placed — and then going on a few feet to three steps up, made necessary by a sudden rise of groimd. The walk is at a right angle to the upward slope. The steps are built in a low stone retaining-wall, about two feet high, which serves two purposes — it keeps the earth of the bank in place, and it makes a perfect background for tulips. On either side of the steps at the top are two round balls of stone, about a foot in diameter, which give a decorative touch; the ground beyond runs gently up- ward through an old orchard. Against this low wall is the gayest imaginable spring bloom, growing in a border about two feet wide just below the wall. A little knot of pink-and-white striped tulips (Prosperity would be a lovely tulip here), with two or three plants of pale yellow primroses below, stand to the right of the steps. Beyond, farther to the right, are deep pink tulips, perhaps Clara Butt, with forget-me-nots clothing the ground below them, then more of the pink-and-white. To the left of the steps the planting is repeated, though beyond the first tulip-group of pink there is a little planting of parrot tulips, those wild, torn-looking flowers that would be so much better for one's use in gardens if they had stiffer stems. These are of course red, yellow and green, yet their colors are made agreeable here with the pinks by the clouds of yellow (of primrose) and of sky-blue (of forget-me-nots), all below this line of tulips. Just beyond the top of the wall a few low-growing things, such as rock-cress (Arahis alpina) and the hardy yellow alyssum {Alyssum saxatile) creep in low bright bloom, and the whole makes as simple and lovely a garden picture as it is possible to imagine.

VARIETY IN SPRING FL0\\T:RS 15

Why cannot anyone who has ground which rises and who wants something beautiful to see in spring, — something freshly beautiful, I mean, — why cannot anyone make such a little- garden picture as this? The sundial is not a necessity at first but it adds great beauty to the picture — that, or a well-pro- portioned bird-bath. The walk might be three feet wide, en- larging at the sundial's place to a six-foot square. Brick is not essential. If one lives in a region where flat stone is easily brought in, this is as fine if not finer than brick. A flagged walk, laid of uneven stones, gives a look of age and use always wel- come to the discerning eye. The border might be a bit more than two feet wide; then I should surely set in, among the tulips and early spring flowers, a few roots of Iris germanica, and colum- bines of good kinds. Try Mrs. Scott Elliott's hybrids, growing them from seed the year before. Unless you know these you do not know the columbine in its present beauty of form and color.

Next let us discuss a little informal border against a fence or along a hedge, to give bloom for, say, three weeks of spring: a border four feet wide and twenty feet long. And first, after digging deep and preparing well that border (but no fresh manure in it), I should move a few good peonies in September to a permanent place there, spacing these regularly in a long line four feet apart. Never plant bulbs around a peony which stands alone; the result is nothing but a spot of color, meaning- less, ugly. There is however no prettier place for them than around the up-coming stems of peonies in the spring border, and as the leaves of bulbs brown and wither, the fresh green foliage of the peony claims attention and the fading beneath is forgotten.

First in this border is a scattering of crocus bulbs everywhere: Mikado, striped like dimity; Kathleen Parlow, a waxen white; purpurea grandiflora, rich violet; Largest Golden Yellow. Keep

16 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

your colors separate, but let these little colonies run into each other as flowers do in the woods. Some early tulips are here and there. For a pink effect, Cottage Maid, Pink Beauty, and Murillo (a double). For late tulips in pink: Clara Butt, Ingles- combe Pink, Baronne de la Tonnaye. Among the early tulips some lavender hyacinths will be charming — King of the Blues (pale lavender). Grand Maitre (deep purple). As for daffodils, which should be frequent and in informal groups of from twenty to thirty. Flora Wilson is a lovely variety. So is Ariadne; and Cynosure and Lucifer are handsome flowers with their orange cups against the white outer petals. Emperor and Empress, the yellow trumpet daffodils, can be bought anywhere.

The little low-growing perennial things, mentioned before as growing at the top of a low wall, are enchanting if grown below tulips, daffodils, and other taller flowers. As for the forget-me- nots (Myosotis) I should grow these from seed. Sow in June or July the varieties Perfection or Royal Blue; let the plants seed themselves after flowering the following spring; and if your climate is fairly cool and your soil good, you should have, as I do, Myosotis growing like a weed everywhere. No weed so welcome as this, for below lilacs in May, back of yellow tulips, everywhere we see these delicate reaches of sky-blue. It is one of the most heavenly things in our spring.

The very cheapest tulip one can buy, by the way, is one of the most beautiful, and it increases constantly from year to year. It is tulip Gesneriana rosea, a brilliant cherry-crimson, most striking in beauty when raising its handsome heads above sheets of blue forget-me-nots.

n

VARIETY IN FLOWERS OF EARLY SUMMER

The iris is now so constantly before the mind and the eye of the gardener, and so much is written and said of it to-day that, as June comes, it begins to press the rose for pride of place. Could we imagine a greater contrast in type of the same flower than between Julius Caesar and delicatissimay for instance: the first with slender, definitely marked falls and equally well de- fined standards, the second of a delicate lilac color, with a soft voluminousness seen in almost no other occupant of the flower border.

Why consider here any of the technical points of classification of the iris? Are not all these things written for us in the great Dykes book, where "pogons" and "apogons" and all other remote and difficult things are as the writer's daily food.'' Does not the American Iris Society cover for us all the abstruse points concerning this flower of the rainbow? Why concern ourselves with too much learning, when two sources as infallible as these are present for our use? No one should minimize the importance of accurate botanical knowledge of plants and flowers. No one can collect, be it ever so hesitatingly and little, without going to authorities and learning to classify. But here I wish to emphasize the beauty of certain forms and colors in the iris, and especially to dwell upon the enormous decorative value of the flower for gardens.

Let me set dowTi for my own satisfaction the names of a few varieties which, in our garden, have shown themselves strikingly interesting and strikingly lovely. But first let me speak one word of gratitude to such hybridizers as Miss Sturtevant, Mr.

18 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

Fryer, and Mr. B. H. Farr, three Americans who have created marvels of beauty for us in this great race of flowers. I look forward this year with intensity of interest to the first blooming of Miss Sturtevant's new hybrid, Mother o' Pearl. What may we not expect of an iris from such hands, and bearing a name so filled with color? Perry's Blue, too, said to be the bluest of the sibiricas, is another anticipated beauty of the year. Edouard Michel is of a warm wine-red hue; Isoline (a Vilmorin hybrid) has standards of silvery lilac, falls of purplish old rose, a golden throat, yellow beard. (I take these descriptions from the list of the Mo villa gardens, as in all matters of color I see eye-to-eye with Mr. Wister, the Secretary of the American Iris Society, whose descriptions, or Mr. Boyd's, these undoubtedly are.) Lent A. Williamson has but once bloomed for me. It is a very fine iris, but not so surprisingly beautiful in its tones of violet and purple as I had been led to expect. However, I have seen only a first-year spike.

Monsignor and Crusader — two glories in tall bearded irises, both of which have done well with me; Blue Boy, from Wallace of England, a delightful, very bluish flower; Mrs. Horace Dar- win, an early white with violet markings; Sherwin- Wright, the clear yellow so valuable for use with lovely violet flowers such as Geranium grandiflorum, the purple cranesbill; two of Farr's, Juniata and Windham, the first a clear lavender-blue, "deeper than dalmatica" ; the second a beautiful lavender-pink — these should be in all gardens. I have a desire to experiment with Iris Kochii, an Italian native iris, said to be of a rich, clear purple. I doubt if it can rival a little marvel of a flower, Perry's Richard II, the richest, darkest, most pansy-like iris I have seen. This is a small flower but startling in purple beauty. So far as I know, only a few people have it in this country.

My pen has touched upon these individual irises as casually

VARIETY IN FLOAVERS OF EARLY SUMMER 19

as their visiting butterfly might do. There has been no attempt to give even tlie suggestion of a list or group. Yet in association with other flowers lies surely one of the most delicious uses of the iris. A picture in waiting of an English iris-garden in June de- lightfully haunts me. "A shadow-checkered lawn sloping away to the margin of the woodland. Broad grassy ways lead the vision onward toward clearings through which the distant land- scape becomes focused pictures. Between the trim niceties of mown lawn and wilder woodland the ground has been tamed as it were to a natural wildness. Broad masses of irises have been planted along each ascending pathway, with broad carpetings of catmint (Nepeia mussini). Stately lupines assist the later irises in breaking up any possible monotony of contour; Erigerons supply pink and buff and lavender-blue, and a wealth of gray foliage has been distributed with lavish hand. Here is a soft color group of rose-amber and lavender-purple: Her Majesty, Miriam, Phyllis Bliss, Sincerity, Troost, Monsieur Aymard, and Da\^-n, with a gray carpeting of Artemisia stelleriana. In a group near by is a purple and gold combination composed of the giant Lord of June, Othello, Tamerlane, Neptune, Emir, with a yellow lupine and Iris germanica aurea. Then there is a sunset group in which Eldorado, Iris King, Nuee d'Orage, Nibelungen, Mme. Blanche Pion, Marsh Marigold, Honorable, and Maori King mingle their wonderful and indescribable colors."

Now when this writer goes on to say that, earlier in the season, these long wide beds were bordered with the Crimean irises {Iris pumila) in all their crocus-like colors; w^hen he tells us that, among the bearded irises of the named groups above, many later blooming irises, such as the sihirica, aurea, Monnieri, are showing their leaves with promise of fine color later, and that purple tones again are planned for autumn by the interplanting of many hardy asters — what is the effect upon us? I know

20 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

well, fatally well, where such descriptions send me. Headlong I rush for W. R. Dykes's little volume on the iris in the "Present- Day Gardening Series." I take down the same writer's great work. The Genus Iris, with the magnificent color plates; I get out my lists from dealers where the very names themselves give color and beauty to the page. I betake myself to the literature of the American Iris Society and, as Mr. Phillpotts says, my lawful heirs are likely to try to prevent the posting of the written orders that ensue !

In Mr. Sidney M. Colgate's garden, mentioned in chapter I, Iris pallida dalmatica grows in association with a bluish lupine, and one of the flame-colored varieties of oriental poppy, such as Mary Studholme or Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, also helps to make a picture here in June flowers. Stachys lanata gives a gray foreground to these at each edge nearest the paved walks, and later bloom before and back of the irises is well provided for.

Two gardens entirely devoted to the iris are well known to American amateurs. One is in one of the main-line suburbs of Philadelphia, where in a most lovely countryside, circular gar- dens devoted to this extraordinarily handsome flower stand on dififerent levels, and where the irises, far from being planted at haphazard, are grouped in masses according to type, color, and period of bloom. This is as fine and complete a collection as any that we boast, and from every standpoint has a value. The other is a garden of these flowers at Shrewsbury, near Worces- ter, Massachusetts. Here the mistress of the garden, who loves the iris above all other things that bloom, grows it not only in ordered beds and borders in a well-planned formal gar- den, but sends it streaming ofiF along a brookside, with grass walks separating its broad masses from each other. There is even an iris cut upon the surface of the stone sundial in that garden's midst.

VARIETY IN FLOWERS OF EARLY SUMMER 21

Not one word has been said of the iris as a cut flower. But how can I refrain, for now before me stands a jar of pale Italian paste, holding cottage tulip Mrs. Kerrell, a flower of an ele- gance and of a tone of clear pink such as no other tulip possesses, with a blue base which relates it to iris Juniata, its companion in this group (an iris more nearly blue than any of the germanicas that I know), and long sprays of the pearly buds of Deutzia lemoinei. As tulip IVIrs. Kerrell grows old, it seems to take on also a bluish cast, and this is perhaps partly the reason for its beauty used with iris Juniata.

We have had an odd experience with iris Blue Boy, which is a fine early germanica from Wallace of England. In August of last year we were transplanting as usual. A large root of this was lifted and laid in the upper garden imder a Norway maple. Then it was forgotten. Yesterday, the twenty-third of May, I went to that spot for something, and was amazed to see not only that the plant was alive, but that no less than thirty mag- nificent purple flowers were in full bloom. And this iris had been for nine months, and throughout the winter, on top of the ground! This is the first of my germanicas to bloom, except Mrs. Alan Gray; and to come suddenly upon that in a forgotten corner, hidden by shrubs, with the beauteous bluish-mauve flowers set off by tulip retroflexa in full loveliness beside it, is to rejoice again that those flowers had long since found their way to this garden.

Somewhere I have seen the following mention of a color- grouping of the iris with other flowers, one that I should like much to try, myself. It was this: Iris Mrs. Neubronner and I. Innocenza, wallflowers before and among them, yellow violas below. The first named iris is of a very deep golden yellow; Innocenza is ivory white ; the wallflowers, with their rich orange and orange-reds and their delicate forms, would give remarkable

22 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

contrast among the irises; and as for violas, those pansy-looking things, they are among our best spring-flowering subjects. Someone may say, " We cannot grow wallflowers in this country." Yes, with a little trouble, we can. The seed should be sown in July, the little plants twice transplanted and pinched back to form stocky subjects; they should be wintered in cold-frames, and bloom will not fail in late spring, or early summer after these are set out in the open. Violas are like pansies in their requirements, their habits : Mr. Cuthbertson's small book in the "Present-Day Gardening Series," Pansies, Violas, and Violets, has all the cultural points needed for growing these flowers, as well as charming pictures in color of all three kinds.

I am sending in an order for a few plants of that remarkable new yellow rose offered this season in America for the first time. Souvenir de Claudius Pernet. This rose is considered " the best yellow rose so far introduced for the garden." It is a Pernetiana seedling. Somewhere I have seen a complaint of its overthorny stem; but what of that? The rose, from the descriptions and from the plates, is of a lovely tone of clear yellow, and is said not to turn white at the edges as, to our regret, many of us have seen our yellow roses do.

The coming distribution of this rose in our gardens must bring to us, by its very name, feelings of friendship, admiration and sympathy. As I have said. Souvenir de Claudius Pernet is a seedling developed and named by the great Pernet himself, the friend of our own Admiral Aaron Ward, who says of him, "Per- net occupies indeed a position peculiarly his own in the esteem of his fellow rosarians. Perhaps this will account for the very widespread sympathy extended to him in these days of deep personal affliction. His eldest son and intended successor, Claude, a young man very much like his father in personal charm of manner, was killed in battle, last October, and his only

VARIETY IN FLOWERS OF EARLY SU]MMER 23

remaining son has since been taken." Souvenir de Claudius Fernet is more, much more than a beautiful creation in roses. It is the dearest of tributes by a noble father to a noble son.

It is this association of flowers with glorious deeds, with all the beauty of the past and present, which makes the names of flowers into little pathways of rewarding thought. "\Mio can gaze upon the rose called Juliet and repeat to himself that name, without a sense of romance, of tragedy, of all the Italian scene? Who can see the picture of rose Dr. Van Fleet, without a sigh of pity for us all that this modest, unassuming, really great man in the world of flowers is no more?

To return to his rose — one of the many beauties of this pale- pink hardy climber is that each blossom is borne on a stem twelve to eighteen inches long, and is perfect for use as a cut flower as well as lovely on the bush, or rather, the vine.

Los Angeles is a rose that I adore; another is Mrs. A. R. Wad- dell ; another, Mme. Edouard Herriot. And by the name of this last there hangs such a charming tale of M. Fernet, told again by Admiral Ward, that it must be repeated here.

It was in the spring of 1912, at the London Horticultural Society's International Show. "The London Daily Mail" says Admiral Ward, "had offered a gold cup for the best seedling rose of the show, coupled with the condition that it should be named after the paper. The jury unanimously awarded its medal to Madame Edouard Herriot as the best seedling. But when it came to the question of changing the name to qualify for the Daily Mail cup, Fernet quietly remarked : * In my coun- try, we do not de-baptize a lady. That rose remains Madame Herriot.' And Madame Herriot it is. But he got his cup all the same."

And now with what pleasure I set before the reader a picture of a rose-garden in England. Tell me if you have seen before

24 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

anything to approach the unique beauty of this scene at Dowdes- well Court, near Andoversford, Gloucestershire. A paneled pic- ture it is, framed by tall tree-trunks, and showing a delicious vista of circular rose-garden and rising park-land beyond, with a superbly rounding tree — possibly an oak — just over the garden's clipped hedge of yew, to carry out the curves of the little garden itself. No situation for a garden could, I believe, bring with it more of interest than this; from its very placing this garden has a cherished look, a look as of something dear and precious; it was a happy thought of owner or designer to use for such a purpose the level spot in the depression between two gently rising slopes. The garden lies some thirty feet below the point from which we see it; a rock garden holds the inter- vening slope, and in the rose-garden these are the subjects grown: Caroline Testout, J. B. Clark, Mme. Abel Chatenay, Liberty, Pharisaer, and Frau Karl Druschki. The three circles or rings of beds may be plainly seen; those of the outer circle are connected by four balancing arches, whereon are Dorothy Perkins and American Pillar — the rambler Professor Sargent so admires. In the centre is a lily pool with its foimtain. For my- self, I can think of no greater pleasure in life than first to have had some part in the conception, the creating of such a garden, and then to be able to lead one's friends or guests, on a day in an English June, to such a spot as Mr. Malby has chosen here for his picture.

Of the gathering and arranging of roses there is too much to be said for the space allowed me here; but this I think is univer- sally held wise — that roses should be arranged only with their own beautiful buds, "the rosebud ripening to the rose," and their own foliage; and that, because of their rounding shape, low bowls are their best receptacles — bowls, or baskets with linings for water. No rose that I have seen, however, but is en-

M. C State C«Ue««

A Rose Garden in Gloucestershire, England

VARIETY IN FLOWERS OF EARLY SUMMER 25

hanced a little by a cluster of single or double Gypsophila very carefully used, or, in winter, by a touch of Steina or the graceful Bouvardia, that flower now again in favor after a lapse of years. The windows of our best florists in winter show the most en- chanting companies of flowers together — deep purple pansies with rose Ophelia for example, palest lavender sweet -peas with roses of like hue; yet such suggestions will not do for northern gardens.

For the cutting of roses, prune as you cut; shape your bushes as you use the shears. The o^Tier of a rose-garden is forced to generosity; he does not care to see his flowers perish on the stem. And here I must quote a delicious sentence from an English friend on the subject of rose-giving: "When you cut roses to give away, you cannot go wrong if you select those you would prefer to keep, though this is a counsel of perfection and too Christian for general practice."

While the iris and the rose are perhaps the flowers of most importance for the little garden's early summer moments, they are accompanied by so many lesser beauties in flowers that we can only name these and pass on. Here on the march down our simimer borders are foxgloves and Canterbury bells; the lace- like white valerian ; the noble peony in its present-day grandeur of type and unbelievably beautiful color; earliest delphiniimis such as Belladonna; early perennial phloxes like the Arendsii and Miss Lingard; the hardy pinks with their sweet scent of spice, their gray-leaved patterns in the garden — the list is endless, and this mention must suflSce us here.

If seed of annual poppies is sown the autumn before, they may be counted upon for early summer bloom. One of the pleasant international happenings this spring was the gift to me, in a letter, of nine different varieties of annual poppy seed from an English authority and friend. These to-day — early July —

26 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

are in full beauty; and while the colors are mixed (for the seed was planted in rows near each other in the trial garden), the colors and forms of some of them are so particularly good that they serve to remind one of the beauty of Shirley poppies for variety in the garden. Here is for instance, one, almost like a miniature peony of rose-type, very large, flat, with outer petals; all the inner part of this flower is very double, and of the most delicious shell-pink; and all are held together by one of those little buttons of pistils and stamens of a pallid green which give such interesting centres in both color and form. Another of these entrancing Shirleys is made up of four large thick petals; these are white at the edges, the rest of the flower stained in that tone known as ashes of roses, a dull or faded rose. The pistil in this case stands well up from the flower, and the corona of stamens is of a pale brown, lovely with the dull rose of the poppy. Also here is a third of striking beauty. This is a very large white poppy, the edges of whose four petals are margined with most vivid pink, almost a carmine. Others of these poppies are broad white singles, with bands half-an-inch wide of pale rose at the edge; large pure white doubles with what seem thou- sands of tiny silken tongues composing the flower; immense globes of a vivid light scarlet; others of palest salmon-pink, cream- white at the top of the flower — all with the heavy blue- green foliage, the nodding bud, the handsome seed-pod. Out of such a pod a little Norwegian maid once taught me to make a teapot, with one inch-long twig for the spout, a hooped one stuck in opposite for the handle, and the fine brown fluted top of the poppy seed-pod for the teapot's base.

There were other tones of pink in this fine row of poppies, all verging upon the yellow-pinks. Never have I seen such immense Shirleys, never finer opium poppies than these. True, there were some small Shirleys of a dull, rather uninteresting lavender.

VARIETY IN FLOWERS OF EARLY SUIVIMER 27 almost a gray: these I at once pulled up, lest the seed take hold upon ground much needed for better things. One cannot give too much space to the poppy in the formal garden; it is too ephemeral. It vanishes in a night. But I have always found that its quick replacing of itself by itself, the prompt following of the fallen petal by the newly opened flower, makes of it a much more permanent occupant of the border, in the way of flowering things, than is the case with many other annuals. These from England were most beautiful as they stood in a gay multitude with Cephalarla tossing its pale yellow heads into the air be- yond them, the green of damask roses back of those, and twenty feet beyond, the carved birds and lattices of the little tea house, seen between ha^\-thorns whose leaves glistened in the late sun- light of an evening in July.

Beyond these poppies are great heads of Delphinium seed with still a fewer lower spikes of blue. These are the tall vari- eties, Lloyd George, General Baden-Powell, Clemenceau (and magnificent they are) from Kelway's seed. A few Clarkia plants are not far off. If I had space, this is a flow^er that I should sow for succession of bloom, exactly as one does peas for that good vegetable. No flower excels the Clarkia for cutting; none is so gracefid in water or so lasting within doors. Its peachlike pink is delightful: its nice purplish or cool pink blooms are highly interesting in association with the violet annual larkspur; and this is true of planting as of the use of the cut flower.

And now for the opiirni poppy : to look down on the magnifi- cent heads of this palest cream-pink poppy is an experience. Flower tufts were never so tightly packed as these. A firm pale green case, splitting in two as the flower develops, holds this color and softness imprisoned till such time as it opens into the great fluffy beauty of the poppy, and every bud is held erect, expectant, ready for that moment. Not far from these flowers

28 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

stands a single plant of phlox, A Mercie, in full lavender beauty, and this by chance has for its neighbor a line (for trial) of various kinds of Hemerocallis, of which Thunbergii and Kwanso are in bloom. The yellows of these lilies, light and dark, are nice beyond and with the phlox.

Looking down one of the little grassy aisles of the formal garden, I see the buds, flowers, and seed pods of my own beauty of a rose-pink poppy never so tall and fine as this year. Very beautiful it is thrusting its head through gypsophilas — lovely below Delphinium Moerheimii, with white petunias and the little viola known as Johnny-jump-up below these. Nothing however in the garden, this month, has pleased me more than a chance association of delphinium Belladonna, which by a special horti- cultural dispensation has held over its bloom well into the time of Phlox decussata. There it stands in all its pale beauty, above the white rounds of Tapis Blanc and with the lavender of E. Danzanvilliers back of it. Of little use it is to plan this grouping; the delphinium normally is far too early for the phlox. But I rejoice in this enchanting color-grouping of flowers as it stands here.

The long shadows fall on the fresh-clipped breadths of hedge; on the smooth squares of grass; on slim white Regal lilies, rising above snowy mounds of phlox; on the little brown-tipped brushes of sea-lavender about to bloom; on the low cushions of Dianthus cosspitosa and Heuchera's rich foliage. A late and sleepy bee weighs down a dome of lavender phlox; the last birds twitter, and soon color will leave the garden, and the fragrance of lilies, of heliotrope, of phloxes, take its place.

Ill

VARIETY IN ANNUAL FLOWERS

Gazing in spring at the veil of peach and plum blossoms in the Tennessee momitains, one's thoughts turn affectionately to one's o\\-n garden, that pole toward which the heart of the gardener is ever true, and while no shoot is now daring the weather of the Michigan March, the buds and flowers all about one give heartening evidence of what will be later seen at home; also much may always be learned from a temporary dwelling- place.

Annuals form a large part of the summer beauty in the gardens of eastern Tennessee; the season as far south as this is apt to be hot and dry, and the mountain gardens are rather too well drained for the satisfaction of their ambitious ow^ners. Alto- getlier lovely in March are these gardens with daffodils, violets, Thunberg's Spiraea, Forsythia, jonquils, and fruit blossoms. Jasminum nudiflorum blooms in January, sometimes even at Christmas. All irises do well. Iris gertnanica blooms the first of April; roses come in April and May. The Dianthus is specially good in this region. One garden club is this year keeping a flowery calendar, that the times of bloom of the various occu- pants of their gardens may be recorded. Delphiniums are diffi- cult to grow in the warm Tennessee climate, but sweet peas, though short-lived, flourish early and beautifully; dahlias and chrysanthemums are gloriously at home; so are the hardy phloxes and nearly all of the better known perennials. Annuals are a prop and mainstay the summer through.

The best plan for simple gardening, where people are renting a small house and grounds, is a border of bulbs and annuals;

30 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

and here are the reasons: bulbs, to use Mr. Wemmick's time- honored phrase, are "portable property." They can be lifted, stored in a small space, and carried to the next abode if people must move. Annuals cost only for the seeds, and very early may be counted upon to cover the drying leaves of tulip and daffodil. Miss Jekyll somewhere suggests that bulbs and annuals in a long narrow border be planted in long shaped drifts, alternating with each other; that, for blue or bluish flowers to use in such places, Didiscus asperula azurea, Nigella anagallis, Convolvulus minor be the subjects; for white, Argemone, Jacobea, annual Gypsophila, and the white annual flax, Linaria; for yellows, dwarf nasturtiums and Eschscholtzias; and for pinks and reds, Saponaria as well as poppies in variety. Some of these things are hardly known to us; yet seed can be obtained, and in parts of our country they will surely reward the daring gardener who is not afraid of the unknown.

To this list I should always add annual larkspur, especially in lavenders and purples. This would look well among any or all of these annual plants. I sometimes think that a border of scarlet and lavender annuals would be an entrancing experi- ment: scarlet poppies with lavender- violet colors, to be suc- ceeded by a good Ageratum, the poppies to be followed by some one of the best varieties of scarlet annual salvia, among which successive sowings of lavender and violet larkspurs and possibly a touch in the foreground of scarlet geranium would look ex- tremely well. To relieve the level of height in all these, an early lavender sweet pea, such as Wedgewood, or a few hardy asters, judiciously placed, would add great interest to an uncommon color arrangement.

While I have never tried this plan that occurs to me just now, it should take no coiu-age at all to undertake it. The only peren- nial is the hardy aster, and the only plant which must be bought,

VARIETY IN ANNUAL FLOWERS 31

the geranium. It is almost mmecessary — but not quite — to add that the lavenders and violets of all the flowers used should be particularly clear, not muddy or uncertain, and that the scarlets should be flaming ones.

For a long time it has been the fashion among good amateur gardeners to condemn the geranium as a flower for gardens. The reason is that for many years nothing had been seen in public gardens, and in some private ones, but the scarlet gera- nium with the canna and the scarlet sage. It was this bad use of the geranium that was its undoing. So it has been with the canna till just now, when a new time seems to be approaching for these flowers. In watching the ordinary canna-plantings of this country, I have come to look for their accomplices, — scarlet salvias, blue spruces, golden-leaved shrubs, — all that array of stuff which those who do not stand high as landscape- gardeners (and how many these are to-day, when the art is taught by correspondence courses, or supposed to be learned in the nursery business) palm off upon the public. The round bed of canras bespeaks a third-rate taste in gardening. Most of this type of the use of the canna in our towns is due to certain florists' books w^hich to this day show forth designs for plantings of detached round beds of these plants; some of our best seeds- men too still publish such plans for bulbs. It is a pity! It is a great chance for beauty, missed. The florist teaches his men to use these designs; our city parks are filled with the results; the wrong object lesson is given to a neighborhood; the wrong thing spreads like wildfire.

Many small railway stations have rectangular parks, sup- posed to be well set off by a circle of cannas, scarlet and yellow. These beds are probably copied in the town by the Carnegie Library, the Towm Hall, the village park, the individual house- holder. One of the two powerful trade journals of this country.

S2 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

in an issue two years ago gave twelve columns to the subject of the canna, attracted to this topic by the sight of twenty-two thousand cannas in full bloom at Washington in August. I quote: "Each bed noted was a solid mass of one color. . . . There is no flower which so well fills the decorative situation for large buildings as does the canna."

Now how much easier and pleasanter to discourse upon the right use of the canna; for every growing thing has its right use. I recall Miss Marcia Hale's lovely placing and grouping of the bronze-leaved type in a columnar effect, to flank trellis-openings against a distant prospect, in the garden of Miss Porter's school at Farmington; Miss Jekyll's nice planting of cannas with scarlet geraniums in a decorative manner in the early days of Munstead Wood; charming arrangements of the pale yellow and flame-pink varieties in the gardens of our own amateurs, in combinations of true felicity with other flowers. This is meant to be a diatribe only against the improper, the unsuitable, use of the flower.

The canna's subtropic look makes it difficult for use in the temperate zone in all but the cleverest hands. And because it is the tall scarlet canna which is so monstrously misplaced by many gardening hands to-day, I would draw attention here to the wonderful possibilities for garden use of the new Wintzer hybrids in cannas. These beauties are as yet unknown to me, but I shall not be long without them. Mr. J. H. McFarland, writing lately of these newer cannas, is filled with enthusiasm over them. "These Wintzer cannas," says the letter, "provide an absolutely new power for color harmony and for color con- trast in the garden. If you know the varieties, Cupid, Mrs. Pierre du Pont, Edward Bok, Apricot, and a dozen other cannas in soft tones of chamois-pink, fawn and the like, and if you have seen how a clear orange sort with wavy petals and good green foliage fits, you will be ready to consider also some exquisite

VARIETY IN ANNUAL FLOWERS 33

unnamed cannas. These shade from the clearest lemon-yellow to the faintest primrose in the same flower, running to apricot and related hues." All this is pleasant news to the gardener; anything really fine, and lovely, and hitherto unknowTi is worth the trial, and these descriptions from the president of the Ameri- can Rose Society, himself a fine grower of many flowers beside roses, should set us toward many delightful experiments with the canna.

Harking back now to the geranium, where can we find a more faithful plant? That lovely velvet leaf, now all green, now zoned with cream-white, or even with rose color! Those hand- some flowers, single, double, rose color, salmon pink, flesh pink, purest white, and richest crimson, and scarlet! No other plant produces such blooms and with such steady certainty.

For some years I used in pots out-of-doors, as color accents for a certain place, a niunber of plants of that charming flame- pink geranimn, Mrs. E. G. Hill. In order to get summer bloom, we kept the plants in pots, indoors, during the winter, stripping all the stems of leaves toward January and allowing them to sprout again toward May. After these plants were set out in the open about the twenty-fifth of May, flower buds soon ap- peared, and great mounds of delicate blossoms renewed by fresh ones were constantly produced. My suggestion to those who have fine plants of geranimns in their houses is to strip off all the leaves about three months before the outdoor gardening season opens; then use the plants as the starting point in flowers for the borders or beds of yom* garden.

Let me explain: suppose for instance, that you have only scarlet geraniums; and suppose, also, that you plan a small flower -border, ten feet long by four wide, against a fence or before some shrubs. For such a border, always remembering your color note of scarlet, sow, the year before, seeds of palest

34 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

yellow hollyhocks at the back; have one or two plants of hardy Gypsophila on hand for the middle of the border, four or five feet apart; use all the pale yellow, cream- white and pale lavender flowers to be procured for the further filling of this space. Sea- lavender, when well established, is a delightful neighbor in color and form for the scarlet geranium; so, too, are pale yellow annual chrysanthemums, pale yellow monkshood {Aconitum lycocto- num); the white Campanula persicifolia; and some gray-leaved things to accompany Heuchera sanguinea (Mexican coral bells) at the very front of the border, the gray leaves to be Nepeta Mussini, Stachys lanata, and the hardy pinks (only white- flowering ones). With all these one would get delightful con- trasts of color and form.

But why do I dwell so long on the scarlet geranium only? Those I should suggest are the beautiful whites, such as Madame Recamier; the lovely salmon pinks, Beaute Poitevine and Mrs. E. G. Hill; the new rich crimson, Mrs. Richard F. Gloede, now so happily settled in our own garden with the clustering Agera- tum fraseri below it — as nice an arrangement of annual or tender flowers as one could see anywhere.

The various scented-leaf geraniums are not nearly common enough in om* gardens. Seventeen varieties are listed by one grower. The rose-geranium is, of coiuse, the most familiar. While the flowers of these are not important, their forms and fragrance are. Also, by growing several plants of the same genus or species we become — in a small way — collectors, and at once grow in knowledge, systematically and pleasantly.

We have now left far behind the subject of flowers violet and lavender in color, yet memory turns here to a discussion of their use by Mr. W. Arnold-Forster, whose writing is always a de- light to the gardener with an eye for effects that not only satisfy, but kindle. "If you associate," says Mr. Arnold-Forster,

VARIETY IN ANNUAL FLOWERS 35

" Thalictrum dipterocarpum and Buddleia with Clematis Jack- mannii superha or C. Gipsy Queen, you get a magnificent piece of color, but it is helped by the addition of Althea ficifolia sul- phurea, or by a good pale yellow form of Gladiolus primulinus" And again, "There are some flower colors which one is always trying to conquer — colors which are wisely discarded as almost impossible to use well in the garden. Chief among these are the colder pinks, inclining toward violet, and the color which the Victorians wisely enjoyed when it was called 'magenta,' and which the post-Impressionists have also made good use of under the name of 'fuchsia.' Some of the magenta and the purple- violet phloxes can be made to look magnificent if they are properly treated; they ought to be in half shadow with bluish or leaden greens and creamy white. The cool pinks, such as the pink China rose and Anemone Queen Charlotte, are also good company for them."

Authoritative advice such as this, for the use of phloxes re- verting to magenta, is not often forthcoming; and this is par- ticularly valuable and stimulating. Why is it, though — this reversion of Phlox decussata to the color of the type? One ex- planation is that, if seeds of phloxes are allowed to fall, they drop between stems of the parent plant and produce the next- year seedlings, whose flower has a magenta hue. Pinch out, says Mr. Henry Wild, the centre-flowers of your phloxes before they seed, if you want to keep your varieties true. It is my own ex- perience that this is wise; I am in the habit of cutting all bloom of hardy phlox before seeds are formed, but my motive is dif- ferent — it is the producing of more bloom, and the preventing of that untidy brownish look given by the seed pods to any quarter of the garden where they become too plentiful. How- ever, the result is good in the direction of color too, for I very seldom have in bloom any but true types of named phloxes.

36 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

A new poppy is Lord Lambourne with wondrous cuttings and fringings — what markings, what silken stamens, hke a silk of heavy pile, a flower of wonder! It is an Oriental poppy, scarlet and black, lately introduced by Perry in England. Also the new sweet pea. Picture, must be noticed. It has just had the award of merit of the National Sweet Pea Society of Great Britain, and is of a creamy-pink color. I am not sure that I like the name "Picture," — this might mean anything, — it is too vague to apply to a flower. But with the wonderful advance made during the last few years in sweet peas in all matters of form, color, substance, and habit, we may be certain that this novelty is worth trial. Picture is a remarkably vigorous grower, and said to stand hard weather with a degree of fortitude un- common to sweet peas.

Among novelties, though they are now at hand in many gardens, none have excited more interest among growers and amateurs than the hardy pinks from the firm of Allwood in England. Dianthus Allwoodii claims many merits, not the least among them that these flowers are half pink, half carnation. These too are perennials.

For a good use of a most precious annual flower, com- mend me to that in the garden of Mrs. Carr at Lake Forest near Chicago. An oblong basin or pool lies quietly within another oblong of smooth grass; one end of this space is bounded by the house-terrace, the opposite one by the woods of a deep ravine; on either side are lines of well-clipped dwarf hedges of evergreen of some kind. Three or four feet apart, and between these, lie long breadths of violet color in heliotrope in full bloom. What more than still water, long level lines of green, the low- toned purple of heliotrope, — that stealing fragrance of helio- trope too, — what more than these can give the feeling of serenity which should be the first attribute of a garden? Nothing

VARIETY IN ANNUAL FLOWERS 37

except, as in this case, the merging of this picture into its good background of tree-masses, introduced to these, in a way, by- four slender evergreens that seem to guard the pool.

As I mention purple flowers, I think, of course, of Clematis Jackmannii and of the lavender clematises, large-flowering ones; of these I shall have more to say later on; but two pictures come to my mind in connection with these. One is a border of which I have read, of yuccas in full bloom in August, with pampas grass between them, these planted together in rich profusion in a wide border against a wall; on the wall, over it, mounting heaps of the deep violet Clematis Jackmannii, back of the cream white of the sharp-cut yuccas and the feathery heads of pampas flower. I have long had this clematis on an arch with pink ramblers; but IVIr. William Robinson grows a lovely pale laven- der one, called Perle d'Azur, on stakes among large bushes of rose Caroline Testout. Nothing more charming in June can be imagined than this association of pink and lavender in flowers, unless it be that other association which has occiu-red to me this summer from observation of my own plants — the growing of the Sargent rose before and among that heavenly lilac with the difficult name of Sweginzowii superba. This lilac is not pink, but of a singular tone of ivory-white with a slight admixture of flesh-color through its delicate blooms. Ours is a tree of dream- like beauty, following Syringa villosa in bloom, and offering itself as the most perfect possible companion for cut flowers such as peony Marie Crousse, Venus, Milton; or giving an effect to delight one with iris Storm King and the Sargent rose in the same bowl of flowers.

For variety in the little garden, however, what is there for midsummer to compare with annuals at their finest and freshest, as they are then? As I WTite, I am looking at some of the most charming of annual flowers, blooming brightly in our own bor-

38 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

ders. These are rose color and blue Godetia and Nigella; and are they found in every border of annuals? I doubt it, but they should be; also should there be another with them, Clarkia by name. Godetias are not so often seen in American gardens, but they are very beautiful and deserve a place, especially the fine variety known as Double Rose. For those who want pure blue in their gardens — and who does not? — Nigella is a flower of the greatest value. The variety Miss Jekyll is certainly one of the most important of pretty annuals. It should be sown several times diu'ing the summer, for its blooming-period is not long. The same is true of Godetia (which belongs, though pink, to the Evening Primrose family) and of Clarkiay whose variety Salmon Rose will make you think that in August you have peach blossoms. I often take up one whole plant of Clarkia in full bloom for an opaque vase or bowl, leaving the roots in the water. The shape of the plant is so graceful, the branches spring so charmingly from the root and arch so lightly under their weight of flowers, that it is a peculiarly lovely thing to observe at close range in the house.

I like so much the great mauve candytuft Lilac Queen, and the white variety as well. This mauve is a favorite of mine with the nigella's blue; and the buff Phlox Drummondii, if one is considering a small harmonious color arrangement, is most lovely near the other two.

No garden can be entirely brilliant or effective without a copious use of white flowers; some of pure white there should be for the high lights of the picture. Nothing is clearer in the white annuals than candytuft, nothing better in rich plants for edgings than sweet alyssum, though too much of this last is a mistake. Unless a very formal effect of straight lines in the garden is aimed at, break up the monotony of the white-edged border by the use of the foliage of pinks (hardy pinks) ; of an-

VARIETY IN ANNUAL FLOWERS 39

nual stocks with their handsome leaves of gray; of that fine perennial Eeuchera, with its dark rounded i\'y-like leaves that hug the ground so closely, and from which rise in June such fascinating coral-colored flowers.

In a border of annuals, arranged by no less a personage in the world of gardening than Miss Jekyll herself, there are groupings which we should do well to bring into our own gardens. For example, near the edge of the border are Eschscholtzia with sweet alyssum before it, and lemon-colored African marigold back (the tall variety) ; Nigella behind the Eschscholtzia, the blue corn- flower back of that — and do you know Dreer's Double? It is worth knowing. Mignonette rises behind blue lobelia in the border; dwarf French marigold has Calendula before it; dwarf Ageratum and that other old garden annual so little known here, CoUinsia bicolor, give blue and lilac tones at the quieter end of low-growing things. Back of all these are pink snapdragons, a group of bluish Scabiosa, Godetia Double Rose, more tall mari- golds (always in the paler colors), white annual asters, and that lovely annual rose-pink Lavatera trimestris, with hollyhocks in white and pink to raise the line of heights in the background. Behind the blue cornflowers. Miss Jekyll has some of the tall primrose-colored sunflowers, those small sunflowers whose plants are not more than three feet high and whose flowers are very fine in form and color. Lupines and one or two other subjects have their place in this border too, but as these are not annuals, they hardly belong to this discussion.

There is nothing better with which to cover bulbs than such annual flowers as these. Their roots are not very deep or de- manding. If seed is sown as early as possible, the foliage of annuals will soon blot out with fresh green the brown and drying leaves of tulips and of daffodils. Verbenas are capital plants for this: one of my special favorites in annual flowers is Verbena

40 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

venosa, with a pretty graceful habit of growth and a small but rich purple head of flowers. This comes from Argentina, and begins to bloom in August. Collinsia bicolor, the little annual mentioned above, flowered with us this summer for the first time. It is a plant about eight inches tall with flowers of lilac and white, exceedingly attractive. This is offered in some of our seed-lists and everyone should try it, though to get the pure lilac-and-white variety one might have to send to England, for I see only mixed colors offered here. Send to England for it; a two-cent stamp will bring a good English seed-list to your door; and if we buy a few novelties from England now and then, our own dealers will be very apt to enlarge their own variety in the near future. Let us spur them on their way.

Not a syllable have I written thus far concerning such plants as annual white cosmos, the dwarf early variety, so nice near Lavatera Loveliness, sweet with deep pink flowers. Do not let the so-called pink cosmos venture near this Lavatera or mallow. If you do, both flowers will suffer, as well as your own harmony- loving eye. If you must have the cool pink of this cosmos in your border, see to it that some lavender or purple hardy asters, such as aster amellus elegans or aster Feltham Blue, or Lil Fardell bloom near by. It is with these flowers that the pink cosmos is perfect, as is the cold pink of the Japanese anemone, that perennial so welcome in the autumn, but whose roots may be transplanted only in the spring.

Variety in perennials is a subject inexhaustible. From those that are now being made known to America by the great soci- eties that bear their names — Peony and Iris — to those other flowers not called perennials, but which once grown or bought go on flowering, like the dahlia, the rose, the gladiolus — the American public is certainly awake to flowers in variety as never before. Merchants and bankers are becoming specialists

VARIETY IN ANNUAL FL0WT:RS 41

in flowers; doctors and clergj'men, as in England, are gardening and spreading this other therapeutic, this other gospel. And this is no prejudiced view, but known to everyone. One of my friends in a certain January became the garden editor of a monthly publication for women — one which has a large circulation ; by the first of April thereafter six thousand letters had come from women everywhere about their gardens.

It is likely that perennials form the basis of most of the smaller gardens. They should. Like a good shrub, the perennial is the best investment for the beginner. Unlike the shrub, it may be increased by division, and this is an advantage. Yet I have never yet been able to understand why the owner of one of Lemoine's delicious shrubs, Philadelphus virginale, for instance, does not seciu-e to himself, by striking cuttings, a dozen more where he has space for them.

Far from calling attention in tliese pages to the older and better known perennials. Coreopsis lanceolata, for instance, or Gaillardia, — both of which sturdy things have their place only in the border of red or yellow flowers and in a few other spots, but not many, — let me suggest the more frequent placing in our gardens of one not very widely distributed as yet. This is the yucca. What a magnificent subject for the border with its full heads of creamy bell-like flowers, its gray-green foliage like bent swords, each leaf with its "terrible needle point"! Yucca filamentosa is the most commonly used, though others are very handsome — gloriosa, perhaps the most striking of the family, recuna, and the freer-blooming filamentosa. In Miss Jekyll's "Gray Garden" those effective cream-white flowers are used thus:". . . a gray-white edging of Cineraria maritima, Stachys and Santolina. There are groups of lavender, with large-flowered clematises, placed so that they may be trained close to them and partly over them. . . . The flower coloring is of purple.

42 VARIETY IN THE LITTLfe GARDEN

pink, and white." With the Yuccas there are used the Madonna lily, Lilium longijiorum, Achillea Pearl, and the hardy Gypso- phila. For pink here Miss Jekyll has Godetia Double Rose, pink hollyhock, and a double soapwort of pale pink. The description of this planting in Colour in the Flower Garden, with its accom- panying plan, is one of the most valuable things ever given us by this writer.

So much for the informal use of this fine garden-subject. But where, I ask, has better formal use been made of the yucca than in the noble English garden of Sedgwick — a garden of which the picture, now standing before me, gives an almost ecstatic delight? For there is in the beautiful composition of this picture every quality that a fine garden should possess. Here is the highest garden-beauty from the straight lines of walk and clipped yew which so enhance the curving grace of tree and flower; from the deep shade of tree-masses to the brilliant light on the yucca and on the column with the urn rising from a cloud of flowers; from the easy pavement, looking as though worn by the stepping of centuries, to the delicate spires of the Campanula on the left, growing as naturally as though self-sown. There is the suggestion of Italy in this English garden; the trees might be live oaks; the long alley of yew recalls the one of cypress, and the bit of sculptiu-ed stone to the right heightens the impression. Never before has a garden pictm-e seemed to me so distinguished, so filled with enchantment. Poetry is in even its counterfeit presentment. And surely, on a closer inspection, the surprise of a distant prospect must await one at the far end of that walk or perhaps at an angle from that spot, while the mellow quality of age seems to enwrap the whole, be the garden old or new.

Since setting down my impression of this garden from its photograph and nothing more, a letter has come from Mr.

VARIETY IN ANNUAL FLOWERS 43

Malby, whose work the picture is. I quote: "The principal tree in the Sedgwick garden is an evergreen oak, while the one on the left is, I believe, an apple. The beautiful water-worked pavement is sandstone quarried on the estate which is at Hors- ham, Sussex, in the Weald, with magnificent views of the Sus- sex Downs over nearly half a circle. The pavement plants are dwarf campanulas, thyme and sedum, and they make a beautiful efiFect. The yuccas do particularly well there and are one of the chief features."

Yuccas, then, should be used for bold decorative effect as at Sedgwick and at Munstead Wood. Filamentosa grows four feet tall, gloriosa is shorter; the one most generally seen in our own northern gardens (says Bailey) is flaccida, which persists for years. They are eccentric as to bloom — there may be no flowers for two or three years, then a great outburst; and as is natural with plants of this character, they establish themselves slowly after moving. Give them a sunny position, a rich yet sandy soil; good drainage is an essential, since they are natives of the Mexican tableland of our country. In some cases it is advised that they be grown in raised beds, but this is probably for countries where rainfall is heavy, or for gardens whose situation is low.

Below the Sedgwick yuccas the flowering plant used is Cen- taurea gymnoscarpa; but other plants to associate with the yucca are for example Tritoma and Dracaena — where one has a green- house to draw upon — and, in rather more available plants, some of the newer cannas, dwarf ones, in tones of yellow, salmon, apricot only. The canna leaf, so difficult to use ordinarily in plant composition, may well harmonize with the tropic look of that of the yucca; and in a suitable position the two might look extremely well together; but such plants as these need a rich and quiet background of green.

44 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

This garden of Sedgwick is unknown to me except through picture and description, but be it large or small, it carries its lesson for the little garden. Here are the very principles of beauty; here are the suggestions for the furnishing of the small garden; for while the paved garden is for a large part of this country impracticable because of our hot suns, proportion and decoration are the same the world over. The effective placing of a well-planned flower group may be practised anywhere. Balance in a towering mass of flowers or in rounded groups of flowers may be managed in the smallest of spaces. The effect of distance, where distance is not, is often produced by the skillful landscape architect; and the terms "mystery " and "sur- prise " are linked with the very mention of his name. No garden, no fine garden, is too large to learn from; scale is the thing to re- member— and that is easily reduced for the space available to the majority.

IV VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS

On one thing I am decided in the way of color improvement for next year in our garden, and it is not my o\\ti suggestion: this is the getting of some roots of Hydrangea arhorescens, the starting of them in pots, and the plmiging of them — when they are in bloom — into spaces in the garden where cream- white is needed. This seems to me a capital idea and will, I know, give beauty in an instant where dullness reigned before. Such expedients are legitimate and useful. Geraniums, managed in the same way, have often been suggested; and could there be a more amusing manner of gardening than flying to a retired spot and retiu-ning equipped to set in the beds or borders the very hues and tones of color, the very textures and forms of flowers, to change and improve the aspect of a group? Too much of this sort of thing would of course not be gardening; but a touch of it now and then is surely proper and carries with it a bit of humor too. For the garden must be managed: it is always getting out of hand. It must be humbled by shears, supported by stakes, cheered and refreshed by water, trained and quieted by tying, encouraged by bone-meal and other wholesome foods.

Four very beautiful members of the Hemerocallis tribe stand on my desk to-day — the delicate Hemerocallis ciirina with its slender flowers some four inches long, of pale clear yellow, the outer side of the petals suflFused with green, and with the fra- grance of a lemon blossom; Hemerocallis Florham, a magnificent single orange bloom, with frilled edges; and last and most con- spicuous of all in size, color, and form, Hemerocallis flore pleno Kwanso; with the tawny orange hues of fidva, the commonest

46 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

type of this flower. Nine inner petals or petaloids in Kwanso give a rich fullness to this orange-colored flower; stains of bright red mark the lower part of the inside of the outer petals; and a brilliant orange runs down into the cup or centre of the flower. The color of the petaloids is orange also; and this, joined to the twisted habit of both petals and petaloids and the pronounced crimping or frilling of the edges of all, gives a very singular but interesting effect. Earlier varieties are Queen of May and Apricot.

If we had cottage gardens in America (which we do not), I should call this a flower of cottage gardens; for it is seen, I believe, on almost every farm where flowers are grown. Indeed, long after having been grown in the dooryard of a farmhouse, and that house has decayed, or fire has ruined it as so often is the case, here are these lilies glowing orange at their own time in summer, mute reminders of a home that has been — and is no more. Somewhere near Ardsley as one goes by train from New York to Albany, the tracks on the right, away from the river, are in late June brightened by the flowers of Hemerocallis fulva, which in bold profusion, and with groups of elder bushes in full white bloom, flower for many hundred feet within and outside the fence of an estate which abuts upon the railway at that point. This is a thing to watch for on the New York Central lines at this time of year.

Never was a fairer sight in rose-colored flowers than a bowl near me now, in which branches of pink hawthorn are arranged with clusters of the Clara Butt tulip. The tulip droops; for it developed to the north of a lilac shrubbery, and crawled forth prostrate on the grass to reach the light, the sun, therefore it has not the upright habit of its kind. To make up for this, its color is superb. No sunlight has taken one atom of rich pink from its petals; its inner color, as one sees it here, is exactly

VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS 47

as rich a rose-pink as the lovely little flowers on the boughs of thorn. Is there a more delicious pink than that?

And is there any tree more difficult to secure than an actual pink hawthorn? As many as four times, in years long gone, I have sent in orders for pink thorns, and waited anxiously for two or three years in each case for the pink bloom only to find, to my dismay and disgust, that the pink was — white ! At last, seeing two beautiful young specimens in bloom in pots at Easter at a florist's and realizing that there, at last, was a chance to possess the coveted color, I brought those home and nursed them along till they could be set in the groimd. In seven years, what with spraying, feeding and care, we have this spring two beautiful twelve-foot trees, whose horizontal branches are masses of vivid pink and green.

The hawthorn or "may" turns one's thoughts to England and her poets; and her poets lead always to her gardens. A picture of an herbaceous border in England is before me, a vision of such beauty as is seldom seen in gardens. It is almost the ideal border. One may be very sure that the eye and hand that planned and made such plant-groupings as these, so varied yet so balanced, so boldly beautiful in form, would make no color-mistakes in flowers beside each other. There seems to be a generous admixture of whites and blues and much gray foliage. The border pinks or carnations help with this last and many are seen to the left. Also to the left is a bold-flowering group of Anchusa; while far beyond delphiniums hold their blue pillars firmly in air, and on either side the great verbascums or mulleins stand like the seven-branched candlesticks of old. Hollyhocks are seen to the right, very sparingly set; they are superb sub- jects to rise above a low wall, as whatever grows and blooms there must stand out in lovely relief against the tiuf below. To the left a rose flings its boughs against and above the wall;

48 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

a dark tree in the farther angle of the wall gives its rich value to the picture; and the whole, set deep in green of hedge and tree and hill, gives the fresh and pleasant consciousness that there are still in England "haunts of ancient peace."

The masses of clear blue in such a border as this remind me of what Miss Jekyll has to say concerning companion flowers for this color. Her wise contention is that nothing so well as orange sets forth the value of blue or gives so satisfying an effect with blue flowers. This granted, I would suggest for the purpose Lilium superbum, one of our native lilies, with the fur- ther suggestion that this be tried near Delphinium, Anchusa and all the purple list, such as the veronicas. For in our singular climate who can tell what flowers are even reasonably sure to bloom together? It is well then to use these bright lilies among both blues and purples; and the result will surely be highly interesting. In years gone by I grew this lily before masses of common elder with Gaillardia below. The effect in the border — for this was not in the garden itself — was extremely nice; but this is a planting which requires a long space and a width of some six to eight feet; and on the small place there is usually not the room to spare from grass. So far as I remember, the glorious flower needs no care at all in such a position. It grows, blooms, multiplies, and shines forth in July, asking nothing of anyone; and seen against the lacy cream-color of elder flowers, the picture it creates is very fine. It is a lily of straight habit; it has strong shining leaves in a whorl; but nobody can describe the glow of color which calls one to this lily from afar.

To return to the English border for a moment: Campanula lactiflora is one of the main plants used here. This brings to mind the beauty of the purple variety of this fine bellflower as it would appear in conjunction with the orange lilies. Also I must mention the amazing success with this tall campanula of

VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS 49

Mrs. Berkeley, the English hybridist of the primrose, sister to Miss Willmott. "Mrs. Berkeley," writes Miss Willmott, "has for some score or so of years selected and gro\NTi on her seedling Campanula lactiflora until she has a fine row of stiflF-stemmed plants, which stand of themselves unless an unusually heavy rainstorm sweeps over the garden when they are in full flower. She grows pure white forms some eight feet in height; but the pride of the species is the grand erect deep-colored variety, which is often ten feet high, with large open-mouthed bells of rich purple, and seen in mass as growTi at Spetchley, it is a glorious sight not easily forgotten." Can any American gar- dener even imagine a campanula of this type ten feet high? What a companion this noble plant might be, if times of bloom permitted, for the Lilium giganteum, the giant lily. This grows from ten to fourteen feet high. Do not think this too tall for beauty. In the wood at Wisley, the experimental garden of tlie Royal Horticultural Society, among the trees it holds its owti well. A lily ten feet tall sounds a monstrosity; but in our border in August, seen through and beside a copper-beech tree, there is the gleam of salmon-orange of a group of Lilium henryi, some of them nine feet tall, and the effect is not overpowering, but one of grace and charm. The fragrance of Lilium giganteum — according to Mr. H. S. Adams to whose little book, Lilies, I go for constant help — is "delicious but powerful." The plant comes from the Himalayas; the flower is white with a tinge of purple within and of green without.

Now as we discuss lilies, there is one word of caution with regard to their planting which can never be too often given. No manure, absolutely none, must touch their roots. The bulbs must not be set in wet or in damp spots. They should, for the most part, be planted very deep (six to eight inches), on their sides, with a generous handful of sand beneath to lie on.

50 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

Lilies are not now offered in this coimtry in such variety as once they were. It then behooves us to save the offshoots of our dormant bulbs, to grow the glorious things from seed. Lilium regale will flower the second season from seed; and it is one of the wonders of all gardens to-day, both for beauty and fragrance. The difficulty with us seems to be the sufficient — or efficient — labeling of the little grass-like leaves which mark the first ap- pearance of life from a lily seed. These are easily mistaken for grass strayed from out its bounds, and treated accordingly, with the result that a year is lost and a certain discouragement might result — but in reality, never should, or does. A memo- randum should be made in the garden notebook of the acci- dent, as well as of the intention of another trial.

Thinking again of the matter of companion flowers for lilies, especially for the Madonna, Regal lily and the Nankeen lily — with the last-named Delphinium belladonna is perfection; the Regal lily is delightful with good heliotrope growing about it, or with lavender phloxes near and a low-growing Thalidrum, such as adiantifolium, to mask its stems a little. A phlox both suitable and beautiful for growing before Lilium regale is W. C. Egan: suitable because of its rather dwarf habit, beautiful for its delightful cool pink color and the extraordinary masses of large flowers which it invariably shows in July or August. And Rhinelander, a magnificent garden-subject among phloxes, may properly follow Lilium regale and phlox Egan on approximately the same spot. As for the Madonna lily, I should never grow any flower to neighbor it except the mauve Salvia sclarea, whose pinkish lavender bracts create so beautiful a contrast in number, form, and color to the more solitary splendor of that lily, be- loved of all who garden.

Just before the time for phloxes, however, come gypsophilas. A fine array of these plants is shown in the picture of Mrs.

J

^9

^

VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOT\^RS 51

Walter S. Brewster's Lake Forest garden opposite page 50. Waves of these foam-like flowers break here upon their strand of a well-kept grass walk. Iris leaves give capital relief and variety in form ; the fig-leaved hollyhock lifts the eye agreeably and gives rich color to the borders. Reduce this charming pic- ture to its simplest terms, and carry it out upon the little place. The background of shrubs is not difficult to obtain: two or three elms are within the range of most of us; and those ever- changing skies are always ours.

The place where Lilium superhum once stood in our ground with elder now knows these two things no more. Now the spot is covered with Hemerocallis Florham, out of which rise two fine lilacs, Syringa pubescens, and Syringa reflexa with its mar- velous color-contrast between bud and open flower. A group of young willows encroaches a little on this arrangement, and a birch or two. Would that I might dwell here on the lovely lily so perfect with its pale apricot near Delphinium, Lilium testa- ceum, the Nankeen lily; or upon my great favorite (and every- one's), the bright little Lilium ienuifolium, the coral lily, deep scarlet and so tiny that it is often lost by an affectionate owTier among other plants; upon the lovely speciosum; upon my own (and everyone's) special delight, Lilium regale, which would be my choice if all others but one were barred to me. "Lilies," says IVIr. E. H. Wilson, "are not nearly enough known and grown in American gardens; we sit by and think we have done well if we use five out of the countless numbers we might have for the white or colored beauty of their presence among our other flowers."

The garden now lies bare; " leaf -picking winds" have done their work, and leaves — tree leaves — have now changed much of the earth surface in our temperate zone from green to brown

52 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

— have changed each leaf from a fresh green thing to that twisted, curved and coppery object which, as Dean Bailey of the Cleveland Art Museum told a group of gardeners lately, is to the artist the loveliest of all aspects of the leaf.

Of what does the gardener think as he sees these drifting tokens of the coming winter, as he does the last covering of plants, polishing, oiling and putting away of tools? He thinks — for the true gardener is always an imaginative person — of spring. He knows these plants will rise again in beauty. He sees, with that eye of the imagination that penetrates the blackest storms and the whitest snows of winter, the green buds of the lilacs in their April breaking; and he prepares from now on for that time.

Two practical suggestions I would make for winter gardening, as we may properly call it. Buy and read good garden-books and magazines and plan to get endless seed, plant, shrub and tree catalogues or lists. For magazines I could not myself do without the Garden Magazine, which has been my companion since its very first number; and I should be sorry to miss each month Mr. Madison Cooper's paper, the Flower Grower, friendly and brimming with practical help for all who garden.

Let us turn now to seed and plant lists — the trade lists. The mention of the gardening periodicals has come first because it is in the advertising columns of those papers that the ad- dresses of dealers will be found. In the two I have named there are such addresses throughout the year; in all other magazines and papers the great spring flood of such annoimcements begins just after Christmas. As early as November I should start sending out postal cards asking for seed-lists. The gardening habit is now so general in America, the wish to plant and grow in the little garden is so widespread, that the non-disappointed one is he who writes early and receives his seeds a month

VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS 53

or two before he would sow them. I cannot press too strongly this suggestion, for it has happened lately that in the great growth of this garden movement late orders to seedsmen have gone unfilled. The early bird's worm thus becomes even more toothsome.

Also collect catalogues. Some of these are so well done from the standpoint of knowledge, classification, and cultural informa- tion that they deserve permanent places on the shelf. American seed lists have improved in the last ten years in amazing fashion. Many of them now appear in such dress and with such illustra- tions in color as to make them ornaments for the library table. Occupants of that table they should always be. WTiat a re- sponsive note is struck when the garden-lover enters either a house or a railway car and sees on the table or in the hand that beloved sign of spring, the seed catalogue ! Few women to-day travel in the late winter months without these books in trunk or bag. They fill the mind with dreams. They stimulate; they suggest. Of course at the same time they pillage. But what is money, mere money, compared to flowers?

Tools are things to be thought of and cared for now. The shears for instance, dull with summer use, should be sent off to the grinder and on their return put away, labeled, or when spring comes they may not be easily found. Is it because tools are of iron and steel that — as a young gardener — I used to wonder why it was necessary to take any care of them ? They seemed to me stout things, of a kind to take care of themselves. We find, however, as we go on in life, that nothing does that; I learned, after some experience with rust, that cleaning and oiling and putting in dry places would materially lengthen the life of lawTi mower, rake, hoe, and spade.

Above all, the winter months are the months to plan in. With the aid of books, of catalogues, of magazines, with the

54 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

benefit of the experience of the past and other summers' work in the garden, we know more each year what we really want in a garden; and to change the garden occasionally is one of its best pleasures. "Change, the immortal factor of deliver- ance!" I should never hesitate, in a good climate and with a good soil, to remake my garden every few years; in fact I should prefer that, if I had a small space and any desire to try new things. There are certain things that might and should remain in permanent places — peonies, roses, certain shrubs, and so on; but the outlying plants, such as irises and phloxes, might easily be varied by moving or by changing the varieties altogether. The first year after moving a phlox will send up three or four good heads of bloom, even though short; the third year in that place it may be almost too large for the plants around it. Mov- ing and changing about in the garden has always been to me a pastime; but it is more than that — it is an education got in the most enchanting way. And in order to learn as one replants and freshens the border, I would suggest trying new and un- known plants. By "unknown" of course I mean hitherto un- known to yourself. Instead of using, for instance, scarlet sage (unless you have a very pretty way of planting it with cream- white and lavender flowers), try some of the others of the sage family: Salvia farinacea beside pink stock; Salvia patens for a bit of bright pure blue; Salvia virgata nemorosa to grow at the foot of crimson rambler roses or close by dwarf ramblers of the same variety. In annuals, those who have not grown Clarhia have missed one of the loveliest of all summer flowers; the pm-plish shades are very beautiful grown before the tall deep purple annual larkspur, and if a few plants of white or palest yellow pansies were seen before these two annual flowers, your border would have a sure distinction in that spot. Collinsia bicolor, as I have said earlier, is a delightful and little-grown

VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS 55

annual with a white flower running up the stem, a flower whose lower lip is a bright reddish lavender. This is good growTi near heliotrope, or a deep purple verbena such as Dolores, or the species verbena, venosa.

The list is endless; so are the pleasures. All I would say is — do this imaginative gardening early; plan it on paper; make notes; send in orders; and when May comes and the gardening world is rushing wildly about, late for everji:hing, you will be calmly setting out seedlings in their appointed places, working with a trowel whose handle is intact, and wath no garden burdens on the mind, enjoying in calmness the beauty of the spring.

Except for our planting and what Miss Jekyll calls "regu- lating" the garden, August should not be a too-busy month for the gardener. Make it a time of enjoyment, for sitting much among and near your flowers; for garden-dreaming — which may sound sentimental, but really is not, for unless we dream or imagine in our gardens, how shall they improve, how grow each year more lovely?

Now the stir of September's activity is almost upon us. The digging, moving, replanting, replanning, so much better done with most things in autumn than in spring, are about to come upon us as a flood. I survey the calm brightness of the trees, shrubs, the still green of the great peony leaves against a trim high hedge beside me, and wish, so truly wish, that this time of peace might longer endure, there is such sweetness in the air, fragrance of leaves, of grass, of fruit. And to-morrow I expect a great box of perennials, after that shrubs, then bulbs, and general liveliness to come.

Make a little garden, if you are a beginner, make a little garden even if you have had experience, but work toward a beautiful garden. How few people realize that in twenty square feet something enchanting in the way of a garden may be pro-

56 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

duced, if proper thought and knowledge are bent upon this spot. A little hedged square or oblong, with a tree giving some shadow in it from outside (it would be in that shadow that you would place your forget-me-nots, delphiniums, thalictrums, aconites), four rectangular beds for flowers, grass walks between, a bench or two for the quiet enjoyment of your picture — one could do this in twenty feet, keeping watch of proportions. Choose a place, if you can, where the tree boughs help the picture. The roots will not interfere too much.

There is a garden near me in whose simple design I had a hand, and the plan of which is given opposite this page. This garden is — roughly — thirty by eighty feet, outlined by a foot- high hedge of privet. The garden runs from east to west; at the west end is a brick platform about ten by six feet for a sitting- place, at the other end, an extra semicircle of hedge-enclosed space, straight on one side, curved on the other, for a few choice roses, A space of grass three feet wide is left through the rose garden as entrance to the main perennial one. On either side of the long stretch of grass, three narrow beds of perennials and annuals find place; these are spaced carefully, just opposite each other. Down the centre of the grass panel or lawn are three small apple-trees, which we did not wish to disturb, and two feet outside of the hedge on three sides, north, south and west, are borders of tall shrubs like bush honeysuckle, forsythia, mock orange, lilac and so on. Here only bulbs are planted.

On the farm there is often a tree not far from the house, which might easily be taken as the pivotal feature for a little garden. If on the axis of the tree a low wall (low on the entrance side, higher on the three others) could be built in a square or well-proportioned parallelogram, if a broad walk could be made five feet wide, — parallel to and five feet away from the wall on the left, — of brick or of flat stone flagging, there would be

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VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS 57

here the framework for lovely spring and summer pictures. In the wide border against the wall higher hollyhocks should rise, with pale yellow summer chrysanthemums at their feet, irises to precede them in bloom, and phloxes and hardy asters to follow. Tall plants require wide walks; do we often think of that? To the right of this walk should be a border two or three feet wide of low flowers, nothing taller than an iris, and plenty of lovely annuals such as the buff Zinnia Isabellina, Phlox Dnimmondii Chamois Rose, a few pink geraniums, some of the pure violet petunias, and always and ever as much white and gray as you can put in, such as pinks, Stachys lanattty white gladioli, hardy gj-psophila, peonies. Then of a summer's eve- ning, how delicious would it be to walk between your flowers to your tree, there to sit in the cool of the day, and see your little garden that — working with greater forces than yourself — you have made.

And now for a few suggestions as to plant-groups for color effect. These shall be taken mainly from the experience of others, but from sources which are entirely to be relied upon. While the gladiolus, strictly s])eaking, is not a perennial, its use is so bound up with that of hardy plants that it almost falls into their category. Therefore for our present piu-pose let us consider it as belonging to the perennial group; and here are some good arrangements used by a fine grower of the flower : —

Plant purple and gold-colored gladioli with the same tones of Salpiglossis. A magnificent new violet gladiolus was seen at the show of the American Gladiolus Society at Kalamazoo in 1922, a seedling of Vaughan's, like Baron Hulot but twice the size of that purple beauty. This is now known, I think, as the Sovereign. In the garden of the grower mentioned in a former paragraph, below the Gladioli and Salpiglossis, "at the base and grown together to give added beauty were carpets of

58 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

purple verbena, purple phlox, blue-piu*ple petunia, with here and there a touch of pink verbena. Blue salvia (probably azurea) and gold Celosia were among the unusual things growing near standard heliotropes, while rising in the background, bushes of Buddleia were covered with masses of fragrant flowers." This is a nice picture, and such arrangements are not difficult to plan with the gladiolus and perennials, though annuals seem more important in the grouping described. Not enough celosias of the newer types are grown in our garden; the pale colored ones, like the pale cannas, should be more often seen. Unlike the canna, the celosia's feathery look will soften any group of flowers; such an effect may be gained with it in the border as is sometimes nicely secured by the use of Tamarix hispida in a planting of larger woody subjects.

As an auspicious ending for this subject, let me quote here some color combinations from an English writer who signs himself, as well he may, "A Painter."

"It is not often that one sees that wonderful shrub Berheris Darwinii used in perfectly appropriate company. A beautiful planting that I saw this year was a tall tree of the barberry leaning up a face of gray rock; leading to this on either side of the path was Narcissus Lucifer, backed by half -shadowed clumps of the giant Crown Imperial. The orange crowns of the nar- cissus took up the color of the barberry, and the pale yellow perianths seemed more beautiful in that place than white ones would have been.

"Rosa Hugonis is curiously beautiful in the company of Solomon's seal; Dielytra spectabilis and Iris flavescens are worth adding to this group. Escallonia Langleyensis is splendid trailing over a foreground or a wall-planting of the red valerian. I should like to see this on a big scale. I notice, by the way, that many who know this delightful shrub do not know the paler

VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS 59

but no less beautiful sort, Edinburgh, or the Donard seedlings. Edinburgh is indispensable. Here are some groupings from the herbaceous border — very simple ones, mostly of similar colors : Eryngium Oliverianum with MonthreHa G. Davison; Monarda didyma with red pentstemons of the color of Newbury Gem; Erigeron Quakeress with or behind dwarf purple lavender ; ii'ZzMW croceum with Clematis recta flore pleno; Ceanothis Gloire de Versailles with Aconitum rolubile. Clematis Perle d'Azur, and a foreground of Poteniilla Friedrichseni ochrolexica. This last group- ing is very beautiful, both in form and color. Ochroleuca is better for the purpose than the ordinary P. Friedrichseni, being paler in color, but either will do; if you can get the clematis to grow up into a tree, say an apple tree, behind or among the aconites, so much the better. The aconites will run up nine feet high or more and will need very little staking if the ceano- thuses and potentillas support them properly. The ceanothuses should, of course, be cut hard back in the spring, leaving those at the back rather taller bushes than the front ones.

"In conclusion, have you ever used Tencrium fruticans (on a wall) as a background to Gladiolus primulinus ? If not, do try it; it makes an incomparable foil, especially to the pure pale yellow sorts."

Are not these suggestions enough to stir the least ambitious gardener to better efforts? True the Ceanothus and the Teucrium are for California gardens, but there are now specialists in clematis in the states of New Jersey and New York; and as for the other names which may be unfamiliar, will not such writing as the above set the gardener hunting, seeking till he finds, trj'ing for himself these companionships in flowers ? There is a spur in hearing of things unknown, a spur to the inquiring mind; and never will our gardens improve as they should till we realize that still far afield are many of the greatest beauties for our

60 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

borders. Their getting may be troublesome; it involves work. But when all is said, it is not love alone that makes the garden- ing world go round, but work. Work is the mainspring of the garden, work of the eye, the mind, the imagination and the hands. And for those who cannot do some type of work in their own gardens I feel profound pity. Young gardeners should dig, hoe, cultivate, plant; for older ones there are the lighter affairs of edging, pruning, cutting, seed-marking, and seed-saving, staking, flower-gathering, tying, hand- weeding; there are a dozen occupations for those who cannot or should not do the heavier part.

VARIETY IN NEWER FLOWERS

The May of last year, for gardens in Michigan, was truly the merry month of May. Cold till it opened, when each day grew gradually more spring-like, until in a burst of warmth about the tenth, every tree and shrub seemed to shout for joy in sudden leaf and bloom. Gentle rains fell at precisely the right inter\'als — rains warm and soft: such rains as no one but Mrs. Shorter has perfectly translated into words.

All night the small feet of the rain

About my garden ran; Their rill-like voices called and cried

Until the dawn began.

May shrubs known to be early and late bloomed together that year. Spircea Thunbergii was in snowy drifts below old lilac Charles X ; f orsj'thias held over almost to these two, and daffo- dils and tulips, below these flowering things, made a wonderful outburst of color, a flowery picture, all enveloped in blossoming apple trees, Asiatic crabs and cherries. Indeed I remember thinking one day that the whole scene was far more pink and white than it was green, yet below all this lay the small fresh leaves of spring.

There is early in this month, however, a day that exceeds all the others; it is that day on which the apple-tree boughs are all studded with the palest softest green of leaf buds; that day on which hard and soft maples are overlaid with a green that is almost yellow, a sunny green; when the Bradshaw (or is it Burbank?) plum is set with pearls along those drooping twisting up-turning branches — those branches that always make me think of the lifting eaves of a Chinese roof. This day, next to

62 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

that on which the robin and the hyla are heard, is to me the moment of the spring.

At the edge of a bit of well-kept greensward, this year, and seen against it, there are two or three hmidred bright pink early tulips. Prosperity by name. These are new to me. They are on the order of Cottage Maid, but a deeper rose and running in and out of daffodils and tulips yet to be (that is, of later varieties), their rose pink is as yet the only color against the green. These new tulips are seen through a mist of that wonder- ful blackish mauve of heavy lilac buds, and of tiny leaf buds of the lilacs too. Beyond them is a mass of evergreen foliage separated from that by a strip of smooth and sunlit grass. There is a sort of exquisite precision about this picture. Nothing in nature is, I believe, stiffer than a single early tulip. It can- not move much; it stays as it is put. Winds do not affect it, sun only pulls it up the straighter. Such flowers cannot be said to wander among others; they stalk among them.

Flanked on either side by syringas with pink and lavender lilacs beyond these, the ground below them all gay with yellow tulips Bouton d'Or and Inglescombe Yellow, the walk in the upper garden presents a pretty sight. The shadow of the small tea-house in which I sit falls along this walk to the east; at the intersection of the walk four of Stark's Delicious apple trees (dwarfs), cast also a dappled shade over the flowers; and aU along on the other side are walls from six to ten feet high of those most luscious blooms of Lemoine's hybrids in lilacs. The dark yellow of tulip Bouton d'Or, the lighter color of Inglescombe Yellow, the thick clusters of pansies nestling below the tulips, the fragrance of the lilacs on the air — what a sensation of delight comes through all this pageant of spring ! Through the young apple trees too, I see on the right the great cascades of bloom of a specially fine Rouen lilac, a rich pinkish purple.

VARIETY IN NEWER FLOWERS 63

Tulip and iris both are glorified by clustering foregrounds of violas or pansies. We shall do well to remember this, and to sow the seeds of these little things before the summer wanes. On the tenth of November last year I saw in two Detroit gardens magnificent violas in full bloom from seed sowti in the open the August before, purple, yellow, lavender as large as the biggest pansies — they had come through one or two heavy frosts with no ill efTect whatever. Pansies are perhaps the commonest possession in flowers, but their good use is not so general as it should be. One mercy — they are seldom seen now in circles at the base of oaks or elms as once they were. Sow their seed in August for bloom the following spring. They create the prettiest possible companionships if grown in some spot where late tulips bloom among the blade-like iris leaves, the iris flowers to follow.

Two new tulips caused me great unrest last spring. I could only read of, not see them. One was tulip Fantasy, a parrot (a pink parrot — fancy that!), described as a glorious flower of glistening rich pink color, shaded with orange pink on the inside of its ragged segments and stained with brownish green on the outside of the three outer ones. Mr. Peter R. Barr wrote that this was a new break in parrot tulips, that the general tone is of a lovely soft rose-color, salmon-rose within and a large white centre rayed blue. The flowers, he added, expand to a great size.

"Darwin tulip Zwanenburg is the only pure white tulip ex- tant," writes IVIr. C. G. Van Tubergen, Jr. from Haarlem. Yet the Barrs last year showed Carrara, a white Darwin. Without having seen these one can easily foresee the manifold uses to which a white Darwin may be put both in cutting and in the border. To quote ]Mr. Van Tubergen, "I raised tulip Zwanen- bm-g from seed, and found a single bulb about a dozen years ago in a batch of hybridized Darwin tulip seed. The flower is pure

64 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

white, large and solid, and the plant is vigorous and very tall." It is of course still high in price, five dollars a bulb.

As gardeners grow old with their gardens, they acquire habits which seem droll even to themselves. At least one of mine seems so to me. It is this — as spring opens and early flowers appear, I proceed to place on a table close to the library door one or two books or pamphlets bearing upon things coming into bloom. One may then notice at any hour of the day, a wildly-rushmg figure bursting from this door, book in hand, making hastily for tree, shrub or plant and standing before it, exactly as in years gone by she has stood with the red Baedeker before the Laocoon or the Winged Victory. It is surely from that early habit that this has come.

Yet how inevitable is this connection between books and gardening — there is absolutely no highly intelligent gardening without the printed page. As the Japanese cherries are about to open, and the Japanese crabs are soon to follow, the table has a small pile of the bulletins of popular information from the Arnold Arboretum — delightful bulletins of Professor Sargent's own writing, those on Asiatic cherries and apples, those on new shrubs, also E. H. Wilson's book. The Cherries of Japan. These are now well worn, for they have felt sun and shower. They are actual treasures of learning concerning the delicious trees they discuss, and ease tremendously my usual spring agony of know- ing so little about everything I see.

For irises the new Bulletins of the American Iris Society will be ever by my side in June, as I look at the various varieties — as well as Dykes near by. Peonies bring Mrs. Harding to the fore; her tables are true stand-bys for identification; and then there are two Cornell Bulletins which are constantly in use in peony time. These are numbers 278 and 306, and as I under- stand it, they can be had for the asking from Cornell University.

VARIETY IN NEWER FLO\VERS 65

About five years ago Professor Sargent gave me seed of various Japanese crabs and cherries; these we sowed in autumn that they might crack with the freezing of the ground, and from them we grew many little trees most of which we gave away for lack of room here. We kept perhaps a dozen, among these Pruniis subhirtella and P. Sargentii. A young Prunus subhirtella starred with buds is a charming sight. This Japanese cherry here is now seven feet tall, and along its upright boughs are countless stifliy held-out buds of a dull pink, which will soon open into flowers of a clear light pink hue. Then the little tree will be a bouquet of bloom. Some of these Asiatic cherries produce leaves and flowers at the same time, but flowers of Prunus subhirtella ap- pear before the leaves and the tree itself will grow to a height of forty feet. Such cherries bloom here with single early tulips; and the creamy ones, such as Brimhilde, would be beautiful on the ground below where the trees stand in open soil, or possibly in gardens intended primarily for spring. The primness of Brunhilde (how odd that sounds!) may well be relieved by an intermingling of a cream-white daffodil such as White Lady, which with us is fairly early. And even though these daffodils should not open with the cherry blossoms, their tall and waving leaves would greatly improve the look of the stiff early tulip, tied tight to the ground as that always is by its short stem. A tuft or so of rock cress {Arabis alpina), especially of the delightful double variety, should give grace to such a pictm-e as this; and while the cress spreads, one can always set bulbs among the plants in the autumn.

I do not mean by this suggestion of planting beneath cherries that such planting should run close to the roots of the trees. Ordinarily I am opposed to flowers close to tree trunks in man-made spots. Wliat horrors reach our vision occasionally, as I have said before, — pansies in cut-out circles close to the

66 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

boles of great maples or elms, the sublime and the ridiculous, Dignity and Impudence, as Landseer's old picture has it! No. I mean that little reaches of these cream-white, low-growing flowers of spring somewhere beyond or in the foreground of Prunus subhirtella would surely mean an added interest in the tree as part of a composition while that tree is young.

Another use of these lovely cherries is the setting of them wide apart in rows along a broad walk, with flowery borders below them reaching from tree to tree. Such a picture is seen in Sir Herbert Maxwell's Scottish Gardens, opposite page 46. In the simplest of Perthshire gardens, "Gartincaber," its walls overlaid with that mellow beauty, the patina of time, here are flowering, below blossoming trees, aconites and snowdrops, daffodils and windflowers, bloodroot, violets white and purple, primroses and oxslips of many hues — "all old friends, the older the better to be loved," says Sir Herbert. These border a broad walk, interrupted by an old dial, great trees and ancient walls and towers beyond, with violet shadows throwing lovely net- work along the path so edged with flowers of spring.

Suppose for one week in spring in some small American garden a great outburst of gay color be required. Punctuate little cross walks of such a garden at intervals of ten feet with Prunus triloba on its own roots. Let a multitude of hyacinths and tulips glow below the almond, planted either in stiff rows — really a parterre — or in loose drifts, and see what strange new ecstasies the month of May will bring. Malus Arnoldiana, set between the flowering almonds in the rows or interspersed among these where there is room for large plantings, would give two weeks of pink buds and flowers. Another week might readily be added by planting in such a place Bechtel's crab. Fancy three weeks of rosy bloom in May, each type of flowering tree not to be really missed as its successor begins to flower.

V.\RIETY IN NEWER FLOWERS 67

I have before me a photograph which shows a spring border in a Sussex garden — evidently a new border, for the box edg- ing is very small, and the little evergreen hedge beyond is also yomig. The one defect, to me, is the use of smooth stone balls with the rough wall. The ornament is not quite in place; also the stiff flagged walk would have been more nearly related to the rest if made of broken stone — or I may be wrong in this. It is all, perhaps, personal taste.

Who does not constantly seek more pure blue in gardens, and who that knows the new Ipomoea from Mexico does not rejoice in the blue mornings that this gives the garden? To be sure, it is only morning beauty, but the leaves and the heavy twining stems add an all-day interest to the Clematis recta or the old Delphinium stalks over which these are twined. New, I called them just now; it has been known to horticulture for a century and over, but only as a greenhouse plant in northern climates. A word of the history of this amazing contribution to our gar- dens may be given here. Twenty years ago Michel received from the Sierra Madre in Mexico the seed of this Ipomaa. He got it to bloom and even to form seed in his garden near Geneva in 1900. Then, years after this, the Vilmorins in their establish- ment at Antibes produced from this strain an early-flowering variety, which during the last few years has bloomed near Paris as early as the end of August.

There are three reasons for growing this Ipomoea as opposed to the common variety : its flowers are far larger than any other, mine measuring to-day five inches across; its blue is miequaled; and toward autumn its vines become more and more floriferous. It is a thing to wait for. It supplies the clearest blue possible for the late August borders. For those who live with their gar- dens, who see them during the morning as well as in the later hours, it is a boon in flowers. Vilmorin in Paris, Sutton in Eng-

68 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

land, and in this country Vaughan of New York and Chicago offer the seed of this adorable plant.

Were we not all familiar in our youth with the morning glory advancing along its small white strings, the orthodox guiding given it years ago on its aspiring way? But now there is another and a better management for such climbing flowering things. Here above my head as I write, on a garden arch, that pale mauve clematis Mme. Edouard Andre has flung out a ravishing garland of large flowers. Incidentally I wish more of our gardens had these large flowering clematises in their beds and borders. Clematis Stella Dwyer, a climbing Davidii, is now in its second year, a great flowering bush of delicate lavender bells; and back of it, to return to our subject, that magnificent blue of the I'pomcea ruhro-coBrulea (var. prcBCox) is just beginning to show its beauty, and as the new hardy aster near by from Totty (Mrs. D. Mitchell, said to be a very beautiful pink, finer than St. Egwin) comes into its full bloom, I look for such an effect as Mrs. Lloyd has achieved in her lovely Haverf ord garden where the Ipomcea wreaths its sky-blue fans about tall plants of Aster tataricus. Both were in full beauty in early October of last year.

It is vitally necessary, in order to have the Mexican morning- glory in bloom by August in the border, that it should be started early in pots, the plants set out after danger from frost is over.

As I was writing the few sentences above, in came an English journal with one of Miss Jekyll's short articles called "Regu- lating the Flower Border,'* in which the writer tells of a strong- growing hybrid clematis, planted just behind an everflowering pea, to bloom in August after the pea bloom is over. "The clematis," says Miss Jekyll, "is a natural hybrid that occurred in the garden ; the parentage is evidently C. vitalba and C. David- iana. The same cross has taken place in other gardens, and I believe has been given a name, which at the moment I do not

Iponuia Ruhro-arrulea and Clematis Stella Dicijer

VARIETY IN NEWER FLOWERS 69

recall." This I thought might be Stella Dwyer. I sent a photo- graph to Miss Jekyll for identification, and received this in- teresting reply: "Your clematis is so much like mine I think we may safely conclude that it is the same, and that when the two evident parents are in one garden, the cross is likely to occur. It has been noted, and I think named, in other gardens also. It is evidently Davidiana and vitalba. It is like vitalha in its rampant growth, but like Davidiana in being herbaceous. Anyhow, it is a useful plant. I had two that appeared in different parts of the garden : one nearly white, the other tinged bluish. It is best used rambling through something bushy. My oldest plant rushes up a holly."

Staked to about four feet and a half, our own plants with their rich foliage are thickly set with great clusters of gray-green buds almost as heavy as grapes, and their lavender-blue flowers with white centres are opening from these. To the tip of every curving spray are clusters of these enchanting buds and flowers. Clematis Stella Dwyer should never be absent from any garden or border where variety is a thing desired. Like all of the family, the plant loves lime. Its photograph with the new Mexican morning-glory appears opposite page 68.

Always and ever am I sounding the praises of Hall's amaryllis, Lycoris squamigeray and how can I forbear to do this when each year sees this garden more and more lovely for its blooming in mid-August. This is the flower of da\vTi. All the hues of the earliest sky are in these petals — rose, pale violet, faint blue. The effect in the late evening light is of mounds of pure rosy pink. It harmonizes with everything aroimd it. It glorifies the garden from morning to night, and gives me many penitent moments as I think of my impatience with the too- long lingering of its heavy drooping leaves throughout the early summer.

70 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

A cream white delphinium of Blackmore and Langdon's has been attracting much attention at EngHsh shows lately, Mrs. Christie Miller. This is a tall plant, and seed of it may be got from this firm at a shilling a packet. Some of the best varieties of delphiniums which have been special favorites of my own, in the past, are now ungettable because of the quarantine, and also because of the fact that they do not seed; these are Capri, J. S. Brunton and Moerheimei. As for Gibson's delphiniums, some few spikes of which are before me in an old Venetian goblet as I write (spikes taken from first blooms, therefore not really representative), two inches seems to be the smallest measurement of the individual florets. Faint mauves with pale sky blues, the blue of a Parisian sky in which are purples against sapphire blue, one of the paler colored ones with great "bees" in the centre of each flower — all the range of larkspur color is reflected in these flowers. They will be a glorious addition to our garden subjects. These are said to be the very finest of their kind, yet after this superlative is used, here are others of these flowers, the Wrexham delphiniums which bid fair to surpass all thus far known. Mr. Samuel of King's Mills House, Wrexham, England, is growing and showing these now. He means to do away entirely with the stiff and tightly packed spike, to lengthen it to four feet of bloom, and to get the large flowers held well away from the stalks. The lower flowers will be three to four inches in diameter, and the inner petals of these are to be frilled. So much of all this has been accomplished, so magnificent are the results already seen and known, that all who are interested in gardens should be on the watch for these new and glorious things. "An American," says the Rev. Joseph Jacob, "wrote of some second-quality seed that Mr. Samuel had sold him, *If your second-quality seed produces such flowers as it has given me, what on earth must the results of your first quality be like? ' "

VARIETY IN NEWER FLOWERS 71

The beautiful Korean clematis, C. tanguHca, is now in bloom also. The buds of this vine are held on a stiff little green stem to within an eighth of an inch of the bud, when they suddenly drop at a perfect right angle and the dome-shaped bud hangs with its point downward. So hangs the flower too when opened; its four petals are seldom widely apart, but form a bell-shaped bloom of pale straw color; the leaves are long and narrow. To my thinking, a lovelier creeper than this never came to us from over the sea. It is a native of western China. But an equally lovely one is Ampelopsis aconitifola. Mr. E. H. Wilson calls the foliage of this vine the most delicate and attractive of that of all climbers. " The finely dissected leaves are highly interesting and the small fruit changes as it ripens from yellow to blue and pale purple."

On my table, as I write, is a spray of that handsome, yet comparatively little-known, honeysuckle, Lonicera Heckrottii. For at least two months with us, from mid-June to mid-August, this climber is covered with flowers. They lack fragrance but this is balanced by their color, which is both unusual and lovely. Deep rose-color without, pale yellow within, not unlike the general tones of tulip Kaufmannianay the clusters of flowers are very striking, and in the Arnold Arboretum Professor Sargent has noticed — and noted — that the vine flowers more con- stantly and more persistently than any other plant in the col- lections. One must admit that this is saying much.

Three magnificent lilacs must now come in for consideration, but since time and space are limited, one can do barely more than name them : they are macrostachya, pubescens and Swegin- zoivii superha: the first a charming pale pink with tremendous thyrses of flowers; the next a tree of fine palest lavender flowers with a most heliotrope-like fragrance; the last a very dream of beauty in lilacs, a fountain of delicate blush-white flowers.

72 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

as fine as those of Artimisia lactiflora. Mr. Havemeyer has this lilac on his selling-lists; it is very rare and has not been long in American gardens.

On my table lie two large flowers ready to undergo examina- tion for color-naming with the charts; they are superb together

— a mere chance this — but so suggestive that I must make note of it. Gladiolus Louise and Ipomcea ruhro-coerulea are the two. The gladiolus is of a light pinkish mauve, large and clear in color. Somewhere before, I regretfully admit, I have said that this gladiolus was not specially to my liking; I could not have seen it in full beauty, for I think it now one of the best of its kind; and this with the brilliant blue of the Mexican morning glory is a glorious sight in flowers. What companions for each other in the border! and how I wish I had grown Louise this year for this blue neighboring ! The actual color of the Ipomoea in Ridgway lies between Paris-blue and methyl-blue; it was diffi- cult to find the exact tone in this chart; in the French chart, however, the blue of the flower leaped out at me from plate 213

— royal blue; there was never a more instant matching of a color than in this case. The chart-colors for Louise are: —

Ridgway: Mallow pink to pale amaranth pink; markings on

lower central petals rhodamine purple. French chart: Purplish mauve Plate 186-1 ; with deeper tones toward ends of petals, in fact almost a pure mauve. Markings on lower petals rosy magenta, 169-2. The flower is a light clear pinkish mauve, particularly good in the garden or for cutting in association with pale yellow, blue or violet flowers; it is a fine subject for either use.

No grower of roses myself, I rather hesitate to discuss them ; yet this last June in the garden of the president of the American Rose Society, Mr. J. H. Mc Farland, at Harrisburg, I saw so lovely a new climbing rose that I must mention it here. This

VARIETY IN NEWER FLOWERS 73

was Emily Gray, a hardy rose with an orange-colored bud. The flower is large and of a clear yellow, changing the second day to more of a buff, with a rich, almost spicy fragrance. Also in this garden I saw these four fine climbers or ramblers, planted in this order: Mrs. M. H. Walsh, the white rambler the latest of all ramblers to bloom; Oriflamme, of a most charming pale pink, with bright yellow stamens and a yellowish centre pro- ducing a glowing effect, which of course gives this rose its name; Aviateur Bleriot, that beautiful copper-colored rambler with its delicious scent, a great favorite of my own; and Ghiselaine de Feligonde, that fine thing from Bobbink and Atkins, again one of the warm coppery yellows, with an orange bud and rich fragrance. A new Wickuriana, Jacotte by name, is said to be a sensation among French roses : it is one of those apricot-colored roses that are now popular; and Glow-worm, a magnificent new bush-rose, very thorny (like Souvenir de Claudius Fernet in that), has a marvelous orange-red color.

Ageratum Fraseri was a discovery of last year in annuals. This, so much larger in flower, so much richer in lavender hue than any of the named varieties whose seed we are accustomed to indulge in buying each spring, is a very dwarf plant, and ex- ceedingly good in association with others. It blooms early from seed; it is only about ten inches high; its panicles of bloom are very large and effective; and as a novelty in annuals for the front of the border, helping all by its color, hurting none, it will have a great place in our gardens. I first used it with Phlox Drummondii Chamois Rose on either side of our short brick walk; this year it is there once more but fronting a geranium just now offered for the first time — Mrs. Richard F. Gloede: a flower of such brilliant yet deep rose color that it almost dazzles one to look at the blooms in bright sunlight. In the juxtaposition of these two there is the liveliest possible effect.

74 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

and where gay color is needed in any garden, I suggest the use of these two new things in association with each other.

Much as one dislikes the idea of mere size in flowers, strange though it seems to consider size at all in thinking of this de- licious flower, the astounding thing is that heliotrope Royal Fragrance, with us this summer, measured ten inches across one cluster of bloom. Then there was no scent? will be at once the challenge. Yes, there was a rich, full perfume for every inch, and a fine deep tone of purple too in the flower. The leaves of Royal Fragrance are of a dark and striking green, their texture is almost as stout as that of a viburnum; and as these plants in the garden form a low foreground for delphinium in its second florescence, with Hall's amaryllis in its pale beauty beside, also some young flowers of buff Zinnia Isabellina near by, one can perhaps imagine the charm of this grouping. The flat panicles of the heliotrope create a nice contrast of form with the upright flowers beyond them, and the colors here, all pale violet, blue, mauve and buff, call me many times a day to look with pleasure upon a garden picture that is well nigh perfect.

Autumn's trilling insect sounds are in the air; the leaves of Carolina poplar and of willow, always too ready to fall, strew the ground and give a feeling of impending change. Apples are ripening; others hang green globes among thick leaves in clusters to please Luca Delia Robbia or his nephew; the first rudbeck- ias are blooming; late lilies such as Henryi droop with graceful apricot flowers under the hot August sun and with no rain for their refreshment; even old peony plants languish a little; but in the garden (which has been kept moist by allowing full force of water to run along the roots of flowers) annuals are gaily blooming and many, like pink mallows and creamy balsams, are just opening their first buds.

VARIETY IN NEWER FLOWERS 75

Out of the treasury of new things in horticulture, how few have been mentioned here — of how few do I really know; but each hitherto unfamiliar loveliness in plant, flower, shrub and tree leaves the true gardener ever keener, ever more enraptured. Through these he catches a glimpse of what is yet to be in garden beauty, and of what he himself may achieve in adding to that loveliness. For this is no will o' the wisp that we chase in gar- dening; this is a permanent enrichment of all life, and one which we may will to our inheritors, as a possession to charm them throughout their days.

VI

VARIETY IN SHRUBS

Under this heading, with one exception, we shall discuss only- shrubs less familiar to the average gardener. We pass by, though not as obsolete, the commonly used spiraeas such as Vanhouttei, the better known viburnums (F. opulus for instance and its Japanese variety), the common barberries and flowering cur- rants, the older kinds of lilacs and of mock orange. And for this reason: among recent introductions in all these families there are such beauties as only need to be made known, to be tried, in order to become as precious as those we have so long grown in quantity. How shall we create variety in our gardens if we grow only Thunberg's barberry, the common lilac, SpircBa Vanhouttei, and Philadelphus coronarius to fill every foot of space allotted to shrubs? One of the main pleasures of planting is the looking forward to the behavior of a shrub new to us. What will its leaf- buds be like.'^ How early will they appear? How soon may flowers be expected? How will this shrub flourish in this soil, climate, exposure? These are questions that imfailingly arise after an indulgence in new shrubs. It is the sort of question that sustains the eager spirit through all the months when tree and shrub stand bare. These months must be faced, got over; and the best weapon with which to vanquish them is the anticipation of change, of variety.

Before proceeding to some of the newer viburnums, lilacs, and cotoneasters, I have a word to say on the Japanese quince, for I hold this one of the shrubs indispensable — this which flares so gloriously into bloom each May. Among many on this place, we have six whose flowers are decidedly different from each

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 77

other; and turning to a notebook I give here the colors of these according to the two color charts in most frequent use, Ridg- way's and the French Repertoire des Couleurs. The first quince blossom examined was of medium size. Ridgway's color for this was sea-shell pink to rose dore; the French, plate Q5, all tones, through plates 73 and 74, and touched with the color on plate 108 — a flower of many hues, truly a shaded flower, and beau- tiful beyond description on its bough in May.

The flowers of number two were very small and grew in tufts:

— Ridgway chart, coral red; French, 75-4 to 76-3. Nmnber three was a medium sized flower of whose color Ridgway's jasper red gave a near though not exact idea; French, 80-3. In this quince the flowers grew in bunches along the stem, two to four together. Number four was a fairly large quince blossom :

— Ridgway's, coral red; French, 75-76. Five was a glori- ously colored flower immense in size for this type of bloom, growing on tall, strong bushes: — Ridgway, geranium pink to begonia rose; French, 106 all tones to 121 all tones. This is a magnificent quince when in bloom, indeed the bushes are superb at all times; the foliage with its yoimger madder-brown leaflets is always good to see. The last quince blossom of this list was quite different from those already named : number six was white like an apple blossom, but touched with that charming hue known in Ridgway as hermosa pink, and in the French chart (plate 118), all shades.

If these charts were before the reader, if he could follow these notes with those delicious color-books beside this, he would perceive the remarkable range of color in the flowers of this one shrub. Choenomeles is the new botanical name for this group of plants; and besides C. japonica, which is the quince we used to call Pyrus or Cijdonia Japonica, there is C. maulei, which an- swers in the descriptions of its orange-colored flowers to the

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first on my list given here. I could easily identify by name the various quince flowers of our borders; this is a superficial method of identification, but it has its conveniences. Under C. japonica Bailey lists twenty-one varieties; under C. Maulei, whose habit of growth is dwarf, three. The Japanese quince is an adorable subject for the small place; and if due regard is had to spraying — for this tribe is terribly susceptible to the scale — and if one remembers that its buds will suffer in occasional cold winters in the latitude of Boston, then the wonderful glow of its spring bloom will repay all the care given.

As for proper placing of this gay beauty with regard to other shrubs, use if possible near it (back of it, for preference) bushes of Rosa rubrifolia with its "plum-red" foliage, to use Miss Waterfield's nice adjective, or else near the reddish kinds of Japanese maple. Miss Waterfield has a charming picture in color in her book, Garden Colour, of Japanese quince, with the brown-madder foliage of tall tea-roses back of it, a foreground for all the delicate blues and greens of a spreading spring land- scape. "The red japonica is also very effective. We have a cascade of it over the roof of a tool house. On a gray morning it is delightful to look up and catch the rose-red branches against the boughs of the elms still bare and silhouetted against the sky."

As to the use of flowering shrubs in the little garden, how shall any arbitrary rules be laid down? None may or can be; but there are two paths safe to venture upon in this province: one, the principle of restraint in the variety of shrubs in a small place; the other, the idea of the value and beauty of one single fine specimen if properly used. Mr. Glutton-Brock's words always come to mind here and are well illustrated by the simple planting in the picture opposite this page. "A single flowering shrub, rightly placed in front of a dark barrier of greenery, has your eye to itself and satisfies it, like an altarpiece in a quiet

"A single Jiourrinf) .shnth, rightli/ placed, has your eye to itself

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 79

church." Nothing more beautiful than this has been said by way of suggestion, never has advice been more beautifully given. Unless restraint in variety is practiced with such subjects, the garden will become a hodgepodge, a fussy, spotty place, restless and wretched. When shrubs are used as screens, groups are of necessity large, but the main groups, composed probably of three, five or seven shrubs, should be in each case of some one variety.

Turning now to the newer shrubs, perhaps the one that may be singled out as most entirely suitable for the little garden is Viburnum Carlesii, a native of Korea. What sympathy I feel for all who do not know this yet! \Miat delight will be theirs when first they see its white flowers and rosy buds in May, as they catch that delicious fragrance — unlike the best rich scents, those of gardenia and of lemon-blossom, yet like them; as they see the color of this viburnum's leaves in late October, a very dark and dusky crimson, almost a reddish bronze. All these pleasures (and are there higher or more keen.'') await him who invests two or three dollars in this hardy shrub. Viburnum Carlesii's suitability for the small place lies in its dwarf habit. It grows to be about three feet high, is rather spreading, and makes a capital foreground-plant.

Of Viburnum rhytidophyllum, another of the novelties from the Orient, we have two young specimens. These have not yet fruited, but as it was for their leaves and fruit that we bought them, it is with no little interest that we await next year's developments. I give here E. H. Wilson's description of this plant: "A remarkable viburnum and totally unlike any other is V. rhytidophyllum, with long deep-green, lance-shaped, strongly wrinkled leaves, which on the under side are covered with a dense white felt. It is a shrub from five to ten feet tall, compact in habit, and has broad flat heads of dirty white, rather foetid

80 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

flowers, succeeded by handsome fruits, which as they ripen change to pink and crimson and are finally jet black.'*

At the time of the 1922 show of the American Gladiolus Society at Kalamazoo, Michigan, it was my fortune to visit a most beautiful small garden in the country near Kalamazoo. The garden nestled into an angle of a low white house and could be enjoyed particularly from a picturesque white settee under a low spreading apple tree at the outer end of the garden. But the individual things that left their impression upon me here were great trees of althea, rose-pink double althea, in full bloom on either side of the main entrance to the house from the garden, and also in one or two other places. These altheas — or Roses of Sharon, to use their old familiar name — were twelve feet high at least, and among their dark green leaves were countless double flowers of a good clear pink. The effect was almost of trees of roses in August. To find the name of this variety I wrote to the firm who had supplied it, and this was, in part, the reply: —

"I do not know any double variety that I could truthfully recommend as being a clear pink, as most of them are tinted with blue or violet. I think the one that would come nearest to this color is the large single-flowered variety rubis. The single coslestis is also the nearest color to blue. Totus albus is a fine single white and a good companion to the other two. In my opinion they are the three best and most effective altheas in the lot. Jeanne d'Arc and alba plena are good double whites, and probably carnea plena would come the nearest to a light pink. Lady Stanley, a white with a crimson throat, is a very good one. The variety ardens is the nearest blue of any I know among the double, but not nearly so blue as coelestis. Frankly, I have to admit that I am not much of an authority on altheas. The descriptions in our catalogue were taken from the catalogue

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 81

of Turbat, Orleans, France, from whom we imported them, and I think there is room for much improvement in the descriptions of this class of shrubs."

Among these surely one or two might be chosen to try out in any small garden. This shrub needs, however, sufficient room in which to develop. It is tall rather than wide, but should have from four to five square feet of ground to itself for the finest results. It is its August bloom that first commends it to the gardener, for the flowering shrub of August is exceedingly rare.

One of Mr. T. A. Havemeyer's recommendations of the new French hybrids in lilacs — one particularly suitable for the small garden — is that they can be planted along a fence and still interfere with nothing grown more than five feet away; also the same authority makes an astounding assertion: when the bushes get too large, cut them down to the ground, and in two years you will have finer lilacs than ever. This experiment I shall try; but while one could never doubt the wisdom of following ad\'ice from this source, I shall begin such drastic doings with one of our less lovely varieties. Never could I take the axe to machrostachya, to £mile Gentil, to Julien Girardin, to President Fallieres, to Danton, or to that beauty in lilacs from which I am expecting such clusters of bluish flowers, Bleuatre.

Lilac Princess Alexandra came to this place some years ago from Professor Sargent. It flowered abundantly in the spring of 1922 and impressed everyone by its great beauty. It has matchless thyrses of pure waxen white flowers, freely borne upon a shapely bush covered with leaves almost as dark a green as English ivy. "WTiat a satisfaction then to have what has lately come here, a little pamphlet or price list from a nursery- man who devotes himself largely to growing this one lilac.

The association of the lilac for Americans is the immemorial

82 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

one of the old gardens of New England and the latter's age of innocence. But since the war there is a new and glorious asso- ciation which let none of us forget : I mean the moving courage of that great Victor Lemoine of Nancy to whom we owe the new beauties of this lovely plant.

No one has voiced the praises of the lilac as they should be sung — a writer with the gift, say, of him who wrote those beautiful words of the sweet pea: "The sweet pea has a keel that was meant to seek all shores; it has wings that were meant to fly across all continents; it has a standard which is friendly to all nations; and it has a fragrance like the universal Gospel — yea, a sweet prophecy of welcome everywhere, that has been abundantly fulfilled."

Few flowers have received so rapturously perfect an expression of praise as this. The lilac deserves one. Its virtues are : graceful beauty of form and color of flower; the aspect of the tree or shrub on which these are borne; its fragrance, unique, and filled with sentiment for Americans; and the ease with which it may be successfully grown. Unlike some garden subjects, the older a lilac grows, the finer becomes its appearance. As instances, take the specimens of syringa puhescens at Highland Park, Rochester, or the great lilac trees, named hybrids, at the Arnold Arboretum, Boston. The wonderful lilac collections of the Arnold Arboretum and of Highland Park, Rochester, New York, Mr. Havemeyer's interesting collection on Long Island, and the fine gift of over two hundred of this genus to Montclair, N. J. by Mr. Frank T. Presby, place this beautiful May-flowering shrub within reach of most dwellers in the northern Atlantic seaboard states; and so infectious is the love of and desire for beauty that I predict it will not be long before the glorious newer lilac hybrids and species will be found over all of the northern part of the country.

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 83

The lilac has, so far as I know, only two foes to contend with: overmuch rain, and mildew from long-continued heat or drought or from other causes; and even then, these causes do not always have unfavorable effects. Borers and fungi are less frequent enemies. The lilac is one of the hardiest shrubs known; it will grow as one wants it, according to its proper pruning, and in May its steeples or pinnacles of bloom tower skyward, an up- lifted offering for the beauty of the spring. Cultural directions are few: planting may be done in spring or autumn, but the last is best because of early swelling of the flower-buds. Lilacs dislike moving, so choose their position beforehand with care. If moved, they do not die, but languish and refuse to bloom for a year, sometimes for more years, and this is especially true of old specimens. What truth there is in Benjamin Franklin's rhyme : —

I never saw an oft-removed tree.

Nor yet an oft-removed family.

That throve so well as those that settled be.

Two or three rules which may be suggested here for best results with these shrubs are — First: Give the lilac a well-dug and manured soil when planting. Second: Give the lilac room. Most varieties are of fairly rapid growth, and eight to ten feet apart is not too much to allow when grouping them. Third: Prune the lilac judiciously — and little. Seed should not be allowed to form, and all weak shoots should be taken out. Watch for suckers, especially if your lilacs are not on their own roots; to permit the stock to send up shoots is to quickly smother your beautiful variety or hybrid in growth of privet or common lilac. "If your plants are not on their own roots," says Mr. Dunbar, "be sure to set them about three inches or more in the earth above the union, and in two or three years' time they will be on their own roots." The privet on which they are usually

84 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

grafted acts as a temporary carrier for a few years. Mr. Dunbar considers lilacs on their own roots (that is, from cuttings) the best, but this method gives a smaller percentage of plants. Fourth: Spray once a year, preferably in late autumn, if your bushes are in the neighborhood of apples or other trees, hosts to San Jose scale.

Because of the remarkable variety in lilacs, I may mention a few groupings of the rarer ones, which might give a purchaser a somewhat quicker return in pleasure than buying at random. I find that for three which are very pink, President Fallieres, Montaigne, and Mme. Antoine Buchner are satisfying. For deep mauve, Danton, President Poincare, Marechal Lannes, Marceau, and Milton, give the note. For strong contrast in color, I would suggest these pairs: Rene Jarry-Desloges, Danton; Thunberg, Marechal Lannes; Marceau, macrostachya; Diderot, Rene Jarry-Desloges; President Fallieres, fimile Gentil; Mon- taigne, Danton. Ccerulea superba, Gilbert and macrostachya. Arrangements are endless and fascinating and, happily, "there is no finality in gardening."

Once the devotee of lilacs begins to think upon them, he is carried away by the charm of the recollection merely. How can we ever pay the debt we owe to Victor Lemoine of Nancy? Shall France ever receive from an American the proper flowery return for the happiness given us by these lilacs? Mr. Have- meyer's lately published list of the newest varieties is given here: —

1913

Naudin, double, deep purple lilac.

President Poincare, double, claret, mauve, purple buds.

Marceau, single, purple violet.

Monge, single, dark purple.

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 85

1915 fimile Gentil, double, bright cobalt-blue, Paul Thirion, double, claret-rose, carmine buds. Claude Bernard, double, bright mauve lilac, early flowering. Jean Mace, double, mauve, early. Diderot, single, claret-purple. Mont Blanc, single, the finest white.

1916 Edith Cavell, double pure milk-white, buds cream and sulphur. Julien Gerardin, double soft lilac. Saturnale, single bluish-mauve. Vesuve, single, claret-purple, nearly red.

Garden cities are very well, but even more interesting will it be when cities, towns, and villages are renowned for the develop- ment of special flowers. Such there are already. Charleston speaks to the lover of horticulture through its renowned azaleas; Portland by means of roses; Rochester, through lilacs; the suburbs of Philadelphia by their unexampled beauty in the spring. No doubt we shall soon have towns and villages every- where celebrated for great lilac collections, or on all of whose individually owned grounds the loveliest specimens of the lilac shall grow to such perfection as to couple the word "lilac" with the local name. Those who live in our great industrial centres are rapidly encircling these towns and cities with beauty, creating fine places and notable gardens; but until each man has his own small bit of ground, and finds the best use of that for both food and flowers, we shall not have arrived, as a nation, at an eminence of possible development. The lilac is the shrub which delights all classes of men, and its more general distribu- tion in its finer forms is greatly to be hoped for in the interests of a nobler horticulture and of the ever-improving aspect of the American scene.

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Wilson's barberry is not altogether hardy in this part of the country. After five or six years' trial of this beautiful fine-leaved shrub from the Mount Desert nurseries, I find that a cold winter kills back about one third. Fortunately the color of the dead leaves is so beautiful against the brick wall where they stand, a reddish brown, that I am almost (not quite) reconciled to their lack of vigor: the small leaves of bright green appearing throughout the centre of the plant give a curious effect seen through the reddish ones of last year; and we are slow to prune, always hoping for life farther toward the tips of the branches. What a beauty of a shrub is this, however! Nothing finer or more aristocratic in the great family to which it belongs! It is not very commonly used, probably because of its cost, which I remember as moderately high when we secured our two. We use it below the brick ramps of the steps from open veranda or terrace to the lawn, where below tall arborvitses and with Cotoneaster horizontalis to tie them to the ground, as a lower shrub will always tie a higher, it looks extremely well. Around these little barberries, as I write, are daffodils White Lady; and buds of 7m pumila, the purple variety, are opening by the daffodils. Who shall say that Berberis Wilsonce has not created a small centre of interest of its own?

Now a word on Lonicera, the Tatarian or bush honeysuckle. We are familiar with the older types with pink or white flowers and foliage of a slightly bluish green, shrubs which, however roughly treated, moved, cut back, neglected, go bravely on producing leaves and flowers, shrubs that come forth in gay leaf after the coldest winter. But some of the newer loniceras should be grown by everyone. Here for instance is Lonicera syringantha, which I have not seen, but which I am always being told I should grow. It is a small-growing plant, and part of its value lies in its very bluish foliage, which fits in for use

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 87

near the bluer-leaved spruces or firs. Its branches droop and spread and its fruits, like those of the Tatarian honeysuckle, are bright scarlet. Lonicera nitida is an evergreen honeysuckle, and is held in high esteem for the beauty of its tiny shining leaves, as well as for its perfect adaptability for use as a low garden hedge in place of box. It may be clipped; like the other honeysuckles it is perfectly hardy and it will grow anywhere. Here too is Lonicera Maackii, with its large creamy flowers set in rows along the upper side of each bough — a beautiful sight in May. L. Morroivii is a tall and handsome kind, with very light crimson fruit.

As for the cotoneasters, those little relatives of the barberries, they are in their fullest, brightest beauty as I write. Here is a spray of Cotoneaster horizontalis before me in its October colors, almost artificial-looking in its brilliance, its tiny ivy-green leaves, every other one of a rich bronze color, its shining scarlet berries set among these leaves, each little branch forking in a sudden and arresting fashion characteristic of these shrubs. Each variety of cotoneaster has its own beauty. C. adpressa, C. Dielsianay C. horizontalis y C. perpusilla, C. racemiflora sanguinea — each has its striking feature; some are dwarf, some tall; all are handsome and worth cultivating. C Henryana is thus de- scribed: "An evergreen shrub ten to twelve feet, with branches gracefully pendulous. About the middle of June white flowers appear in corymbs about three inches across. This shrub, a native of Central China, was introduced in 1901 by E. H. Wilson. It is probably the largest-leaved of all the cotoneasters, with persistent leaves, and is a very handsome and distinct evergreen shrub."

The Pyracanthas are allied to the cotoneasters and quite as beautiful as those. Pyracantha Gihhsii is a Wilson introduction from China, with bright berries rather late ripening and par-

88 VARIETY IN 'HIE LITTLE GARDEN

ticularly free fruiting. It is of vigorous growth and should become very useful when better known. P. crenulata is another very similar plant, also Chinese and also a Wilson introduction (I believe), with orange berries and slightly crenulated leaf- margins. As I remember it at Wisley, it is even later in ripening its fruit than P. Gibbsii.

Berberis rubrostilla is a mystery seedling that cropped up at Wisley some years ago. It is nearly allied to B. polyantha and B. WilsoncB and deciduous as both these species are. It is of comparatively low growth, the main shoots slightly arching and branching laterally; the flowers are pale yellow and pendent under the branches and not particularly conspicuous, but the foliage assumes a fine coloring and in combination with the wonderfully attractive semitransparent sealing-wax berries of elongated and almost angular shape, provides a rare picture especially when kissed by the autumn sun. Layers and cuttings are the only means of perpetuating the charming hybrid, which will long remain scarce for that reason, but it has already pro- duced several seedling varieties which, however beautiful in themselves, cannot excel the parent for downright fascinating charm.

The best of all guides for the trial of new shrubs, say singly, in even one of the smallest spaces, is in Professor Sargent's list of eighteen of these new things. I give it with the merest word of description after each subject : —

Hamamelis mollis; blooms in winter, bright flowers.

Prinsepia sinensis; earliest of all spring foliage, bright yellow

flowers before the leaves. Carylopsis gotoana; also bright yellow flowers, while shrub is

leafless. Amelanchier grandiflora; the first of this family in the Arboretum

collection. Forsythia intermedia spedabilis; the handsomest of all forsythias.

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 89

Cotoneasters: hupekensis, racemiflora, soongarica nitens, muUiflora calocarpa; these are the finest of the large number of species introduced by E. H. "Wilson. They are large shrubs of graceful habit, and have white flowers and red fruits, with the excep- tion of C. nitens which has red flowers and black fruits.

Rosa Hugonis: one of the most beautiful of roses with single flowers.

Neillia sinensis: a beautiful shrub with drooping clusters of pink flowers.

Rhododendron (Azalea) Schlippenbachii: large pale pink flowers.

Rhododendron (Azalea) japonicum: orange or flame-colored flowers.

Berheris vernte: A remarkably graceful barberry.

Syringa Sweginzowii: considered the most beautiful of the Chinese species lilacs.

Spircea Veitchii: perhaps the handsomest of all spiraeas; grace- ful arched branches of white flowers in early July.

Euonymiis planipes: an evergreen shrub with magnificent crimson fruit.

This list is priceless: the basis for a collection is now before the reader. All of these shrubs I have seen; a few we have; and in the names here given lie fresh and exciting experiences for all who do not yet know the variety in newer shrubs for use in the gardens of America.

Is it because the beauty of Japan, the older Japan, is fresh upon me, since reading F. T. Piggot's enchanting book. The Garden of Japan, or is it because of that ev^er fresh delight in spring, which means more and more as one grows older, that a sight experienced to-day seems more radiant, more moving in beauty than any for long years? It was that lovely spectacle, common to Tennessee in March, of a peach tree in full rose- colored bloom against the blue of a distant mountain — Japan in Tennessee! Yes, and even more suggestive when, as some- times happens, a dark pine or cedar stands near the flowering tree. " Men talk of the beauty of the earth and contrast it with the unsubstantial celestial beauty that visionaries dream of; but this blossom seen in the light of a western evening is visionary

90 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

and celestial — is an escape, for those who will believe it, into another world more real than this one. The earth itself be- comes unearthly in its own flowers."

"Unearthly beauty" — what a phrase! and how one sees it in this mountain region, in the March sunsets, when through the bare woods the spring sun goes down all rosy behind the blue mountains, but not before it dyes the shining river below with its own rose. Not Japan, not Fuji, the sacred mountain, can show a greater loveliness than these mountains of Tennessee. Here form is gloriously bold, atmosphere clothes all with its varying beauty. Here in March that sense of things about-to-be strikes one to the heart. Forsythia blooms on the lawns; Japa- nese quinces are bright; peaches and apricots — perhaps isolated, marking old sites of cabins or of houses — are in full flower; Lonicera fragrans with its lovely earliest creamy blossom is past, and here and there a domesticated Japanese cherry gives its own charm. To have on such a day gifts of flowers, too, seems to complete the lovely pattern — a long box with great daffodils at one end, their stems covered by no less than nine gracefully tied bunches of fragrant violets; a low round pan of moss-edged arbutus from the mountain-side — these make memo- rable a day in late March.

Piggot, in the charming book mentioned, speaks of the devo- tion of the Japanese to buds. Flowering trees and shrubs are despoiled of their branches in earliest spring till the onlooker begins to feel concern for next year's harvest of flowers. "None of the many sights on the streets which strike strange eyes as eccentric is so strange as to see people carrying home, with a tender care bred of admiration, big bunches of bare twigs, with perhaps not more than two or three half -open blossoms."

But spring, shrubs, Japan — these three words carry with them the sense of our flowery debt to the Flowery Kingdom,

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 91

and again in these pages I would set down a few paragraphs on certain shrubs which we owe to that land. The history of Japanese shrubs already familiar to American gardens can never be too often repeated, nor can the new introductions be too often brought to the attention of our amateurs. For as the great collectors (such as E. H. Wilson) go oftener to Japan and China, as their own findings and choosings become more rarely beautiful, just so much more interest and enthusiasm for these Asiatic subjects are bound to develop among amateiu* gardeners everywhere. Read Aristocrats of the Garden^ by Mr. Wilson; get the Bulletins of the Arnold Arboretum. How few people, comparatively speaking, have made collections of Japanese cherries! And now I mean people with ground sufficient for the purpose. Experiment, say I. Try these new things. Grow them from seed, or secure tiny trees from any one of the several sources available. Do not continue to grow common elder, sumac, goldenrod in vast quantities for screens or boimdary plantings when these other less familiar things remain to astonish and delight. The confines of the mind, as well as of the eye, will be enlarged by the use of plants, trees and shrubs from other countries; and a wealth of blooming bough and richly colored autumn fruit may be secured to our gardens through this, as in no other way.

Among the newer vines is Vitis heterofhylla. If the reader could see what 's in this name to those who know its meaning — what glories of September color, what ease of cultivation of a lovely climbing plant, they would leap at the mere mention of this beautiful garden subject. My first sight of this ornamental grape was in the garden of Mrs. W. A. Hutcheson, in that lovely country around Bemardsyille, New Jersey, where a lightly built arbor was hung with its fruiting stems. My second sight of it was in the Arnold Arboretum, where Professor Sargent gathered

92 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

for me a handful of the jewel-like berries from the vine, then in full beauty upon the high netting along which are many species of grape from afar. My third (I begin to sound like a charade) was last autumn in the garden of a neighbor and friend in Michigan. Here, in its second year, the little vine had climbed nearly to the top of a pergola and the lovely berries of turquoise, amethyst, and jade were in profusion at the tips of the slender stems.

It is evident, then, that there is here a comparatively new climbing thing of the first quality, one that should and will spread over the land as its beauties are proclaimed and tried. Pleasant is it to see the expression on the face of the interested gardener as for the first time he sees these fruits of unimaginable beauty and realizes that the charming plant may easily be his. I doubt if there is any fruiting plant anywhere to excel this in the entrancing quality of its autumn harvest. Vitis brevipedun- culata carries berries of like color, though larger, but the leaves of this vine are coarser, bigger, less delicate than these finely cut and thinly distributed ones of Vitis heterophylla. I can imagine no lovelier decorative wreathing of fruit for the table than that of these berries and leaves. Bartlett pears, in that delicious pale yellow which is their mark, and these fruits of Vitis heterophylla in their pale blues, violets and greens, in their loose clusters with the sharply-cut leaves among them — what a thing to set upon one's table for the delight of the eye!

Having said this much of an available garden subject, the recollection comes to me of another so lovely that it is often in my mind, but which is only for sub-tropic use. This is Nandina domestical that fine, low-growing shrub of Japan, with its grace- ful sprays of pointed leaves held out on stems like tempered wires, and with a fruit of coral-pink almost to defy description. I see now before me the whole picture of the finished grounds

VARIETY IN SHRUBS 9S

of a charming villa at Pau, one of those white pavilion-like villas that from their green settings face the whole range of the Lower Pyrenees, and catch the floods of southern smi in winter. I see those lawns and shrubbery-groups and the French gardeners working so expertly among them; for it was here that I first saw Nandina and asked its name of the nearest man. Then again I saw it at Jacksonville, where it flourishes near a fine formal garden on the shore of the St. John's River. And now in reading the newly published volume called A Garden in the Sub-Tropics, by Mary Stout and Madeline Agar, I see its pretty Latin name again as that of a shrub to use near Cairo, Egypt. So does a beautiful growing subject take one around the world, so does an interest in what grows bring to one countless pictures of what one has seen, refreshing memories of beauty and of charm. I have longed to plant Nandina domestica, but a quoi hon in our cold climate? Therefore, I am contenting myself with the thought that when in warmer airs, I shall watch for and enjoy this adorable Japanese plant as unattainable for me, and there- fore all the more precious.

I append a few paragraphs and the useful chart which follows on the matter of pruning shrubs.

While after-blooming pruning is applicable to many trees and shrubs, it is not so to all. Not a few subjects may have a poor reputation as flowering plants as a direct result of improper pruning. To prune spring-flowering subjects during late winter would assuredly mean the removal of many flower buds unless the plant flowers on new wood, as do the H. T. roses. Some of the rambler roses will bear cutting-back of both old and new wood and flower freely on the wood that follows, but as a general rule such roses are best treated like raspberry, that is, cleaned free of all wood as soon after flowering as possible, the new growths being left for next season's flowering. Great numbers

94 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

of shrubs and trees follow a similar principle, in that the flower buds for the following year are developed on the wood made this season. Others, flowering later in the year, do so on the current season's wood.

Bailey says: "The methods of pruning to produce a given form of bush are the same in either case; but if it is desired to head in and yet not sacrifice the bloom, the early flowering shrubs should be cut back just after blooming." M. Baltet, a well known French writer and experimenter, once made up a set of tables relative to the pruning of trees and shrubs, and we venture to give them here for general memory-refreshment.

Small Trees and Flowering Shrubs (Prune in winter when plants are dormant)

Abelia		Hypericum
Actinidia		Indigofera
Amorpha		Kerria
Baccharis		Lagerstroemia
Bignonia		Ligustrum
Buddleia		Lonicera
Callicarpa		Lycium
Camellia		Myrlus
Cassia		Neriiun
Ceanothus		Philadelphus
Clematis (sections	Flammula,	Rhus
Viticella, Jackmamiii and	Rosa
Lanuginosa)		Rubus
Clethra		Solanum
Colutea		Symphoricarpos
Cormis		Tamarix
Hibiscus syriacus	paniculata	Viburnum Tinus
Hydrangea (American species)	Vitex '

VARIETY IN SHRUBS

95

Spring Flowering Shrubs (Prune immediately after blooming, or when in leaf)

Amelanchier

Amygdalua

Arbutus

Calycanthus

Cerasus

Cercis

Choisya

Cistus

Coronilla

Crataegus oxycantha

Cytisus

Deutzia

Exochorda

Forsythia

Hydrangea (Asiatic)

Jasminum nudiflorum

Malus

Olearia

Paeonia Moutan

Persica vulgaris

Phlomis

Prunus

Ribes

Rosmarinus

Sambucus

Syringa (lilac)

Tamarix africana

Tamarix gallica

Viburnum (French and Asiatic)

Weigela

Wisteria

Shrubs not Requiring Pruning, but Simply Removal of Old Wood

{Spring blooming)

Akebia	Halesia
Andromeda	Kalmia
Azalea	Koeb-euteria
Berberis	T/inicera tatarica
Calophaca	Magnolia
Caragana	Mahonia
Cerasus (Laurocerasus)	Pyracantha
Chionanthus	Rhododendron
Cotoneaster	Skimmia
Crataegus	Staphylea
Cytisus Laburnum	Viburnum (American species)
Daphne	Xanthoceras
Fraxinus ornua
(Summer	blooming)
Aralia	Pavia (except California)
Artemisia	Robinia Pseudacacia
Cladrastia	Yucca

96

VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

Large Flowering Trees not Requiring Pruning

^senilis (Horse chestnut) Catalpa

Liriodendron tulipifera Pauiownia

Pyrus aria (Whitebeam tree) Robinia (with exceptions) Sophora Sorbus

Spir^jas Blooming in the Spring

{These ought not to he cut in winter y hut when the season of hloom is past, cutting shortest the most vigorous subjects)

Chamsedrifolia

Hypericifolia. Cut to medium

length. Opnlifolia. Top the long shoots. Ulmifolia. Cut away half the

shoot. Primifoha. In summer pinch the

side-shoots.

Vanhouttei. Cut away one half

the branches which have

bloomed. Arguta Lanceolata or Reevesii. These

should be slightly shortened. Thunbergii. These require very

little pruning.

Spir^as Blooming in Summer or Autumn {Prune in winter)

Fontenaysii

Fortimei. Cut about half length.

Lindleyi. Should be severely

pruned, even down to the

Arisefolia Billardii Bumalda. Should have ends of

shoots removed. Corymbosa Douglasii

{The spiroeas whose branches are compact ought to be thinned and pruned.)

VII VARIETY IN TREES

On the small lot the question of the tree is a peculiar one. No oak may spread its great arms here, no beech increase its silvery girth from year to year. Soil is too precious, sun too vital; but trees must not be lacking, for beauty, for use. And therefore the fruit tree is p>erhaps the proper subject for the town or suburban garden. Will not one fine apple tree create a picture, too, no matter where it stands? And will not a little plum or peach wreathe a bit of garden with spring flowers as well as yield the wished-for harvest of fruit?

Trees for the little garden? Where is there room for trees in the average small space, the possession of most of us? To this let the reply be made, first, that no piece of ground is furnished completely without at least one tree : a tree for rising line and falling shadow; a tree for winter interest as well as for summer coolness and beauty; a tree as a centre perhaps for the plan of the little garden, as a lodging for the fowls of the air, as a place of joy for children, who climb and build among its branches as naturally as ever Mowgli played in his tropic jungle. Alas for every child in America who has missed the two pleasures, of reading The Sioiss Family Robinson in words of one syllable, and then of building a house in a tree!

If, however, the choice is restricted by reason of space to one tree, let that tree, say I, be the elm. The elm — where else is there at once such beauty of form, the vase-shaped elm, the fan-shaped elm — such towering height, such grace of hanging leaves, such loveliness of gold in autumn? The maple is stodgy beside it. The maple calls for overmuch room also, though I

98 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

yield to none in admiration of the hard maple as it stands a rounded dome of dark leaves in a broad field or park, where space, air, and sun have brought it to perfection as a tree. The oak is of too slow a growth to be planted by any but babes in arms — too slow for us who wish to see a fairly quick develop- ment in our gardens. The beech is a delicious tree, but whimsical after transplanting; it grows or not, according to its fancy. Following these four staple trees, as one might call them, one gets into the catalogue of trees that have an unfamiliar look in our little landscape, the horse-chestnut, the linden, the Ginkgo tree. These, unless used with extraordinary skill, give always (to me) the impression of having been dragged into the small place by the hair of their heads! They disturb; and the first function of a fine tree anywhere is to give a feeling of quiet permanence to the picture.

I believe, however, that for even the very smallest bits of ground there should be set, in the remotest corner, a young elm. The emotions of watching the growth of such a tree are many and varied. I have in mind one of our own, standing in a rather precarious situation. How I have looked each spring for the precious leaf buds! into what depression I fell when the iceman nearly ruined it with his great cart-wheel! to what heights I rose again when we knew the careful wax and bandage would really heal the wound! Yes, in the matter of that tree I was like Mrs. Gummidge: "When the porridge was burnt, we all felt the disappointment, but Mrs. Gummidge felt it the most."

The finger of scorn is now pointed at me by the reader who knows what trees do to shrubs and flowers in the little garden — what they do eventually. I fly to their defense once more by remarking that young or small trees are not damaging to what is about them; that for a few years a beautiful garden of flowers may be maintained at the roots of old trees. One such garden

VARIETY IN TREES 99

as this was IVIr. C. B. Blair's at Grand Rapids where beneath several of the very fine elms, for which all that valley of the Grand River is renowned, one of the most brightly glowing flower gardens of all my experience — made of course in fresh rich soil — has persisted for years.

Where flowers are grown below trees for some seasons, if the garden after a time (as undoubtedly it will) deteriorates, change its character. As it fails a little, plant more shrubs; make over the spot into* a place of grass and foliage — a green garden. Certain shrubs do marvelously well under large trees: Salix pentandra, Philadelphus, for instance, and the matrimony vine.

For those interested in experiments with less familiar trees there are certain magnolias, perfectly hardy in northern gardens, such as M. stellata and M. conspicua. In my opinion such trees, because of the shining dark green of their leaves, should be used mainly where the foliage is in the same key with evergreens, ivy, and such. It is in such company too that their white or pink flowers are most dazzling in spring. ISIr. Wilson commends the sourw'ood (Oxydendrvm arhoreum), a beautiful tree from the Appalachians, with white urn-shaped flowers, which are pro- duced while the tree is yet very small. There are, too, the Varnish tree (Koelreuteria paniculata), the Pagoda tree {Sophora japon- ica), and the Acanthopanax {Kalopanax ricinifolium) . The first, originally from Russia, but much used in Chinese gardens, Mr. Wilson holds a capital subject for our own. Its height is from twenty to thirty feet, its flowers in midsummer (please notice that) are many and of a bright yellow among its large and glossy green leaves.

Anyone who has grown locusts and more especially the black locust knows their ready foe, the borer. Sophora, the second of these trees, is locust-like in appearance and has flowers of white, but no borer will attack it. This tree grows to a great height

100 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

and is, therefore, unsuited to the small garden; but so beautiful must be its July and August flowering, it should be mentioned here. The Kalopanax Mr. Wilson calls one of the noblest trees of the cool temperate regions. In the middle of summer this tree, whose leaves are on the order of those of the castor-oil plant, carries flat clusters of white flowers with rich black fruits to follow. It is recommended for three uses — on lawns, by the waterside, and for street planting. He who secures to himself even one of these little-known trees will give variety not only to his garden, but to his daily life : I have no doubt that seeds of any or all of these would be sent to anyone writing to the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

A positive opinion is given by an excellent writer on his own taste as to trees near his dwelling. "I like daylight, sunshine; and when the storms blow I like to feel that my house is not likely to be flattened out by trees. After all, if one wants to advocate small gardens, it 's no use urging people to plant shade trees. Trees are all right in their place, but their place is not in a small plot, unless they are fruit trees of moderate size." No two people see alike as to trees near houses. How could we forgo the charm and beauty of the elm beside or overhanging the New England farmhouse? and how about trees as an im- mediate background for the stately and important house?

In yet another way may small trees be used in the small lot. This is shown in the illustration opposite, where, flanking a narrow paved walk, evidently at one edge of the grassy space, stands a double row of lime trees. What a charming suggestion here for a little secluded way from house to garden, or for a walk beside the garden!

A most beautiful example of the loveliness of pear trees in the spring garden is seen in our frontispiece: meantime a word or two as to special varieties of fruit trees for such uses.

.1 ricachcd Allcij uj Lime Trees

VARIETY IN TREES 101

Mr. Clarence Fowler, in the Garden Magazine for October 1922, has a delightful article on this matter. Mr. Fowler first advo- cates the growing of dwarf apples and pears in the little garden; he has a word of approval too for the Japanese plums. Abun- dance and Burbank. Abundance is a tall straight-growing tree, while the Burbank plum, which I know well, makes after fifteen years a little bower in itself. There is something enticing about the habit of growth of this tree; its low spreading branches create a natural sitting-place which cannot be passed by in summer. It is certainly one of the most beautiful of all trees in spring and summer both; indeed, it has three periods of special interest, flower in spring, shade in summer, and fruit in autumn.

With regard to the apple — as early as 1252, says Lady Alicia Amherst in her great book, A History of Gardening in England, apples and pears were grown in monkish gardens; in Tudor gardens always much fruit was grown. From 1252 to 1922 — what an array of years! As for the dwarf apple among flowers, it happens that in our upper or trial garden we have four Stark's Delicious apples set where the gravel walks cross. Their branches now are touching each other and I plan to pleach these over the walk-intersection, to weave them together so as to form a little arbor, a small concave roof of green, which will add interest to this part of the garden.

Pear trees set along a narrow walk of brick in a Southampton garden are shown by Mr. Fowler in an illustration to accompany his writing, and below these (which are perhaps twelve feet apart in the rows and opposite each other with as many feet between) are borders of late flowers of dazzling beauty — mari- golds, salvia, zinnias, ageratum, and Boltonias trained on fan- shaped supports: a new idea to me when I once walked there, and one which should be tried for its effect, both original and gay. The scarlet sage is entirely in place in such a rich medley of

102 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

flowers as this. Much white and lavender will bind it in nice fashion to the colors of the other flowers, whatever those may be; and an effect of supreme brilliance is always gained by the use of scarlet in the right quantity in the right place.

I had been thinking only of the most familiar tree-crop, that of fruit, and thus far had I WTitten when my eye fell upon the words of an authority on the nut tree — Dr. Robert T. Morris. The grafted shagbark hickory, in this writer's opinion, should take the place of "short-lived willows and beetle-bait elms." The Japanese walnut or heartnut is another tree recommended as a substitute for the Carolina poplar, though I myself should fear the effect of the large strange leaf of this tree where land- scape composition comes in for consideration. But certainly when, to use Dr. Morris's excellent and very modern phrase, the " merger value " of trees is realized (and it should be realized everywhere — the planting of trees for beauty, fruit, and wood), there will be freer use of such things as he recommends in pungent phrase and sentence. The pawpaw and the Japanese persimmon are two trees for the decoration of the small place, and the heartnut, mentioned above, is green long after first frost, though the buyer is warned not to accept the variety Sieboldii when securing his trees, because the nuts of this are not so fine as those of the Japanese. Imagine, however, the sight of the persimmon after its leaves are fallen, all hung with those fruits of indescribable brilliance — an effect of color not unlike that said to be so telling of festoons of scarlet peppers hung to dry against the cream-white adobe houses of the villages of New Mexico and Arizona.

Now confessing to much ignorance in the matter of trees, there are aspects of them which, even in that ignorance, I have always noticed. Of one or two of these I should like to speak, but first I must say that one of my most humiliating — and

VARIETY IN TREES 103

wholesome — experiences was concerned with trees. It was on a train with the distinguished Director of the Arnold Arboretum. He said, "Can you name every tree you see from this window, by its structure, its outline?" "No," I replied. "Why not? You should be able to," was his answer. Those words will never leave me; nor will these others, which, if the reader will forgive a digression, I will here recall. Long ago, while playing a sonata and carelessly including a note not on the page, the instructor took my hands from the keys, laid them in my lap, and, looking me straight in the eye, said, "Never add to Beethoven!"

The two aspects of trees that the tree-illiterate like myself may enjoy in his ignorance are form and color. What is more interesting than the outline of a tree, a tree where space, sun and air have had their way with it: the vase- or fan-shaped elm, the dome-like maple, the triangular or pyramidal spruce, the round or cushion-like hawthorn, the slender arborvitse, the red cedar cutting the air like a sword, the apple with its low- spreading habit — that intimate, most friendly tree, the apple! And these are only the Eastern American trees, the commonest. Take the eucalyptus, a tree for poet and painter; the live oak, reminiscent of Italian gardens ; the great spruces of the western mountains; the madrona of the Pacific shore with its brilliant bark — the list is almost endless. It is not only form however; these trees differ each from each in color of mass, in color of foliage, and in color of flowers too, as the stars from each other in glory. There are the blue-greens of spruce and eucalj'ptus, the black-greens of live oak cedar, and fir, the ivy-greens of Norway maples and of certain oaks, the yellow-greens of soft maples, the gray-greens of the poplar tribe.

As I write, I think of our cruelty to trees — all again through ignorance. The unhappy spruces, "trimmed up," the street maples, "headed in" when planted; the beautiful native haw-

104 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

thorns all of whose low-spreading boughs have been cut away; better, far better to have laid the axe to the root of this tree than to have maimed, disfigured it for life; the maples, the basswoods, the elms which on many a village street in the Middle West have been planted fifteen feet apart, and left to that fate so easily imagined by those who know and love a tree.

In Art Out of Doors we are warned against four trees as being difficult to use with good effect in grounds either large or small. These are the Lombardy poplar, the white birch, the copper beech, and the weeping willow. These Mrs. Van Rensselaer pronounces eccentric trees, dangerous to use in plantings where quiet harmony is the aim. It is now twenty years since this opinion was printed; and of the four difficult trees we may say that all but the poplar have lost vogue. Few to-day plant the weeping- willow, fewer still the birch and the copper beech. The poplar is another story. This land bristles with them. The idea of the pictorial effect of the Lombardy poplar has taken hold of the gardening populace, and it is beside or in the garden of almost every new house of the twentieth century. It has its defects, especially with regard to the ubiquitous root system; but its narrow upright form, its charming gray-green hue, give it a certain fitness for use beside the rather coquettish type of small white house which we see building to-day; there is some- thing French in the feeling of many of these houses, and above all trees of course is this poplar a French tree. For screens, too, it is invaluable; though one must admit that it is seldom so used as to melt into trees near it as it should. Not often is there room to use it in its foreign fashion in great ranks along roads or avenues, except perhaps on such estates as that of Castle Hill, Ipswich, Massachusetts, where this is managed with fine effect. The old Carolina poplar in October is a tree of silver, rising as ours do back of pines, the clear white branches soaring

VARIETY IN TREES 105

into the air, \^'ith the newer leaves still holding to the topmost branches, leaves pure silver too, all floating against a sky of Italian blue. As the wind bends and blows these white leaves against those blue deeps of heaven, I have in an inland village a vision of the sea, of ships. Coming figuratively and literally to earth, however, the traveling roots of the Carolina poplar almost offset its misty beauty for landscape effect. They are undeniably diflBcult to deal with.

My window, a leaded casement window, has now been for a week two panels of golden leaves. Fifty feet away .are hard maples, and the glow of them this autumn has been particularly rich and deep. Now they are thinning; more stems appear, like lines of some dark fountain; the apiber of the foliage has a browner tone. But as this change takes place, a change that dims, that saddens a little, another and brighter change is coming in the earth below — for to that we are this week con- signing many treasures in bulbs, and the soil below leafless quince-bushes begins to radiate all the color of the spring. The large pale bulbs of the hyacinth King of the Yellows, as they lie on well- worked purple ground, what a vision they give of march- ing squads of creamy-yellow flowers, in type much like the wooden soldiers of the Chauve Souris. Those iridescent purple bulbs of the hyacinths King of the Blues and Enchantress — each one is a prison of such lavenders and violets that the color seems to burst through the onion-like smoothness of the bulbs' own coverings.

It is this marvelous, this constant replacement of delight, of fresh idea and plan, which, whether we see it or not, is going on all about us as we garden — it is the recognition of this that changes all gardening from prose into poetry, from work into a song. The wonder of this, that as the leaves of maple take a

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bright departure, the very work that must be carried on at this season, at this moment, turns our regret into most glowing hope! It is, however, not only bulb-planting time. These are the best moments of all the year for the moving or setting of shrubs and trees; and therefore this chapter shall close with some practical suggestions for tree-planting from the long-established firm of Stark Brothers. Their notes are printed on an immense tag sent with every consignment of stock.

Arrival of Trees. Just as soon as trees arrive, unpack, unless weather is freezing; in which case, place box in cool frost-proof build- ing until milder weather. When box is opened, untie bunches, shake out aU packing, and if soil is in good condition plant at once. Other- wise, "heel in" the trees, firming the dirt carefully around the roots.

Wintering. When trees arrive in fall, but planting is not desired until spring, choose loose, well-drained soU, preferably on ridge. Dig trench 2 feet deep, throwing dirt forward to make sloping bank. Cut bunches open, lay roots in trench. Cover tree entirely with dirt. Dig trench back further. Add another layer of trees; and so on until ail trees are heeled in. Cover the entire mound with plenty of dirt. Treated thus, trees will winter in fine shape.

Prepare the Soil. — Just as well as for ordinary farm crops. Plant trees when soil will powder, not paste. Dig the holes deep, and large enough to receive the roots without bending. Prune all broken and bruised roots with a sharp knife, cutting from under-side so cut surface will rest on soil.

Planting Time. Spring or fall is all right, but in far northern states, spring planting is better.

Set Tree about 2 inches deeper than it stood in nursery row. Throw in some of the loose top-soil first, working it in well around the roots. Never put fertilizer or manure in the hole, but rather on the surface of the ground. Pound soil firmly around roots. If soU is very dry, add several gallons of water. Leave two inches of loose, untrampled soil on top. Immediately remove wire labels, else they wiU cut into the limbs.

Prune As Soon As Planted. Head your trees low — 18 to 30 inches. If head of apple or pear tree is already formed, remove all but foiu'

VARIETY IN TREES

107

to six limbs, which will form a balanced head. Cut each of these limbs back to 8 or 10 inches. Prime peach heavily, cutting back to 18 to 24 inches above ground, removing all but four or five branches which should be cut back to stubs with two or three buds each. Cherry needs only slight priming. If trees are planted in fall, wait until early spring to prune.

Cultivation. All trees should be cultivated frequently, so as to prevent loss of moisture. Cultivate immediately after every rain.

vni

THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN

"A THOUGHTFUL man," says Canon EUacombe, "can read his own thoughts into almost anything, and perhaps into flowers more than anything else, if he is a lover of flowers." Tennyson in the Day Dream says this may happen to any man : — •

But any man that walks the mead,

In bud, or blade, or bloom may find. According as his humors lead,

A meaning suited to his mind.

The phrase, "The Meaning of the Garden," turns the mind at once in several directions. The garden reacts in many different ways upon the individual. We will pass by the soimd, beneficent qualities Induced by the practice of this occupation and art — qualities such as industry, order, generosity, to name the first that occur — • and consider it rather in relation to other arts, as well as in its connection with letters and with life.

One of the first meanings of the garden, to those who study it intelligently, is — ^ books. What is a good garden book? Has this question been put before? If not, it is high time for it now, when hardly a season passes without the issue from American presses of a half dozen books on gardening. Not that I am capa- ble of an answer to this question; but some consideration of it will surely be useful, for I doubt if any one of us thinks critically enough of the garden book in use, of those we may be reading. This, however, is a matter of importance. Before the young student of literature we set only the best books; before the child of four to ten we endeavor, if we are discerning parents, to put only books which may properly form his taste in language and

THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN 109

in illustration. French children are better off here than those of any other country ; the French have long realized the impor- tance of giving fine draughtsmanship and beautiful color to their very youngest. It is hard to imagine the French child of an inteUigent family permitted to revel, as many of our children do, in the so-called funny sheet of the Sunday papers — ■ in cheap fun, the ugly and grotesque.

But someone may say that this question leads only to an impasse: that the good garden book is a question of individual taste; what is good to one will not be so to another. I ask the question as a means to obtain some sort of general standard for garden \\Titing; and by mentioning one or two garden books, I hope we may get at some of the essential qualities which a really good garden book — whether important or insignificant — may possess. Insignificant a good garden book may be so far as length or size are concerned. I believe I should not be willing to exchange the most imposing and valuable volume ever written on roses, for the tiny pamphlet by the late Admiral Aaron Ward, 0?ie Year of Rose-Work at Willoicmere, and this for the reason of that wonderful sea-flavor on every page. Who but an admiral would record the weather with regard to roses, thus? "November; gales from northwest and sharp frost (26") on the fifth; second week, alternate fogs and gales from the N. W." Again, " WTiile laying on the covering of straw-manure for winter, keep a bright lookout for suckers." It is the character of the writing here, aside from the special knowledge conveyed by it, that gives this booklet of sixteen pages a stout quality of its own. The seafaring life of its wTiter lends an added meaning to his delight in roses, adds a richness to what he has done and written.

Take now almost the opposite of this leaflet of Admiral Ward's, Warley Garden: a beautiful volume of pictiu-es of the

110 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

plantings of the great gardener and botanist of England, Miss Ellen Willmott. In this book, not only are rare flowers, shrubs, and trees from the world over shown growing beautifully in Essex, but such borders of roses and irises, such masses of the Nankeen lily at the edge of a sunlit sweep of grass, such cascades of Alpine primroses between boulders in the rock garden, such a delightful garden-house with such roses clambering over it, that for my part I could not possibly sit long within, but must be outside to enjoy the colors and scents of these superbly grown flowers. Charm unending is in this sumptuous book, as equally it lies in the tiny pamphlet of the admiral; and it is the very function of the garden to impart this charm to garden literature. One of the more important meanings of the garden is then, the fascinating quality of what is in these books about it.

In near relation to this meaning lies another — the power of the garden to stir the mind. It makes for quests. When one hears of a strange new seed, plant, flower, shrub, strangely beautiful, who does not snatch pencil and notebook, beg for details from the speaker, turn to catalogues, to books? And when a treasure arrives, to what ingenuities does one not set oneself that its sowing or its setting, its care, its growth, may be of the best and finest? No interest, no other legitimate curiosity sets the mind in such lovely ways as does the garden interest. Here we work hand in hand with science and with art, and always in a pure and happy air. Let me give an instance of what I mean by this stirring up of the mind. Not many weeks ago, accounts began to arrive in this country of a new tulip shown at Chelsea this year — a glory of a parrot tulip — pink, a sport from Clara Butt, bearing the sprightly name of Fantasy. A pink parrot- tulip would be truly a sensation — I thought of the pretty practice of a fine amateur in Hartford, who on her shining luncheon-table in spring lays a wreath of parrot tulips with their

THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN HI

leaves, and has not only the flowers but their reflections in the poUshed wood, as if in water, for the pleasure of the eye. How delicious would a pink parrot-tulip be for this use or for any other! It set me writing to a half dozen men in England and in Holland to enquire concerning the new beauty : How much was it? Could I buy a bulb or two? And the letters in reply to my questions brought back more, much more to me than the mere reply as to the plant novelty : comments on our quarantine law, mention of other novelties, bits of horticultural news most wel- come and unlooked for.

And now a word as to the garden in its relation to other arts. For music in the garden let me refer at once to one of the most romantic chapters ever written on this subject. It is a part of IVIr. J. B. Trend's lately published book, A Picture of Modern Spairi, and its enchanting title is "Music in the Garden of Granada." Is not that title in itself a picture and a melody? Has it not a delicious sound? Read this chapter; do not miss it. "Here," says IVIr. Trend, "in the strange delight of the garden, I realized how immensely the emotional and mystical resources of guitar, lute, and bandore are enhanced by the open air. . . . The hidden musicians, the tall thin cypresses, the masses of foliage and the indistinct scents which came from these were all carefully considered by our host. . . . Senor de Falla of course has long realized what sort of music and what instru- ments are most suited to the gardens of Spain, as some people in England have learned that the music most expressive for an English garden is to be found in unaccompanied madrigals." The -wTiter adds this beautiful observation: "Moorish art is only made intelligible by moonlight; Granada is only explained by its guitars."

The garden means memories. My own first gardening is associated with the dear remembrance of Mrs. Henry W. King

112 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

of Chicago, who long before the gracious art was generally practised in the Middle West, had an old-fashioned formal gar- den, on the order of that at Mount Vernon, some twenty miles out from Chicago. I should like to speak here of this garden- lover's remarkable herb garden. Mrs. King was a botanist, a traveler, a lover of beauty, thorough in all her undertakings. In her garden of herbs were as many as two hundred and ten varieties ; and the list happening to reach the eye of Lady Brown- low in England, the latter at once proceeded to plant the whole of it in her own beautiful circular brick- walled-and-paved herb garden of Ashridge, in Hertfordshire. Thus may the New World occasionally help the Old. Incidentally, one of the delightful things I remember noticing long since, in the garden at Ash- ridge, was the manner of labeling each subject. A brick, laid on its side and tipp>ed slightly back, carried the name of its herb painted upon it in square black letters. Nothing better or simpler could have been devised for such a spot.

The loveliest passage that I know on memories of the garden is this, again from an English source: "The years roll back and I see myself a child again, walking beneath the exquisite blossom of pear tree and apple, cherry and plum tree, may and hawthorn, lilac and laburnum, in lovely profusion, and again I seem to hear the beautiful voice : —

Merrily, merrily shall I live now.

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

At sunrise or in the heat of midday, in the cool of the evening or in lovely moonlight, blossom and foliage made fairyland through path and pergola as we passed, the child and the beau- tiful mind, stored so richly with verse and story, with science, and history, and the wonders of the travel of a lifetime. The passing of the seasons served only to enrich the memory and to improve the mind. Precept and example, cause and effect, the

THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN 113

object and the reason so simply explained and demonstrated, the beauty of the snow, the glory of the storm, the wonder of the stars — all in the appointed season served the beautiful mind to illustrate the wisdom of the Creator."

Can there be a more propitious spot for the best development of the child, the youth, than a place of fresh and changing beauty? Warley Place passed into the possession of Miss Ellen Willmott's parents when she was very young. From her early days Miss Willmott took much interest in the gardens, assisting her mother in their management. In due course they passed into her complete control. The result — not merely a career, unexampled in success, of a woman botanist and authority in horticulture, but the irradiating of the world of flowers everywhere by the knowledge that has spread from those gardens.

Another meaning of the garden, and this a great one, is that sympathy it brings, not only between us and our own country- men, between English-speaking people, but between those of different nationalities and those in the remotest corners of "this bewildering ball," as Thomas Hardy lately has it. Through our own gardening possessions do we not feel an interest in the municipal rose-garden lately established at Rio de Janeiro; in the stone pines and terraces of the gardens of the Bosphonis, gardens so perfectly set forth in print by Mr. H. G. Dwight; in the garden at Maadi near Cairo, out of which has come that charming little book. Gardening for the Sub-Tropics; in the little balcony-gardens of Parisian houses periodically furnished forth with new flowers by the nearest florist; in the garden of the Duca di Bronte at Taormina; that of the Palazzo Rufolo at Ravello; the garden of Mrs. Morris at Hwai Yuen, China, whence lately she writes: "The house to-day is filled with wild flowers; two hundred Regal lilies stand about the rooms"; the

114 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

garden of the Villa Leonora at Cannes, dripping with showers of mimosa; Mrs. Ryves* garden in India; Cecil Rhodes' garden at Groote Schuur near Cape Town, with its blue hydrangeas, the special delight of their marvelous owner; the gardens of Andalusia, of Denmark, of Kashmir, the garden of Mrs. Butch- art at Victoria, glorious with all the flowers of England in an ancient quarry there.

Coming thus toward our own country, I think of the lovely plantings of Mr. James Deering at Miami; of Mr. F. Cleveland Morgan's unsurpassed rock garden near Montreal; of the beau- teous French parterres of Mr. Stotesbury near Philadelphia; of the gardens of Ross, of San Diego, of Santa Barbara. As we think of all this beauty, is it not as if earth were garlanded with gardens?

The history of civilization is partly written in gardens. From the Arabs, the Persians, the Japanese, through Pliny and the Medici to Miss Jekyll, we feel and know the continuity of beauty in the garden. Lady Alicia Amherst, Mrs. Wharton, Mrs. Van Rensselaer, among women, have set this forth most clearly and beautifully in their notable books on gardening in England and Italy and on the growth of gardening in America. With gardens the literature of the ages is constantly entwined. Poetry? A thousand lines and stanzas spring to mind at once. If ever there was a prose poem on gardens, it is Mrs. Boyle's introduc- tion to Sieveking's Praise of Gardens. Romance? Who can forget the closing sentences of Disraeli's Lothair: —

"And they returned almost in silence. They rather calculated that, taking advantage of the luncheon hour, Corisande might escape to her room; but they were a little too late. Luncheon was over, and they met the Duchess and a large party on the terrace.

" ' What has become of you, my good people ? ' said her Grace.

THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN 115

' Bells have been ringing for you in every direction. Where can you have been ? '

" * I have been in Corisande's garden,' said Lothair, ' and she has given me a rose.' "

Of architecture and sculpture in the garden it is hardly neces- sary to speak. These arts are bound up with its very existence. And I venture to say that no group of gardening men and women yet have used such restraint in their use of sculptural work in gardens as the American group. Very little marble and stone in figures or fountains is seen in our gardens, and this is well; a delicate and advised use of stone and marble in the gardens of a young nation is the safe course. One happy instance comes here to my mind; it is that youthful dreaming face in the John Scheepers garden at the New York Flower Show of 1921. Look- ing do^-n a vista suggesting the green shade of a walled, tree- sheltered garden in spring, we saw that graceful figure in its tones of quietest green, with its foreground of violet hyacinths Grand Maltre and purple pansies with the deep-yellow double tulip called Mr. Van der Hoef, along the sides of this garden. Was not that bit of sculptors' art perfection in that place? And in all the confusion of that crowded show, did there not steal upon the least sensitive, as they looked at that garden picture, a sense of peace, a sense too of the attainable in beauty? For here lies — in that word, "attainable" — the glorious democ- racy of garden beauty.

And the last, and not the least, of the meanings of the garden to all thoughtful people is that it furthers friendship. It may — it will — create a true democracy. In that subtle and beautiful novel by E. M. Forster, Howard's End, there are two words on the title page, the key to the book. These are : " Only Connect." Like the refrain of a song have these words haunted me. They

116 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

carry the very essence of wisdom as applied to life. Nor could they be truer or more vital than as we apply them to the great body of garden-loving men and women over this country. Rich and poor, bond or free, when we garden we are at the sam« work; we work with the same great elements; we work in faith that the seasons will still roll for us and for our sowings and plantings. There is no other such meeting-ground; there is no community of interest such as this of gardens. "Gardening," said Sir William Temple long ago, "is an occupation for which no man is too high or too low." There is common ground here for all classes, all kinds of human beings, yes, for all races of men. Someone wrote me lately, "I cling to the belief that if anything can stop the ever-impending war between labor and capital it is the mutual forbearance that comes from just such common interests as love of flowers." Do you remember in The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, those pleasant interludes in the work of finding the criminal, when Sergeant Cuff the renowned detec- tive, and Mr. Begbie the gardener, held earnest converse together? And what were their topics? Whether the white moss-rose did or did not require to be budded on the dog-rose to make it grow well; and whether grass or gravel walks were best for the rose-garden. Wide apart in station, far from each other in vocation, here these two were as brothers.

If I may be allowed here a more personal word, opposite this is the picture of one who works with and for me in our garden. As I look at this good portrait of a fine and useful man, I can read his thoughts at the instant this picture was made. Here they are. "As soon as this is over I must tie up this fallen bloom of peony Marie Jacquin that is on the grass." That must have been my own intention too. And I pity those fortunate in owning land sufficient to entail a gardener, whose men do not sympathize with them in the work common to both. Yet

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THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN 117

this happy relation is rare. Why can we not make it less infre- quent? What is wrong that so often are heard complaints, not praises, of one's gardener? Whose fault is it? With the interest of gardening there should be more friendship between employer and employed.

Tell me, you who lean upon your garden gate (if in this day, when we are bereft of that necessity the fence, you are so for- tunate as to possess a garden gate to lean upon) , tell me, as you stand there of a summer's evening in friendly intercourse with your neighbor, does not your talk always lead to some aspect of horticulture — to flowers, shrubs, trees? Is there a more thrilling rivalry than that of the appearance of your bit of land as compared to his? What of the traveler who sits across the aisle from you upon a railway journey: if he holds in his hand a seed list, a garden book, are you not drawn to him? Do you not long to talk with him, to hear him recite his interests, his experiences in the beloved region of growing things?

It need not be a book, a list; it need not be a great garden; a single plant, a window box in the city street, a cluster of flowers — all differences fall away, all class feeling (which Heaven knows is as strong in our country as in any other) melts be- tween those who meet upon the gardening plane. Oh, if all of those who spend to-day only for things might but see this, might realize the full significance of the exchanging of the love of inanimate objects for the blessed passion for gardening! If this should come, what fervor of delight, what benediction of true comiradeship would be theirs and ours! WTiat a step for- ward should we then take in true democracy!

I will tell you what I think : the love of gardening, the love of all the heavenly beauty of the earth, kindles within the meanest of us the holiest of fires. And when that is aflame, it must warm our neighbor. We cannot help being friendly and useful where

118 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

we have this bond. " The best kind of community interest," says Dr. Bailey in his poetic book. The Holy Earthy "attaches to the proper use and partitioning of the earth, a communism that is detached from propaganda and license; there is always the thought of the others that are dependent on it. All men are the same when they come back to the meadows, to the hills and to the deep woods."

But we must return, at the end of our wanderings, to the idea of beauty as the garden's loveliest meaning, to the suggestion that beauty is a natural desire of the heart.

In the early period of the writing of this chapter it occurred to me to consult a friend in gardening, one whose words are ever filled with significance and charm, asking what her garden meant to her. This gardener has written for me a little essay, so perfect in content and in form, that it may well become the climax of these pages.

"Earth was born free and beautiful, and needs no Declaration of its Rights. That freedom, that beauty, has been invaded and destroyed by man only: dull, conceited man, who creates im- perious artificial wants, and in the pride of conquest plunders alike nature and his fellow men. Does he know what he has done and is doing.!* Not fully yet; but some few have become slowly conscious of the charm which man can destroy, but not create, long for it, and strive to use, rather than abuse it.

"Before man lived on the earth, hillsides pinked in with azaleas in springtime, prairies were starred with daisies and queens' lace, woods turned orange and red and brown in the smoky, autumn sunshine. Not for us men, then, the lovely ways of creation, more than for the beast, the bird, the insect. Nay, not for any creature's use or enjoyment, but for the sake of loveliness and perfection do those things exist.

THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN 119

"When the Nordic tribes roamed the earth, each nomad saw the crocuses sweep up the hillsides, 'the slim narcissus take the rain,' and smelled the lilies in the valley before his feet had found their shady refuge. Into the eye and mind of each human being came the beauty of flowers, as well as the stately compan- ionship of trees, with their gifts of shade and shelter, their sturdy virtues and whimsical graces. Nature offered her finest gift — Beauty — and though, needing sustenance, man ' took a few herbs and apples,' in less strenuous moments he felt the loveli- ness which was not all for him. We, his descendants, no longer wandering but chained to one small spot of earth, dream into our garden plot all the beauty of our earliest tribal memories. Perhaps that is a part of the reason for gardens; what memory has recorded, art tries to reproduce.

"The garden is to be an expression of our joy in natural beauty, the small individual world where we come near to creating something and try to show forth our personal happiness in the treasures of gift-bearing Earth.

"Each of us gardeners expresses in a different fashion his or her personal feeling — wide horizons for one; enclosed and shaded walks, and hidden corners for the unexpected wistfulness of wild things, for another; glorious pieces of color and fountains breaking in summer sunlight, scented beds of roses and berga- mot and lavender and 'lilies in the garden, in the dark,' all the varieties of delight which the grouping of growing and flowering things may give us — these do we seek, each after his owTi imagination. Our individual fancies change from time to time. The gay little marigold gives place to violets. We hastily discard the splendors of triple-doubleness for the more clearly sketched single flower; at any cost we must express the sentiment we have, and ask our garden to feel with us.

"Long ago my great-grandfather, pioneering up from New

120 VARIETY IN THE LITTLE GARDEN

London into wild Vermont, built himself a brick house, which he willed to one of his heirs in the words: 'This, my house, the

work of my hands, I will and bequeath to .' 'This, my

garden, the work of my hands,' means more to us than 'this, my garden, made under my direction,' and much more than 'this, my garden, which has cost me much money,' because we become, as it were, partners in growth with the plants which our hands have sowed and transplanted and watered, and we are charmed to have so flourished and flowered through them. Then we live in the changing beauty about us, knowing inti- mately each part of it; and if we so order our leisure that those happy hours are spent in a garden's dear boundaries, tree and flower and sky and scent and song wait upon us and shower us with blessings."

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