PAULINE FORE MOFFITT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN BY MRS. FRANCIS KING ILLUSTRATED WITH PREFACE BT GERTRUDE JEKYLL CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK :: :: :: MCMXVH COPTBIQHT, 1915, BT CHARLES SCRIBNER*S SONS Published May, 1015 Reprinted October, 1915 May, 1916; April, 1917 TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF A RARE GARDENER A. R. K. 2054023 J\ NOTE To the publishers and editors of The Garden Magazine my thanks are due for kind permission to reprint here those portions of this book which originally appeared in the columns of that peri- odical. To the Massachusetts Horticultural Soci- ety and to The Garden Club of America I am indebted for the use of passages written for those organizations. And to the several amateur gar- deners, known and unknown to me, whose writing or whose photographs grace these pages, I offer here most hearty appreciation of their friendly aid. LOUISA YEOMANS KING. OBCHABD HOUSE, PREFACE THE wide-spread interest in gardening that is steadily growing throughout the land will have prepared a large public for the reception of such stimulating encouragement as will be found in the following pages. One thinks of a great and fertile field ready ploughed and sown, and only waiting for genial warmth and moisture to make it burst forth into life and eventual abundance. The book will come as these vivifying influences. The author's practical knowledge, keen insight, and splendid enthusiasm, her years of labor on her own land and her constant example and en- couragement of others — combine to make her one of those most fitted to direct energy, to suggest and instruct — to communicate her own thought and practise to willing learners. Many are those who love their gardens, many who know their plants, many who understand their best ways of culture. All these qualities or accom- plishments are necessary, but besides and above them all is the will or determination to do the best possible — "to garden finely" — as Bacon puts it. ix PREFACE Such a desire is often felt, but from lack of ex- perience it cannot be brought into effect. What is needed for the doing of the best gardening is something of an artist's training, or at any rate the possession of such a degree of aptitude — the God-given artist's gift — as with due training may make an artist; for gardening, in its best expres- sion, may well rank as one of the fine arts. But without the many years of labor needed for any hope of success in architecture, sculpture, or painting, there are certain simple rules, wb»ss observance, carried out in horticulture, wiit make all the difference between a garden that is utterly commonplace and one that is full of beauty and absorbing interest. Of these one of the chief is a careful considera- tion of color arrangement. Early in her garden- ing career this fact impressed itself upon the author's mind. A study of the book reveals the method and gives a large quantity of applied example. A few such lessons put in practise will assuredly lead on to independent effort; for the learner, diligently reading and carefully following the good guidance, will soon find the way open to a whole new field of beauty and delight. GERTRUDE JEKTLL. CONTENTS MM I. COLOR HARMONY 1 II. COMPANION CROPS 25 III. SUCCESSION CROPS 39 IV. JOYS AND SORROWS OF A TRIAL GARDEN . . 51 V. BALANCE IN THE FLOWER GARDEN ... 63 VI. COLOR HARMONIES IN THE SPRING GARDEN . 75 VII. THE CROCUS AND OTHER EARLY BULBS . . 89 VIII. COLOR ARRANGEMENTS FOR DARWIN TULIPS AND OTHER SPRING-FLOWERING BULBS . 101 IX. NOTES ON SPRING FLOWERS 115 X. A SMALL SPRING FLOWER BORDER .... 129 XI. NOTES ON SOME OF THE NEWER GLADIOLI . 143 XII. MIDSUMMER POMPS 157 XIII. GARDEN ACCESSORIES . . . ' 179 XIV. GARDENING EXPEDIENTS 191 XV. THE QUESTION OF THE GARDENER .... 205 XVI. NECESSITIES AND LUXURIES IN GARDEN BOOKS 219 XVII. VARIOUS GARDENS 289 APPENDIX 269 INDEX . , 283 ILLUSTRATIONS Sea Lavender and Delphinium in a Nantucket Garden Frontispiece FACIKO PAGE Tulip Kaufmanniaua with Scilla Sibirica 16 Tulips Reverend H. Ewbank and Clara Butt, below Blooming Lilac 16 Sea-holly and Phlox Pantheon 22 Phlox Aurore Boreale, Sea-holly, and Chrysanthemum Maxi- 22 Muscari Heavenly Blue, Tulipa Retroflexa, and Myosotis along Brick Walk ........... 28 Arabis and Tulip Cottage Maid ........ 28 Double GypsophUa and Shasta Daisy ....... 28 Gypsophila and Lilies in the Garden ....... 82 The Time of Lilies and Delphiniums ....... 36 Borders of Pale Blue, Blue-Purple, and Pale Yellow ... 42 Tulip Cottage Maid with Arabis Alpina ...... 42 Munstead Primrose and Tulip White Swan on Slope below Poplar and Pine ............ 46 Peonies and Canterbury Bells ......... 48 Discreet Use of Rambler Rose, Lady Gay ...... 48 ILLUSTRATIONS FACIHO FAGI Heuchera Sanguinea Hybrids 56 Rambler Rose Lady Gay over Gate 56 Hybrid Columbines below Briar Rose Lady Penzance . . 60 Narcissus Barri Flora Wilson 60 The Time of Gypsophila .' 68 Hardy Asters in September 72 Puschkinia below Shrubs 80 Tulip Kaufmanniana in Border 80 Crocus Mont Blanc 86 Darwin Tulips at the Haarlem (Holland) Jubilee Show, 1910 86 Hyacinthus Lineatus, Var. Azureus 98 Tulip Kaufmanniana 98 Tulip Vitellina, Phlox Divaricata 104 Tulip Gesneriana Elegans Lutea Pallida above Phlox Divari- cata Laphami 104 Pink Canterbury Bells, Stachys Lanata 110 Bell is Perennis and Narcissus Poeticus 110 Darwin Tulips with Iris Germanica 122 A Spring Flower Border in Pale Blue, Yellow, and Mauve . 132 Gladiolus America below Buddleia 150 Delphinium La France, Campanula Persicif olia, Digitalis Ani- bigua, and Pyrethrum 160 \ ILLUSTRATIONS »ACDIQ PAGE Delphiniums the Alake and Statuaire Rude 164 Buddleia Variabilis Magnifica, White Zinnia below ... 172 The Trowel, tiie Label, and Various Baskets 186 Baptisia Australia 226 Garden at London Flower Show of 1912 242 Detail of another Garden at London Flower Show, 1912 . 242 Terrace Planting, Garden on Nantucket 244 Phlox Time, Garden at Gates Mills, Ohio ... ^ ... 244 At Swampscott, Massachusetts 254 Fernbrook, Lenox, Massachusetts 264 Fancy Field, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania 258 Rustic Arbor and Pergola in Tacoma Garden— First Year . 262 Thornewood, American Lake, Tacoma 264 Glendessary, Santa Barbara, California . . 7 . 4 ' . . 264 Planting Plans J'or Color End of Volume Color Arrangement of Late Tulips Suggestion for Spring Planting before Shrubbery Parterre of Spring Flowers (City) Section of Simple Planting against Brick Wall" I COLOR HARMONY "The simple magic of color for its own sake can never be displaced, yet a garden in the highest sense means more than this."— E. V. B. COLOR HARMONY THE broadest consideration of color in gar- dening would turn our minds to the gen- eral color effect of a garden in relation to its large setting of country. Was it not Ruskin who, in spite of his rages at the average mid-Victorian garden, said that gardens as well as houses should be of a general color to harmonize with the sur- rounding country — certain tones for the simple blue country of England, others for the colder gray country of Italy ? Never was sounder color advice given than that contained in the following lines from one of the Oxford Lectures: "Bluish purple is the only flower color which nature ever used in masses of distant effect; this, however, she does in the case of most heathers — with the rhododendron (ferrugineum) , and less extensively with the colder color of the wood hyacinth; ac- cordingly, the large rhododendron may be used to almost any extent in masses; the pale varieties of the rose more sparingly, and on the turf the 3 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN wild violet and the pansy should be sown by chance, so that they may grow in undulations of color, and should be relieved by a few prim- roses." There never was so rich a time as the present for the great quantity of material available for use in the study of garden color. The range of tones in flowers to-day is almost measureless. Never be- fore were seen pinks of such richness, such deep velvetlike violets, delicate buffs and salmons, actual blues, vivid orange tones, pale beautiful lavenders. Through the magic of the hybridizers we are to-day without excuse for ugliness in the garden. The horticultural palette is furnished forth indeed. Take perennial phloxes alone: for rich violet-purple we have Lord Rayleigh; for the redder purple, Von Hochberg; for the laven- ders which should be used with these, E. Dan- zanvilliers and Antonin Mercie; for whites, the wondrous von Lassburg and the low but effec- tive Tapis Blanc; while in the list of vivid or delicate pinks not one of these is unworthy of a place in the finest gardens: T. A. Strohlein, Gruppen, Konigin, General von Heutz, Selma, Bridesmaid, General Chanzy, Jules Cambon, and Elizabeth Campbell (already an established favor- 4 COLOR HARMONY ite in England and now offered in America) ; Ellen Willmott, too, a pale-gray phlox, should be im- mensely useful. I have to confess to a faint prejudice against stripes, flakes, or eyes in phloxes, principally be- cause, as a rule, the best effects in color group- ings are obtained by the use of flowers of clear, solid tones — otherwise one cannot count upon the result of one's planning. With the eye, an unex- pected element enters into our composition. Among irises what a possible range of color pictures in lavenders, blues, bronzes, yellows, springs up to the mind's eye with the very men- tion of the flower's musical name! The immense choice of species and varieties, the difference in form and height, and more notably the unending number of their lovely hues, make the iris family a true treasure-house for the good flower gardener. The first-comer of our spring iris festival is the shy, stiff Iris reticulata of four inches; the last of the lovely guests is the great white English iris of four feet; and those showing themselves be- tween the opening and closing days of iris time are of many nations — German, Japanese, Siberian, English, Dutch. Tulips, so highly developed in our day, present 5 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN a wonderful field of color from which to choose; so does the dahlia tribe. It is easy to see that the glaring faults in color planting in our gardens are not due to lack of good material. The question of absolute color is a very nice question indeed, and reminds one of the old prov- erb of one man's meat being another man's poison. We cannot say that a given color is ugly. Its beauty or lack of beauty depends upon its rela- tion to other colors. To announce that one dis- likes mauve is not to prove mauve unbeautiful. Most of us who have prejudices against a certain color would be amazed at the effect upon our color sense of the offensive hue when judiciously used with correlated tones. For instance, what com- moner than to hear this exclamation as one wan- ders in an August garden where a clump of tall phloxes have reverted to the magenta, despised of most of us, and where the hostess's shears have been spared, to the spoiling of the garden: "What a horrible color has that phlox taken on ! " But take that same group of flowering stems another year, back it by the pale spires of Physostegia Virginica rosea, see that the phlox Lord Rayleigh blooms beside it, that a good lavender like Antonin Mercie is hard by, let some masses of rich purple 6 COLOR HARMONY petunia have their will below, with perhaps the flat panicles of large-flowered white verbena, a few spikes of the gladiolus Baron Hulot, and some trusses of a pinkish-lavender heliotrope judiciously disposed, and lo ! the ugliness of the magenta phlox has been transmuted into a positive beauty and become an active agent toward the loveliness of the whole picture. What a lucky thing for us delvers into plant and seed lists if the color tests of railways — on a more elaborate and delicate scale, to be sure — could be applied to the eyes of the writers of color descriptions for these publications! The only available guide to the absolute color of flowers of which I happen to know is the "Repertoire de Couleurs," published by the Chrysanthemum Society of France. Of this there is soon to be published a pocket edition; and the American Gladiolus Society has a somewhat similar proj- ect under consideration. Here we have in the French publication a criterion, a standard; and if this were oftener consulted the gardening world of this country would be working on a much higher plane than is the case to-day. So much for the range of color in our flower gardens, for the relative and absolute values of 7 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN flower colors; but what of the abuse of these things? May I give an instance? Not long since there came to my eye that which it is always my delight to see, the landscape architect's plan of a fine Italian garden. For the spring adorn- ment of this garden such hyacinths and tulips were specified as at once to cause, in my mind at least, grave doubts concerning color harmonies, periods of bloom. Were certain ones early, would certain ones be late? — as, to secure a brilliantly gay effect, two or three varieties should surely flower together. For my own pleasure, I worked out a substitute set of bulbs and sent it to an au- thority on color in spring-growing things in this country, who thus wrote of the original plan: "In regard to the color combinations upon which you asked my comment, I can only say that they are a fair sample of how little most folks know about bulbs. In the bed of hyacinths, King of the Blues will prove quite too dark for the other colors; Perle Brillante or Electra would have been much better. In the two tulip combinations I can see no harmony at all. Keizerkroon, in my opinion, should never be planted with any other tulips. Its gaudiness is too harsh unless it is seen by itself. Furthermore, both Rose Luisante and 8 COLOR HARMONY White Swan will bloom just enough later not to be right when the others are in their prime." Now, what is the good of our finest gardens if they are to be thus misused and the owners' taste misdirected in this fashion? We spend our money for that which is not bread. I have a new profession to propose, a profession of specialists: it should be called that of the gar- den colorist. The office shall be distinct from that of the landscape architect, distinct indeed from those whose office it already is to prescribe the plants for the garden. The garden colorist shall be qualified to plant beautifully, according to color, the best-planned gardens of our best designers. It shall be his duty, first, to possess a true color instinct; second, to have had much experience in the growing of flowers, notably in the growing of varieties in form and color; third, so to make his planting plans that there shall be successive pictures of loveliness melting into each other with successive months; and last, he must pay, if possible, a weekly visit to his gardens, for no eye but his discerning one will see in them the evil and the good. This profession will doubt- less have its first recruits from the ranks of women; at least, according to Mr. W. C. Egan, the color 9 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN sense is far oftener the attribute of women than of men. Still, there is the art of painting to refute this argument. Color as an aid4 to garden design is a matter ever present to my mind where a plan of high beauty has been adopted and already carried out. One occasionally sees a fine garden which, due to the execrable color arrangement, must of necessity be more interesting in winter than in summer. Sir William Eden's plea for the flower- less garden comes to mind: "I have come to the conclusion that it is flowers that ruin a garden, at any rate many gardens: flowers in a cottage garden, yes, hollyhocks against a gray wall; orange lilies against a white one; white lilies against a mass of green; aubrietia and arabis and thrift to edge your walks. Del- phiniums against a yew hedge, and lavender any- where. But the delight in color, as people say, in large gardens is the offensive thing: flowers combined with shrubs and trees, the gardens of the Riviera, for instance, Cannes, and the much- praised, vulgar Monte Carlo — beds of begonias, cinerarias at the foot of a palm, the terrible crim- son rambler trailing around its trunk. I have never seen a garden of taste in France. Go to 10 COLOR HARMONY Italy, go to Tivoli, and then you will see what I mean by the beauty of a garden without flowers: yews, cypresses, statues, steps, fountains — sombre, dignified, restful." But when planting is right, when great groups of, say, white hydrangea, when tall rows of holly- hocks of harmonious color, when delicate gar- lands of such a marvellous rambler as Tausend- schb'n, low flat plantings of some fine verbena like Beauty of Oxford or the purple Dolores — when such fine materials are used to produce an effect of balanced beauty, to heighten the loveliness of proportion and of line already lying before one in stone or brick, in turf or gravel, in well-devised trellis or beautifully groomed hedge, what an emi- nence of beauty may then be reached! The form and color of flowers, in my opinion, should be considered as seriously for the formal garden as the soil about their roots. Effects with tall flowers, lilies, delphiniums; with dwarf flowers, hardy candytuft, for instance; with lacelike flowers, the heucheras, the gypsophilas; with round-trussed flowers, phloxes; with massive- leaved flowers, the funkias or Crambe cordifolia ; with slender flowers, gladiolus, salpiglossis; with low spreading flowers, statice, annual phloxes; 11 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN with delicately branching flowers, the annual lark- spurs— what an endless array in the matter of form and habit ! The trouble with most of us is that we try to get in all the flowers, and also we often go so far as to insist on using all the colors too — with a result usually terrific. On the other hand, according to a capital Eng- lish writer, "the present taste is a little too timid about mixtures and contrasts of color. Few of those who advise upon the color arrangements of flowers seem to be aware that nearly all colors go well together in a garden, if only they are thor- oughly mixed up. It is the half-hearted con- trasts where only two or three colors are em- ployed, and those the wrong ones, that are really ugly. The Orientals know more about color than we do, and in their coloring they imitate the au- dacity and profusion of nature." Those who lead us in these matters will, I am sure, gradually and gently conduct us to an aus- terer taste, a wish for more simplicity of effect in our gardens — the sure path, if the narrow one, to beauty in gardening. The stream of my horticultural thought runs here a trifle narrower, and I see the charm of gardens of one color alone — these, of course, with 12 COLOR HARMONY the varying tones of such a color, and with the liberal or sparing use of white flowers. It is, I think, a daughter of Du Maurier whose English garden is one lovely riot, the summer through, of mauve, purple, cool pink, and white. I can fancy nothing more lovely if it receive the artist's touch. A garden of rich purples, brilliant blues and their paler shades, with cream and white, could be a masterpiece in the right hand. Such was, a summer or two since, the garden at Ashridge, Lord Brownlow's fine place in England, the following brief description of which was sent me by the hand that planted it: "Purple and blue beds at Ashridge (very difficult to get enough blue when tall blue delphiniums are over). Blue delphinium, blue salvia (August and September), purple clematis, single petunia, violas, purple sweet peas, salpiglossis, stocks, blue nemesia, blue branching annual delphinium, purple perennial phloxes, purple gladiolus." The past mistress of the charming art of color combination in gardening is, without doubt, Miss Jekyll, the well-known English writer; and to the practised amateur, I commend her "Colour in the Flower Garden" as the last word in truly artistic planting, and full of valuable suggestion 13 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN for one who has worked with flowers long enough to have mastered the complications of his soil and climate. Miss JekylPs remarks on the varying concep- tions of color I must here repeat, in order to make the descriptions below as well understood as pos- sible. "I notice," she writes, on page 227 of "Wood and Garden," "in plant lists, the most reckless and indiscriminate use of the words purple, violet, mauve, lilac, and lavender; and, as they are all related, I think they should be used with greater caution. I should say that mauve and lilac cover the same ground. The word mauve came into use within my recollection. It is French for mallow, and the flower of the wild plant may stand as the type of what the word means. Lav- ender stands for a colder or bluer range of pale purples, with an inclination to gray; it is a useful word, because the whole color of the flower spike varies so little. Violet stands for the dark gar- den violet, and I always think of the grand color of Iris reticulata as an example of a rich violet- purple. But purple equally stands for this, and for many shades redder." In an earlier paragraph the same writer refers to the common color nomenclature of the average 14 COLOR HARMONY seed or bulb list as "slip-slop," and indeed the name is none too hard for the descriptive mis- takes in most of our own catalogues. Mrs. Sedg- wick in "The Garden Month by Month" provides a valuable color chart; so far as I know, she is the pioneer in this direction in this country. Why should not books for beginners in gardening af- ford suggestions for color harmony in planting, a juxtaposition of plants slightly out of the ordi- nary routine, orange near blue, sulphur-yellow near blue, and so on ? A well-known book for the ama- teur is Miss Shelton's "The Seasons in a Flower Garden." This little volume shows charming taste in advice concerning flower groupings for color. I look forward to the day when a serious color standard for flowers shall be established by the appearance in America of such a publication as the "Repertoire de Couleurs" sent out by the Societe Franchise des Chrysanthemistes. To this the makers of catalogues might turn as infallible; and on this those who plant for artistic combina- tion of color might rely. In the groupings for color effect given below there has been no absolute copying of any one's suggestions. To work out these plantings my plan has always been, first to make notes on the 15 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN same day of each week of flowers in full bloom. Then, by cutting certain blooms and holding them against others, a happy contrast or harmony of color is readily seen, and noted for trial in the following year. BLUE AND CREAM- WHITE — MARCH The earliest blooming color combination of which I can speak from experience is illustrated on the facing page. Here, backed by Mahonia, and blooming in one season as early as late March, thrives a most lovely group of blue and cream- white spring flowers. Tulipa Kaufmanniana, open- ing full always in the sun, spreads its deep creamy petals, while below these tulips a few hundred Scilla Sibirica show brilliantly blue. To the right bloodroot is white with blossoms at the same mo- ment, while behind this the creamy pointed buds of Narcissus Orange Phoenix carry along the tone of the cream-white tulip. Narcissus Orange Phoe- nix is a great favorite of mine; leader of all the double daffodils, I think it, with the exception of Narcissus poeticus, var. pknus, the gardenia nar- cissus, with its true gardenia scent and full ivory- white blooms; with me, however, this narcissus so seldom produces a flower that I have given 16 £%> TULIP KAUFMANNIANA WITH SCILLA SIBIRICA TULIPS REVEREND H. EWBANK AND CLARA BUTT, BELOW BLOOMING LILAC COLOR HARMONY up growing it. Where this does well, the most delicious color combinations should be possible. As for Tulipa Kaufmanniana, earliest of all tulips to bloom, it is such a treasure to the lover of spring flowers that the sharp advance in its price made within the last two or three years by the Dutch growers is bad news indeed for the gardener. A tulip of surprising beauty, this, with distinction of form, creamy petals, with a soft daffodil-yellow tone toward the centre, the out- side of the petals nearly covered with a very nice tone of rich reddish-pink. Its appearance when closed is unusually good, and its color really ex- cellent with the blue of the Scillas. BLUE AND PURPLE — APRIL A very daring experiment this was, but one which proved so interesting in rich color that it will be always repeated. It consisted of sheets of Sdlla Sibirica planted near and really running into thick colonies of Crocus purpureus, var. grandiflorus. The two strong tones of color are almost those of certain modern stained glass. The brilliancy of April grass provides a fine setting for this bold planting in a shrubbery border. The little bulbs should be set very close, and the 17 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN patches of color, in the main, should be well de- fined. In fact, I prefer a large sheet of each color to several smaller groups with a resultant spotty effect. To my thinking, it is impossible to im- agine a finer early spring effect in either a small or a large place than these two bulbs in these two varieties to the exclusion of all else. The dwarf Iris reticulata — which should be better known, as no early bulb is hardier, richer in color and in scent — with its deep violet-purple flowers, planted closely in large masses, with spreading groups of Scilla near by, would produce an effect of blue and purple nearly like that above described. PINK, LAVENDER, AND CREAM- WHITE — MAY A fine effect for late May, that has rejoiced my eye for some years, is shown facing page 16. The flowers form the front of a shrubbery border composed entirely of Lemoine's lilacs in such va- rieties as Marie le Graye (white), Charles X (deep purplish-red), Madame Abel Chatenay (double, white), President Grevy (double, blue), Emile Lemoine (double, pinkish), and Azurea (light blue). While these are at their best, droop- ing sprays of bleeding-heart (dicentra) show their 18 COLOR HARMONY rather bluish pink in groups below, with irregular clumps of a pearly lavender — a very light-gray- ish lavender — lent by Iris Germanica. A little back of the irises, their tall stems being considered, stand groups now of the fine Darwin tulip Clara Butt, now of tulip Reverend H. Ewbank. The slightly bluish cast of Clara Butt's pink binds the dicentra and the lavender, lilac, and iris to each other, and the whole effect is deepened and almost focussed by the strong lavender of Rever- end H. Ewbank tulip, in whose petals it is quite easy to see a pinkish tone. The contrast in form and habit of growth in such a border is worth noticing. The lilacs topping everything with their candlelike trusses of flowers; the dicentra, the next tallest, horizontal lines against the lilacs' perpendicular, as well as a foliage of extreme deli- cacy, contrasting with the bold dark-green of the lilac leaf; the tulips again, their conventional cups of rich color clear-cut against the taller growth; and grayish clouds of iris bloom, with their spears of leaves below, these last broken here and there by touches of a loose-flung, rather tall forget-me- not, Myosotis dissitiflora — all this creates an en- semble truly satisfying from many points of view. Speaking of tulips, why is not the May-flower- 19 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN ing tulip Brimstone more grown? And what is there more lovely to behold than masses of this pale-lemon-colored double tulip, slightly tinged with pink, with soft mounds and sprays of the earliest forget-me-not gently lifting its sprays of turquoise-blue against the delicately tinted but vigorous heads of this wonderful tulip? CARMINE, LAVENDER, CREAM-WHITE, AND ORANGE — LATE MAY On a slope toward the north a few open spaces of poor soil between small white pines are covered by the trailing stems of Rosa Wichuraiana. Up through these thorny stems, along which tiny points of green only are showing, rise in mid-May glowing blooms of the May-flowering tulip Cou- leur Cardinal, with its deep-carmine petals on the outside of which is the most glorious plumlike bloom that can exist in a flower. The exquisite true lavender of the single hyacinth Holbein, a "drift" of which starts in the midst of the car- mine-purple tulip and broadens as it seems to move down the slope, becomes itself merged in a large planting of Narcissus Orange Phoenix. This narcissus with its soft, creamy petals (both peri- anth and trumpet interspersed with a soft orange) 20 COLOR HARMONY does not, as the heading of this paragraph might suggest, fight with the color of the tulip, which is far above it on the slope and whose purple exterior is beautifully echoed in softer tones of lavender by the hyacinth. CREAM- WHITE AND REDDISH ORANGE — JULY In early July a wealth of bloom is in every garden, and the decision in favor of any special combination of color is a matter of some difficulty. A very good planting in a border, however, is so readily obtained, and proves so effective, that it shall be noticed here. Some dozen or fifteen large bushes of the common elder stand in an ir- regular, rather oblong group; below the cream- white cluster of its charming bloom are seventy- five to a hundred glowing cups of Lilium elegans, one of the most common flowers of our gardens, and one of those rare lilies which render their grower absolutely care-free! Eighteen varieties of this fine lily appear in one English bulb list; many of these are rather lower in height than the one I grow, which is L. elegans, var. fulgens. Below these lilies again, that the stems may be well hid, clear tones of orange and yellow blanket flower (gaillardia) appear later in the month, car- 91 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN rying on the duration of color and in no way in- terfering with the truly glorious effect produced by the elder and lilies. While the lilies are tall, the elder rises so well above them that a beauti- ful proportion of height is obtained. An improvement on this grouping would be the planting of masses of L. elegans, var. Wallacei, among the gaillardia below the taller lilies. The nearer view of the great mass of July would then be perfect. BRIGHT ROSE, GRAY-BLUE, PALE LAVENDER, AND WHITE — AUGUST In the facing cuts an arrangement of color for August bloom is set forth. The first photograph can give no adequate idea of the charming com- bination of phlox Pantheon, with its large panicles of tall rose-pink flowers, against the cloudy masses of sea-holly (Eryngium amethystinum) . While Miss Jekyll generally makes use of sea-holly in a broader way, that is as a partial means of transi- tion between different colors in a large border, I think it beautiful enough in itself to use at nearer range (and always with pink near by) in a small formal garden. Pantheon is a good phlox against it, but Fernando Cortez, that glowing brilliant SEA HOLLY AND PHLOX PANTHEON PHLOX AURORE BOREALE, SEA HOLLY, AND CHRYSANTHEMUM MAXIMUM COLOR HARMONY pink, is better; it is the color of Coquelicot, but lacking the extra touch of yellow which makes the latter too scarlet a phlox for my garden. To the left of the sea-holly is Achillea ptarmica, and far beyond the tall pink phlox Aurore Boreale. In the lower cut phlox E. DanzanVilliers raises its lavender heads above another mass of sea-holly, a few spikes of the white phlox Fraulein G. von Lassberg appear to the left, and Chrysanthemum maximum provides a brilliant contrast in form and tone to its background of the beautiful eryn- gium. A use of verbena which does not appear in these illustrations, but which is frequently made with these groupings, is as follows: Below phlox Pantheon, or the Shasta daisy (or Chrysanthemum maximum), whichever chances to be toward the front of the planting, clumps of that clear warm pink verbena Beauty of Oxford complete a color scheme in perfect fashion. The pink of the ver- bena is precisely that of the Pantheon phlox, and the plants are allowed to grow free of pins. Like the geranium, the verbena is a garden standby — and, unlike the geranium, it sows itself. The first indulgence in verbenas by the quarter or half hundred is apt to be a trifle costly; but £3 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN the initial cost is the only one, for if seed-pods are not too carefully removed, large colonies of little seedlings push through the ground the second year, and always, if one clear hue has been used, not only true to color but readily trans- plantable. II COMPANION CROPS II COMPANION CROPS TT will be as well to say at the outset that my •*• tastes are as far as possible removed from those popularly understood to be Japanese. I almost never regard a flower alone. I can ad- mire a perfect Frau Karl Druschki rose, a fine spray of Countess Spencer sweet pea, but never without thinking of the added beauty sure to be its part if a little sea-lavender were placed next the sweet pea, or if more of the delicious roses were together. Wherefore it will be seen that my mind is bent wholly on grouping or massing, and growing companion crops of flowers to that end. Mention is made only of those flower crops ac- tually in bloom at the same time in the garden illustrated. From this garden, of thirty-two beds separated by turf walks, and with two central cross-walks and an oblong pool for watering pur- poses, practically all yellow flowers have been elim- inated, and all scarlet as well. The early colum- bine (Aquilegia chrysanthd) and the pale-yellow 27 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN Thermopsis Caroliniana are the only yellows now permitted, and these only to make blues or purples finer by juxtaposition. All yellow, orange, and scarlet flowers are relegated to the shrubbery bor- ders; therefore, in speaking of companion crops in this garden, it will be understood that some of the greatest glories of July, August, and Sep- tember are omitted. As far as I know, no one has ever suggested the growing of various varieties of gladiolus among the lower ornamental grasses. This, if practicable culturally, should give many delightful effects. A yellow gladiolus, such as Eldorado, among the yellow-green grasses; the deep violet, Baron Hulot, or salmon-pinks, among the bluish-green. Stems of gladiolus must ever be concealed. This would do it gracefully and well. The two companion crops of spring flowers shown in cut are the early forget-me-not (Myo- sotis dissitiflora) , which presses close against the dark-red brick of the low post, while the Heavenly Blue grape hyacinth (Muscari botryoides, var.), a rich purplish-blue, blooms next it. Tulipa retro- flexa is seen in the foreground, and the buds of Scilla campanulata, var. Excelsior, when the pho- tograph was taken were about to open. After 28 MU8CARI HEAVENLY BLUE, TULIPA RETROFLEXA, AND MYO8OTI8 ALONG BRICK WALK ARABIS AND TULIP COTTAGE MAID DOUBLE GYPSOPHILA AND SHASTA DAISY COMPANION CROPS one day's sun the various bulbs and the forget- me-nots made a most ravishing effect with their clear tones of blue, lavender, and lemon-yellow. I never tire of singing the praises of Tulipa retroflexa; it is among my great favorites in tulips. And this leads to the mention of that tulip, to me, the best of all for color, known under three names — Hobbema, Le Reve, and Sara Bernhardt. No other tulip has the wonderful and unique color of this. If you possess a room with walls in deli- cate creamy tones, furnished with a little old ma- hogany, and are happy enough to be able on some fine May morning to place there two or three bowls full of this tulip, you will understand my enthusiasm. The color may be described as one of those warm yet faded rose-pinks of old tapestry or other antique stuff; a color to make an artist's heart leap up. This is far from the subject, but these digressions must occasionally be excused. In small note-books — tiny calendars sent each year by a seed-house to its customers, and in which it is my habit to set down on each Sunday the names of plants in flower — I find the follow- ing were blooming on a day in May : Tulipa retro- flexa, early forget-me-not, Muscari botryoides, var. Heavenly Blue; Scilla campanulata, var. Excel- 29 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN sior; tulip Rose a Merveille, Campernelle jonquil, Narcissus Barri, var. Flora Wilson; Narcissus Poetaz, var. Louisa; Tulipa Greigi, Iris pumila, var. cyanea (a lovely variety, the blue of the sky), Phlox divaricata, var. Canadensis (the new variety of this, Laphami, is both larger and finer), so beautiful back of masses of Alyssum saxatile, or rock cress, both single and double, and Iberis Gibraltarica. On the Sunday one week earlier, there were in full bloom last spring, tulips Chrysolora, Count of Leicester (the best double in tawny yellows), Cou- leur Cardinal, Thomas Moore, Leonardo da Vinci, narcissus Queen of Spain and Flora Wilson, Louisa, poet's narcissus, Iris pumila (the common purple), and tulips Vermilion Brilliant, Queen of Holland, Clusiana, Greigi, Brunhilde, Cerise Gris de Lin (another of the faded pinks — in this case, however, so extreme that many gardeners would reject it), Gris de Lin, an enchanting if cold pink; Jaune a-platie, violas and arabis, a bank of Munstead primroses (certainly the apotheosis of the English primrose, if so imposing a word may be used for so shy a flower). The arabis appears (facing page 28) with Campernelle jonquils in the near part, the darling tulip Cottage Maid blooming brightly 30 COMPANION CROPS among the arabis and making the loveliest imag- inable spring bouquet. The single arabis I have now forsworn in favor of the new double variety, which is far more effective — like a tiny white stock without the stock's stiffness of habit — and quite as easy to grow and maintain. In the blossomy photograph, facing page 48, are found four or five companion crops of flowers, though that was a peculiar season in which this picture was made, when syringas bloomed with Canterbury bells ! Here peonies and Canterbury bells make up the bulk of bloom, some young syringa bushes showing white back of them, and sweetbrier covered with fragrant pink to the right. Sweet-williams and pinks may be found in the foreground with rich rose pyrethrum, the sweet-williams of a dark rose-red, in perfect har- mony with all the paler pinks near and beyond them. I may say here that, like most amateurs, I have a favorite color in flowers — the pink of Drummond phlox, Chamois Rose, or, in deeper tones, of sweet-william Sutton's Pink Beauty, or the rosy-stock-flowered larkspur. When I say that such and such a flower is of a good warm pink, it is to the tones of one or the other of these that I would refer. 31 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN On the date on which this picture of peonies was made there were to be found in bloom in my garden these: larkspur, Thermopsis Caroliniana (which I grow near groups of tall pale-blue del- phinium, and which makes a lovely color effect, adding lemon-colored spikes to the blue), sweet- williams, Canterbury bells, peonies, Aquilegia chrysantha, Achillea ptarmica, hardy campanula, pinks both annual and hardy, foxgloves, roses, annual gypsophila, common daisies. The latter are valuable for masses of early white. I cut them to the ground as soon as bloom is over, when their low leaf-clumps are quickly covered by overhanging later flowers. The midsummer flower crops are, by all odds, the greatest in variety as they are in luxuriance. Some idea of the appearance of this garden in mid-July may be had in the top cut facing, when the flowers fully open are almost all either blue or white, except toward the centre of the garden, where delicate pink tones prevail, and the fine purple hardy phlox Lord Rayleigh blooms, giving richness to the picture and forming a combina- tion of colors, blue and rich purple, which is especially to my taste. The abundance of Gypsophila paniculata, var. GYPSOPHILA AND LILIES IN THE GARDEN COMPANION CROPS elegans, will be noted throughout the garden, and just here may be recalled that delightful and sug- gestive article by Mr. Wilhelm Miller in "The Garden Magazine" for September, 1909, advo- cating the use of flowers with delicate foliage and tiny blossoms as aids to lightness of garden ef- fects, not to mention the new varieties of such flowers mentioned in the article, Crambe orientalis, Rodgersia, and various unfamiliar spireas. There is a whiter gypsophila; there is a grayer, as well. The former is the variety flore pleno, the latter the ordinary paniculata. They are both tremendous acquisitions to the garden, as their cloudlike masses of bloom give a wonderfully soft look to any body of flowers, besides making charming settings for flowers of larger and more distinct form, as in cut (page 28), where Shasta daisy Alaska is grown against the double gypso- phila. Lilium longiflorum is a companion crop of gypsophila, and I am much given to planting this low-growing lily below and among the gray soft- ness of the other. In bloom when the garden was a blaze of color in midsummer were these — or, pos- sibly, it is fairer to say, "Among those present": Delphinium, both the tall Belladonna and one of a lovely blue, Cantab by name, best of all lark- 33 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN spurs; Delphinium Chinensis, var. grandiflora, in palest blues and whites; quantities of achillea, valuable but too aggressive as to roots to be alto- gether welcome in a small garden; Heuchera san- guinea, var. Rosamund; heliotrope of a deep pur- ple in the four central beds of the garden nearest the pool, in the centre of each heliotrope bed a clump of the medium tall and early perennial phlox Lord Rayleigh, warm purple (this was an experiment of my own which is most satisfactory in its result); baby rambler roses (Annchen Mueller), and climbing roses (the garden gate at the right is covered with Lady Gay). The arch between upper and lower gardens has young plants of Lady Gay also started against its sides. To continue with companion crops: perennial phlox E. Danzanvilliers, masses of palest lav- ender; Physostegia Virginica, var. alba; the lovely lavender-blue Stokesia cyanea, Scabiosa Japonica, sea-lavender (Statice incana, var. Silver Cloud), stocks in whites and deep purples, the annual phloxes Chamois Rose and Lutea — the latter so nice a tone of old-fashioned buff that it is useful as a sort of horticultural hyphen — and a charming double warm-pink poppy, nameless, which raises its fluffy head above its blue-green 34 COMPANION CROPS leaves from July till frost, and brings warmth and beauty to the garden. Time was when I preferred to see the chamo- mile, or anthemis, spread its pale-yellow masses below the blue delphinium spikes; but I now prefer whites, or better still, rich purples or pale lavenders, near, a closer harmony of color. One of the most successful plantings for bold- ness of effect is the one beyond the low hedge of the privet ibota; a detail is seen in cut facing page 36. This is of lemon and white hollyhocks, with thick, irregular groups of Lilium candidum upspringing before them. Sufficient room is left between the hedge and the lilies to cultivate and to trim the hedge, which is but two feet high. And when these tall pale flowers open and both the rusty growth of leaves at the base of the hollyhock stalks, and the yellowing leaves of the lily stems, are hidden by the trim dark hedge, the effect from the garden itself is surprisingly good. Numberless combina- tions of all these flowers, which bloom at the same time, suggest themselves, an infinite variety. Three plants which bloom in mid-July are the necessary and beautiful pink verbena, Beauty of Oxford, and the snapdragons in the fine new tones called pink, carmine-pink, and coral-red; also that 35 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN exquisite flower, Clarkia elegans, in the variety known as Sutton's double salmon, one of the most graceful and remarkably pretty annuals which have ever come beneath my eye. Love-in-the-mist blooms now, and the best variety, Miss Jekyll, is exceedingly pretty and valuable. A list of companion crops for August most nat- urally begins with perennial phloxes; in my case, Pantheon, used very freely; Aurore Boreale, Fer- nando Cortez (wonderful brilliant coppery pink), a very little Coquelicot, used in conjunction with sea-holly; white phloxes von Lassburg and Fiancee, zinnia in light flesh tones, the good lavender-pink physostegia (Virginica rosed), sea-holly, stocks, and dianthus of the variety Salmon Queen. There is hardly space left in which to mention the flower crops which enrich September with color. But no list of the flowers of that month should begin with the name of anything less lovely than the tall, exquisite, pale-blue Salvia patens. Called a tender perennial, I have found it entirely hardy; and the sudden blooming of a pale-blue flower spike in early autumn is as welcome as it is surprising. Second to this I place the hardy aster, or Michaelmas daisy, now to be had in many named varieties and forming, with the sal via just 36 COMPANION CROPS named, a rare combination of light colors. My hardy asters thus far have been practically two, Pulcherrima and Coombe Fishacre, two weeks later; this gives me four weeks of lavender bloom in September and October. The accommodating gladiolus, which, as every one knows, will bloom whenever one plans to have it, is a treasure now. America, which has so much lavender in its pink, is exceeding fair in combination with either of these hardy asters; and when spikes of the salvia are added to a mass of these two flowers of which I have just spoken, you have one of the loveliest imaginable companion crops of flowers. A prospective combination not yet tried but which I am counting upon this season is blue lyme grass (Elymus arenarius) with Chamois Rose Phlox Drummondii below it, and back of it gladio- lus William Falconer. The lyme grass has much blue in its leaves, and so has the gladiolus; there should be excellent harmonies of both foliage and flower. Very lately, long since the above was written, a color combination most subtle and beautiful, a September picture, has come to view: Salvia farinacea, a soft blue-lavender, with clustering spikes of palest pink stock near it, very close to 37 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN it, were the two subjects so perfectly suited to each other. Let me commend this arrangement as something rather out of the common, for I can hardly think this salvia is often met with in our gardens. And the use of a lovely but unfamiliar flower will bring with it a certain additional pleasure. Ill jfcjr^ SUCCESSION CROPS 'Give me a tree, a well, a hive, And I can save my soul alive." — "Thanksgiving," KATHARINE TYNAN. Ill SUCCESSION CROPS EASY enough it is to plan successive flower crops for different parts of a place: but not so easy, considering the limited amount of nour- ishment in the soil and the habit of growth of various flowering plants, to cover one spot for weeks with flowers. An immense variety of treat- ment is possible and much disagreement must be beforehand conceded. Calculations for varying latitudes must be made with more than usual care; and the question of individual taste asserts itself with great insistence. A very rough and hard bank of nearly solid clay with a south exposure has for some years been planted to narcissus Emperor, Cynosure, and one or two other rather later varieties. Striking boldly along among these, while in full bloom, grows an irregular line, thickening anH thinning in places, of tulip Vermilion Brilliant, absolutely described by its name. As the flowers of these scarlet and yellow bulbs commence to fade, the 41 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN ground below them begins to green with little leaves of calendulas Orange King and Sulphur Queen, as well as of the fine double white poppy White Swan. These practically cover the dying bulb leaves in a few weeks and produce a succes- sion of charming bloom beginning rather early in the summer. A few zinnias do well among them, the medium tall varieties grown only from seed labelled "Flesh-color." For my purposes this zin- nia color is always the best. It generally produces flowers varying from flesh-pink to pale or faded yellow, colors which in all their range look so well with yellow or warm pink flowers that many unique and lovely combinations are obtained by their free use. Beware of the zinnia seed marked "Rose," and of all mixtures of this seed. The seed rarely comes true to color, and its bad colors are so hideously wrong with most other flowers that they are a very real menace to the beginner in what we might call picture-gardening. Iceland poppies, thickly planted among the nar- cissi and tulips, would bring a crop of charming silken blooms well held above the foliage already on that bank, and coming between the earlier and later flower crops. The little walk of dark brick shown in the first 42 BORDERS OF PALE BLUE, BLUE -PURPLE, AND PALE YELLOW TULIP COTTAGE MAID WITH ARABI8 ALPINA SUCCESSION CROPS illustration is bordered in very early spring by blue grape hyacinths (Muscari botryoides) , fol- lowed closely by the fine forget-me-not Myosotis dissitiflora in mounds and sprays. Among these are quantities of the cream-white daffodil (Narcis- sus cernuus) . Alternating with the plants of early forget-me-not are many more of Sutton's Perfec- tion and Sutton's Royal Blue, which come into bloom as the earliest fade; these grow very tall and form a foreground of perfect loveliness for the tall Tulipa retroflexa, which rises irregularly back of the small sky-blue flowers below, complet- ing a combination of cream color and light blue charmingly delicate and effective. Following the two blue and cream-white crops of flowers border- ing this walk, dark-pink phloxes bloom in early August, three successive periods of gayety being thus assured to the little pathway. A continuation of this walk, running toward a wooden gateway in a trellised screen, may boast also of three successive flower-appearances of dif- ferent kinds. Back of the brick edging bordering the gravel are planted alternating groups of myo- sotis Sutton's Royal Blue, hardy dianthus Her Majesty, and early and late hardy asters, the two mentioned in another chapter, Coombe Fish- 43 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN acre and Pulcherrima. First to enliven the bor- ders with color is the myosotis, a peculiarly pretty effect occurring in the leading up, at either end of the walk, of the irregular edge-groups of pale blue to low masses of the old-fashioned Harison's Yellow and Persian Yellow rose. Late forget-me-not is never lovelier than when used in connection with this rose. The combination reminds me of the deh'cate colors of the flower-boxes below each win- dow of Paquin's great establishment in the Rue de la Paix, as it may be seen every May. Fol- lowing the myosotis and yellow roses come masses of the scented white pinks, while by this time the hardy asters have developed into handsome dark- green groups of leaves and give all through the summer a rich green contrasting well with the gray mounds of dianthus foliage, and finally, in September, rising suddenly into sprays of tall, fine lavender bloom. No succession crop of spring and early summer that I have happened upon seems to work bet- ter than that of tulip Yellow Rose planted in small spaces between common and named varie- ties of Oriental Poppy. The tulip, in itself of gorgeous beauty, very rich yellow and extremely double, absolutely lacks backbone, and the first 44 SUCCESSION CROPS heavy shower brings its widely opened flowers to earth to be bespattered with mud. The leaves of the poppy, upright and hairy, form a capital support for the misbehaving stem of Yellow Rose, and the poppies, having thus lent the tulips aid in time of need, go a step farther and cover their drying foliage with a handsome acanthus- like screen of green surmounted by the noble scarlet and salmon blooms of early June. This is a very simple, practical, and safe experiment in succession crops, and is heartily commended. Fol- lowing these poppies comes the bloom of a few plants of campanula Die Fee, and I am trying this year the experiment of Campanula pyramidalis in blues and whites thickly planted among the pop- pies, for late summer bloom when the poppy leaves shall have vanished. This is a large de- mand to make upon the earth in a small space, but, with encouragement by means of several top- dressings of well-rotted manure, I hope to accom- plish this crop succession satisfactorily. Among the yellow columbines (Aquilegia chrysantha) I generally tuck quantities of white or purple stocks, those known as Sutton's Perfection. The aqui- legia is cut close to the ground as soon as its seed- pods take the place of flowers; and the stocks are 45 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN then beginning their long period of bloom. Can- terbury bells are usually the centres of colonies of annual asters (my great favorites are the single Aster Sinensis, in chosen colors — not to be had in every seed-list, by the way), and of groups of gladiolus bulbs so arranged as to hide the vacancy left when the Canterbury bells must be lifted from the ground after blooming. In four places in the garden where rather low- growing things are desired, are alternate groups of a handsome, dark, velvety-red sweet-william — the seed of which was given me by Miss Jekyll, who described this as the color of the sweet-wil- liam of the old English cottage garden — and well- grown plants of Stokesia cyanea. As soon as the fine heads of sweet-william begin to crisp and dry, the beautiful lavender-blue flowers of the Stokesia take up the wondrous tale, and a veil of delicate blue is drawn over the spots which a few days since ran red with a riot of dark loveliness. Among larkspurs I plant Salvia patens, which to look tidy when blooming must be carefully staked while the stems are pliable and tender. Second crops of delphinium bloom seem to me a mistake — I believe the vitality of the plant is somewhat impaired and the color of the flowers is 46 MUNSTEAD PRIMROSE AND TULIP WHITE SWAN ON SLOPE BELOW POPLAR AND PINE SUCCESSION CROPS seldom as clear and fine as in the first crop. Green leaves in plenty should be left, of course: the lower part of Salvia patens is not attractive and its pale-blue flowers have added beauty rising from the fresh delphinium foliage. The plan of planting the everlasting pea (La- ihyrus latifolius, var. The Pearl) among delphin- iums, to follow their bloom by clouds of white flowers, is recommended by an English authority. To continue the blue of tall delphinium, the very best succession crop is that of Delphinium Chi- nense or grandiflorum, the lower branching one with the cut leaf; a fine hardy perennial in exquisite shades of pale and deep blue, whose flowers are at their very best immediately after the spikes of their blue sisters have gone into retirement. The fine new Dropmore variety of Anchusa Italica is exceedingly good placed near the vigor- ous green spikes of the leaves of the white false dragonhead (Physostegia Virginica, var. alba) : when the latter is low, the great anchusa leaves nearly cover it; and after the crop of brilliant blue flowers is exhausted, and the robust plants are cut back, the physostegia raises its tall white spikes of bloom a few weeks later, brightening an otherwise dull spot. 47 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN Platycodons, both blue and white, are capital to dwell among and succeed Canterbury bells; the platycodons to be followed again in their turn by the later-blooming Campanula pyramidalis. Will some kind garden-lover make me his debtor by suggesting a good neighbor and successor to the hardy phlox? This has been a problem in a locality where frost is due in early September, and some of the tenderer things, such as cosmos, are really nothing but a risk. If one could raze one's phloxes to the ground once they had finished their best bloom, the case might be different. But the French growers now advise (according to interest- ing cultural instructions for phlox-growing issued by one specialist) the retention of all flower stalks during winter! This makes necessary an im- mense amount of work in the way of cutting, to- ward early September, in order that the phloxes may keep some decent appearance a£ shrublike plants of green. To follow the bloom of 7m Germanica (of which I find two varieties planted together, Mrs. Hor- ace Darwin and Gloire de Hillegom, to give a charming succession crop of flowers with a change of hue as well), I have already recommended the planting of gladiolus. Lilium candidum growing 48 PEONIES AND CANTERBURY BELLS DISCREET USE OF RAMBLER ROSE LADY GAY SUCCESSION CROPS back of iris leaves is also effective, and, by care- fully considered planting, gladiolus forms a be- tween-crop of no little value. Of succession crops to follow each other in places apart, it is hardly worth while to speak. This is an easy matter to arrange; the fading of color before one shrubbery group acting as a signal to another place to brighten. Munstead primroses (cut, page 46) are scarcely out of bloom when tulip Cottage Maid and arabis are in beauty, as in cut on page 42, in an unused spot under grapes, and these are quickly followed by rambler roses (cut, page 48), peonies, and Canterbury bells in the garden proper (cut, page 48). Bordering on the turf edges of a walk in a kitchen garden three succession crops of flowers have been obtained by the use of these three plantings. Roses stand a foot back from the grass. Between them and the turf long, irregular masses of Tulipa Gesneriana, var. rosea, bloom rich rose-red in May. The roses follow in June; and Beauty of Oxford verbena covers the dying tulip leaves with clusters of wonderful pink bloom which lasts well into the autumn. I have sometimes thought that a white garden would be a simple matter to arrange, and that, under certain very green and fresh conditions and 49 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN with plenty of rich shadow to give its tones va- riety, it should not be monotonous. The procession of white flowers is so remarkable, beginning, say, with the snowdrop, bloodroot, sweet white violet, and the arabis in its single and double forms, followed quickly by Iberis Gibraltarica and Phlox subulata, white violas — all these for the low early flowers — and followed by larger, taller, and more mas- sive blooms, from peonies on to Canterbury bells, thence to lilies, white hollyhocks, gypsophilas, Pearl achillea, and white phloxes. Dozens of flower names occur at the mere thought. It seems as though every flower must have its white repre- sentative. Whether an all-white garden would be truly agreeable or no, I cannot say, but I do hold that sufficient white is not used in our gar- dens — that a certain brilliancy in sunlight is lost by the absence of masses of white flowers, succes- sion crops of which it is so easy to obtain and maintain. With the free use of white flowers, there is sure to be a fresh proclamation of beauty, too, at twilight and under the moon — arguments which must appeal to the amateur gardener of poetic taste. IV JOYS AND SORROWS OF A TRIAL GARDEN "Here is a daffodil, Six- winged as seraphs are; They took her from a Spanish hill, Wild as a wind-blown star. When she was born The angels came And showed her how her petals should be worn, Now she is tame — She hath a Latin name." — "A London Flower Show," EVELYN UNDERBILL. IV JOYS AND SORROWS OF A TRIAL GARDEN THE three indispensable adjuncts of a good flower garden, when considering its upkeep, are, in the order of their importance: a tool-house well stocked, a good supply of compost, and space for a trial garden. In planting for color effect the trial garden is a necessity. The space for it may be small: no matter; plant in it one of a kind. The gardener happy in the possession of the visualizing sense may take the one plant and in his or her imagination readily see its effect as disposed in rows, groups, or large masses. My own trial garden space is very small; and my idea has been from the first to secure plants for it in multiples of four, if possible according to size. The formal flower garden happens to be arranged alike in all four quarters of its plan, and this habit of balanced planting makes the trying out of eight or sixteen of a kind a really econom- 53 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN ical thing in the end. If the plants please, and the colors form an agreeable combination with others already in the garden, their removal in the autumn from trial-garden rows to certain spots in the garden proper is simple. A portion of the trial garden is kept for seed, and the balance for small collections of bulbs or plants; except so much space as is reserved for the fours, eights, and sixteens mentioned above. Of Crambe cordifolia, for example, I should never plant more than four, owing to its great size and spreading habit of growth, while of a dwarf hardy phlox eight should be the least. It occurs to me often that some of us underestimate the enormous value of this wonderful plant. Sure to bloom as is the sun to rise and set, varying in its height as few other flowers do, with a range of wonderful color unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, by any hardy flower, the gardener's consolation in a hot, dry August, when it maketh the wilderness of the midsummer formal garden to blossom as the rose — there is a delightful combination of certainty and beauty about it which cannot be overpraised. Forbes, the great Scotch grower, in his last list gives six pages of fine type to this flower. It is like a clock in its day of bloom, another great 54 A TRIAL GARDEN point in its favor. I have, for instance, three varieties of white which follow each other as the celebrated sheep over the wall, each brightening as the other goes to seed. No lovelier thing could be conceived than a garden of phloxes, a perfect garden of hardy phloxes; in fact, an interesting experiment if one had time and space for it would be a garden made up entirely of varieties of phlox; beginning with the lovely colors now obtainable in the P. subulata group, next the fine lavenders of P. divaricata, then an interim of good green foliage till Miss Lingard of the P. decussata sec- tion made its appearance, to be followed by the full orchestra of the general group of violets and purples (basses); mauves, lavenders, and pinks (violas, 'cellos, and brasses); and the range of whites (flutes and violins). At the close of this concert of phlox-color the audience must leave the garden. The pity is that August is its last hour. The strains of glorious music, however, follow one over the winter snows. But this ramble has carried me far afield. To return to the trial garden — heucheras in the fol- lowing varieties were admitted to this place last fall: brizoides, gracillima, Richardsoni, splendens, Pluie de Feu, and Lucifer. They flourished su- 55 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN perbly, although their little roots had been sub- jected to the test of a two weeks' journey by sea and land from an English nursery to Michigan. The flower spikes of these hybrid heucheras were thirty-two inches high by actual measurement ! Another year, when well established, they should send up even longer spikes. Their colors vary from very rich coral-red to pale salmon, but in- variably on the right side of pink — the yellow rather than the blue. This encourages me to think of them in connection with sweet-william Button's Pink Beauty (Newport pink). Next year I hope to see the heucheras' tall delicate sprays emerging from the flat lower masses of the others' bloom, since they flower simultaneously. Long after the sweet-william has gone to its grave upon the dust heap, however, the heu- cheras continue to wave their lacelike pennants of bright color. I hardly know of any plant which has so long a period of bloom. The only heu- cheras familiar to me before were the common species H. sanguined and the much-vaunted va- riety Rosamunde. While these are very beauti- ful, they have not with me the height nor the generally robust appearance necessary for full ef- fect in mass planting. The leaves of H. Richard- 56 HEUCHERA SANGUINEA HYBRIDS RAMBLER ROSE LADY GAY OVER GATE A TRIAL GARDEN soni (which are, as Miss Jekyll points out, at their best in spring, with the bronze-red color) make a capital ground cover below certain daffo- dils and tulips, and contrast well with foliage of other tones which may neighbor them in the late summer. These heucheras are not common enough in our gardens or in simple borders. Their bril- liant appearance joined to the long flowering period makes them garden plants of rare quality. Let me suggest placing one of the brighter varie- ties before a good group of white Canterbury bells with the same pink sweet-william already mentioned near by. By "near by" I mean really close by, no interfering spaces of earth to injure the effect. I am unalterably opposed to garden- ing in the thin, sparse fashion which some gardeners affect, and never let an inch of soil appear. Let the earth be never so good nor so carefully weeded and cultivated, it is only now and again that an edge of turf should be seen, "in my foolish opin- ion," as the Reverend Joseph Jacob's old gardener is apt to remark to his master, the delightful writer on flowers. Sixteen peonies with grand French names graced my trial garden this year, standing demurely equidistant from each other in a stiff row. Their 57 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN bloom was feeble, small, and hardly worth noting for this first season; next year they should be subjects for observation. It was a disappoint- ment that Baroness Schroeder refused to show a single ^flower this spring. For lo, these many years have I looked at prices and longed to pos- sess this glorious peony; and, now that she is within my gates, to find her refusing to speak to me must be set down as one of the sorrows of this trial garden. But the daffodils! Early in the spring those wonderful varieties suggested by Reverend Joseph Jacob in the columns of "The Garden" as repre- sentative of the various classes — those far ex- ceeded and outshone all anticipation. Mr. Jacob's list will be interesting to lovers of the narcissus in this country. I subjoin it: Yellow Trumpets: Emperor, Glory of Leiden, Maximus, Golden Bell, P. R. Barr, Queen of Spain (Johnstoni). White Trumpets: Madame de Graaff. Bicolor Trumpets: Apricot, Empress, J. B. M. Camm, Victoria, Mrs. W. T. Ware. Cups with Yellow Perianths: Albatross, Lucifer, Citron, Duchess of Westminster, White Lady, Ariadne, Lulworth, Dorothy Wemyss, M. M. de 58 A TRIAL GARDEN Graaff, Minnie Hume, Artemis, Waterwitch, Crown Prince, and Flora Wilson. Pheasant Eyes: Ornatus, Homer, Horace, Cas- sandra, Recurvus, Eyebright, and Comus. Doubles: Argent, Orange Phoenix, Golden Phcenix. Bunch-flowered: Elvira (Poetaz), Campernelle jonquils (rugulosus variety). Of each of these I planted two a year ago. Fifty varieties set some four inches apart gave three good rows of daffodils, and of these but four or five were already familiar. The first to really attract and enthrall me was Eyebright. It draws as a star at night. Its rarely brilliant color and distinct form make it one of the greatest joys afforded by the trial garden. Next came the wonderful Argent, a fine star-shaped flower, half-double, pale yellow and cream-white. Then, in order, Barri conspicuus was a very fine daffodil — yellow perianth, with cup of brilliant orange- scarlet. Then Mrs. Walter T. Ware, one of the best of the lot in every way. Gloria Mundi is a very beautiful flower, yellow perianth with a bright cup of orange-scarlet. Sir Watkin, a huge daffodil, and effective, is entirely yellow. Minnie Hume, a pale flower full of charm. Artemis, a beauty, small but of compact form. Eyebright 59 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN and Firebrand were the brightest and most glow- ing of the fifty. Elvira, of the Poetaz group, is a telling flower with its rich cream-white bunches of bloom and pale cup of straw-color. This daf- fodil, grown in masses in woodlands, should pro- duce a very marvellous spring picture. I have fancied, too, that its fine flowers above the low Iris pumila, var. cyanea, might be a sight worth seeing. These fragmentary notes are all that can be given here. It is hard to choose from so many perfect flowers a few which seem more remark- able than the rest. My practice was, as these daffodils came toward flowering, to cut one from each bulb while hardly out of the bud, label it with a bit of paper high up on the stem, and keep it before me in water for observation and comparison. They were unmitigated "joys" — as daffodils always are. What a marvel to have a few garden things such as tulips, daffodils, and phlox, subject to no insect pests, living through the severe winters of our climate, and in such va- riety as to amaze those who like myself are only beginning to know what has been done by hy- bridizers! Among the joys of the summer in the trial 60 HYBRID COLUMBINES BELOW BRIAR ROSE LADY PENZANCE NARCISSUS BARRI FLORA WILSON A TRIAL GARDEN spaces was Clematis recta. So satisfactory was it here that I count on using it freely in the main garden. It grew to a height of perhaps two feet, with loose clusters of white bloom much like those of the climbing C. paniculata, held well above a pretty and shrublike plant whose delicately cut foliage is of a remarkably fine tone of dark bluish- green. The green holds its own well in hot, dry weather, and gives it value as a low background after its bloom has gone. Perennial phloxes receive some attention in this trial garden. Of these, one new to me, An- tonin Mercie, shall have special mention, first be- cause of its good color, a light lilac-lavender; next because of its rather early bloom — August 5 or thereabouts in 43° N. latitude; and last because of its rather low and very branching habit. The spread of its good green leaves and full flower trusses makes it an unusually good phlox for the formal garden, and its resemblance in color to E. Danzanvilliers, the taller and more pearly lavender phlox, fits it admirably for use before the latter. If Lord Rayleigh were just a little later, what a delicious combination of lavenders and violet could be arranged ! Phlox R. P. Struth- ers, a brilliant dark pink, redder than Pantheon, 61 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN not so red as Coquelicot, more perhaps on the order of the fine Fernando Cortez than any phlox with which I can compare it, is another immense acquisition. This is also early, with a much larger truss of bloom than Fernando Cortez. Standing below groups of sea-holly (Eryngium ameihystinum) great masses of this would prove most telling. Of many other experiments and tryings-out should I like to write here: of Mr. Walsh's fine rambler roses, notably Excelsa, which is in a fair way to equal the popularity of Lady Gay; of some new larkspurs, a small collection of colum- bines, and another of hardy asters. I will only add a word concerning the one sorrow of a trial garden which has no cure. It is the loss of what the good old Englishman without whom I should be helpless is pleased to call "lay bells." When a "laybell" is gone, then is the garden world up- side down ! All my bearings are lost ; and I hate the anonymous inhabitant, the creature without identity, who has the effrontery to stand up and bloom as though he were perfectly at home where those who see him know him not! BALANCE IN THE FLOWER GARDEN A sun-dial is calm time, old time, beautiful spacious time in a garden; it is slow waltz time, — time that flows like a shining twist of honey, sweet and slow. A sun-dial prods nobody, a sun-dial can trance and forget; it lets the green hdurs glide. And at the close of day, when Evening leans upon the garden gate, your sun-dial ceases to suppose it knows the hour. —"The Villa for Coelebs," J. H. YOXALL. BALANCE IN THE FLOWER GARDEN WHEN the chance to arrange the planting of a formal garden of my own fell into my hands, about eight years ago, I felt strongly the need of advice in what I was about to do. Ad- vice, however, was not forthcoming, and at the outset I fell, of course, into the pit of absurdity. Without any reason for so doing, I decided to arrange the planting in this garden (a balanced de- sign in four equal parts with eight beds in each section) as though the whole were a scrap of per- ennial border a few feet wide and a few feet long. The ridiculous idea occurred to me to have the garden a picture to be looked at from the house alone. The matter of garden design was to fade out of sight except with regard to the few beds immediately surrounding the small central pool. These were planted more or less formally, with heliotrope in the four parallelograms nearest the 65 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN centre, and iris and lilies in four other spaces near the rest. I endeavored to produce irregular cross- wise banks of color from the far end of the garden to the part nearest the house — scarlet, orange, and yellow, with a fair sprinkling of hollyhocks in yel- low and white on the more distant edge; before these, crowds of white flowers, gray-leaved plants and blue-flowering things; and, nearest of all to the beholder, brighter and paler pinks. The result was nothing but an ugly muddle — indescribably so when one happened to be in the midst of the garden itself. For two or three years I bore with this unhappy condition of things; in- deed, nothing but the fact that the flowers con- ducted themselves in remarkably luxuriant and brilliant fashion, due to the freshness and richness of the soil, could have saved me from seeing sooner the silly mistake I had made; when, chancing to look down upon the garden from an upper win- dow, the real state of things suddenly revealed itself, and from that day I set about to plan and plant in totally different fashion. With Mr. Robinson, I feel against the wretched carpet-bedding system, while I quite agree, on the other hand, with the spokesman for the formalists, Reginald Blomfield, who declared that there is no 66 BALANCE IN THE GARDEN such thing as the "wild garden," that the name is a contradiction of terms. The one thing I do maintain is that advice, the very best advice, is the prime necessity: for those who can afford it, the fine landscape architect; for those who can- not, the criticism or counsel of some friend or ac- quaintance whose experience has been wider than their own. The time is sure to come when experts in the art of proper flower-grouping alone will be in demand. There is no doubt about it, our grandmothers were right when they preferred to see a vase on each side of the clock! With a given length of shelf and a central object on that shelf, one's in- stinct for equalizing calls for a second candlestick or bowl to balance the first. My meaning may be illustrated by a recent picture in "The Cen- tury Magazine" of Mrs. Tyson's beautiful garden at Berwick, Maine. Charming as is this lovely garden-vista, with its delightful posts in the fore- ground, repeating the lines of slim poplar in the middle distance, it would have given me much more pleasure could those heavy-headed white or pale-colored phloxes on the right have had a per- fect repetition of their effective masses exactly opposite — directly across the grass walk. These 67 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN phloxes cry aloud for balance, placed as they seem to be in a distinctly formal setting. So it is in the formal flower garden. I have come to see quite plainly, through several years of lost time, that balanced planting throughout is the only planting for a garden that has any design worth the name. It is difficult to con- ceive of that formal garden in which the use of formal or clipped trees would be inappropriate; and these we must not fail to mention, not only because of the fine foil in color and rich back- ground of dark tone which they bring into the gar- den, but because of their shadow masses as well and their value as accents. And that word "accents" brings me to the consideration of the first impor- tant placing of flowers in a garden which like my own is, unlike all Gaul, divided into four parts. Two cross-walks intersect my garden, causing four entrances. To flank each of these entrances, it can be at once seen, balanced planting must prevail. In the eight beds whose corners occur at these entrances, this planting is used: large masses of Thermopsis Caroliniana give an early and brightly conspicuous bloom. Around these the tall salmon-pink phlox, Aurore Boreale, much later; below this — filling out the angle of the 68 BALANCE IN THE GARDEN corner to the very point — the blue lyme grass (Elymus arenarius), gladiolus William Falconer, and lowest, of all, Phlox Drummondii, var. Chamois Rose. None of these colors fight with each other at any time, and the large group of tall-growing things is well fronted by the intermediate heights of the lyme grass and the gladiolus when in growth or in bloom. The four far corners of my garden I also consider more effective when planted with tall-growing flowers; in these the Dropmore, An- chusa Italica, first shines bluely forth; this soon gives place to the white physostegia, with phlox Fernando Cortez blooming below the slim white spikes just mentioned; and last, to light up the corners, comes the mauve Physostegia Virginica, var. rosea, whose bloom here is far more profuse and effective than that of its white sisters. This grouping gives almost continuous bloom and very telling color from mid- June to mid-September; the periods of green, when they occur, are short, and the vigorous-looking plants are not at all objectionable before they blossom. The effect of balanced planting in these corners I consider good. The eye is carried expectantly from one angle to another and expectation is fulfilled. In the centre of this garden are four rectangular THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN beds, corresponding in proportion to the size of the rectangular pool. These, as forming part of the centre of the garden, are always planted ex- actly alike. Purple of a rich bluish cast is one of the colors which bind instead of separate, and purple it is which here becomes an excellent focal color for the garden. In the middle of each bed is a sturdy group of the hardy phlox Lord Ray- leigh, surrounded on all sides by heliotrope of the darkest purple obtainable. This year, however, I expect to replace the heliotrope with even bet- ter effect by a tall blue ageratum, which I saw in one or two Connecticut gardens, as the paler color is more telling and quite as neutral for such a position. Speaking of this ageratum, I may per- haps digress for a moment to mention a charming effect I saw on an out-of-door dining-table last summer, obtained by the use of this flower. The color of the table was a pale cool green and most of its top was exposed; in the centre stood a bowl of French or Italian pottery, bearing a care- less gay decoration, and at the four corners smaller bowls. These were filled, to quote the words of the knowing lady whose happy arrangement this was, "with zinnias which had yellows and copper- reds, with the variety which resulted from an order 70 BALANCE IN THE GARDEN of salmon-pinks and whites. We really had almost everything but salmon -pink." The zinnias, I who saw them can affirm, made a most brilliant mass of color not altogether har- monious; but all was set right by the introduc- tion, sparingly managed, of the lovely ageratum, Dwarf Imperial Blue. The eye of her who ar- ranged these flowers saw that a balm was needed in Gilead; the ageratum certainly brought the zinnia colors into harmony as nothing else could have done, and a charmingly gay and original decoration was the result. What a suggestion here, too, for the planting of a little garden of annuals ! We are apt to think of balance in the formal garden as obtained for the most part by the use of accents in the shape of formal trees, or by some architectural adjunct. I believe that color masses and plant forms should correspond as ab- solutely as the more severe features of such a garden. For example, in practically the same spot in all four quarters of my garden there are, for perhaps four to six weeks, similar masses of tall white hardy phloxes, the blooming period beginning with von Lassburg and closing with Jeanne d'Arc, the white repeated in the dwarf 71 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN phlox Tapis Blanc in four places nearer the centre of the garden. For accents in flowers, the mind flies naturally to the use, first, of the taller and more formal types of flowers. Delphiniums with their fine up- rightness and glorious blues; hollyhocks where space is abundant and rust doth not corrupt; the magnificent mulleins, notably Verbascum Olympi- cum, might surely emphasize points in design; and I read but now of a new pink one of fine color, which, though mentioned as a novelty in Miss Ellen Willmott's famous garden at Warley, Eng- land, will be sure to cross the water soon if in- vited by our enterprising nurserymen. Lilies of the cup-upholding kinds, standard roses, standard wistarias, standard heliotropes are all to be had. The use of the dwarf or pyramidal fruit-tree in the formal garden is very beautiful to me, recall- ing some of the earliest of the fine gardens of England, and (where the little tree is kept well trimmed) offering a rarely interesting medium for obtaining balanced effects. But the tall plants are not the only available means for producing balanced effects. Lower masses of foliage or flowers have their place. They must be masses, however, unmistakable 72 HARDY ASTERS IN SEPTEMBER BALANCE IN THE GARDEN masses. Thus, in the illustration facing page 68, each of the large flower masses of baby's breath (Gypsophila elegans) — consisting of the bloom of but a single well-developed plant — is repeated in every instance in four corresponding positions in this garden. There was too much gypsophila in bloom at once when this picture was made, but because some was double the effect was not as monotonous as the photograph would make out. In a fine garden in Saginaw, Michigan, designed and planted by Mr. Charles A. Platt, balance is preserved and emphasized in striking fashion by the use of the plantain lily (Funkia Sieboldii, or grandiflora) , with its shining yellow-green leaves. Masses of this formal plant are here used as an effective foreground for a single fine specimen bush, not very tall, of Japan snowball (Viburnum plicatum). The poker flower (Tritoma Pfitzeri) is also used in this garden to carry the eye from point to corresponding point; and speaking of tritoma, which Mr. Platt in this garden associates with iris, let me mention again that delightful ageratum, as I lately saw it, used below tritoma. The tritoma must have been one of the newer varieties, of an unusual tone of intense salmony- orange, and while the ageratum would seem too 73 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN insignificant in height to neighbor the tall spike above it, the use of the lavender-blue in large masses added enormously to the effect of the torches. In the second illustration, the rather thin-look- ing elms seem to flank the garden entrance rather fortunately. A certain pleasurable sensation is felt in the balance afforded by the doubly bor- dered walk with its blue and lavender Michael- mas daisies or hardy asters. It is surely the repe- tition of the twos which has something to do with this: two borders, two posts, two trees, the eye carried twice upward by higher and yet higher objects. 74 VI COLOR HARMONIES IN THE SPRING GARDEN \ 'O Spring, I know thee ! Seek for sweet surprise In the young children's eyes. But I have learnt the years, and know the yet Leaf-folded violet. In these young days you meditate your part; I have it all by heart." — "In Early Spring," ALICE METNHLL* VI COLOR HARMONIES IN THE SPRING GARDEN IN these words, Spring Flowers, there is very music. There is a delicious harmony hi all of Nature's colors, and particularly in the colors of all native spring flowers, as they appear with each other in their own environment. If any one doubts what I say, let him look at such pictures as are found in FlemwelTs "Flowers of the Alpine Valleys"; let him take up Mrs. Allingham's "Happy England"; or let him in May wander in the nearest woodlot and see a lovely tapestry of pale color woven of the pink of spring beauties, the delicate lavenders of hepatica, and the faint yellow of the dogtooth violet — thousands of tiny blooms crowding each other for space, but all very good. Perhaps, next to the snowdrop, crocus is the earliest of the cultivated bulbs to bloom in our wintry region. The matter of color mixtures here comes to the fore. I admit this to be a question 77 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN of personal taste; but it is one on which discus- sion should be agreeable and fruitful. It happens that I object to a mixture of colors in crocus, or, for that matter, in anything. Not long ago a well-known landscape gardener, a woman, re- marked that a border of mixed Darwin tulips was one of the most successful of her many plant- ings. In such a hand, I am sure this was so. If such planting were done exactly as it should be, with sufficient boldness, a sure knowledge of what was wanted, and great variety of colors and tones of those colors, the result would surely show a tapestry again thrown along the earth — a tapes- try grander in conception and more glorious in kind than the one woven of the tiny blossoms mentioned above. But with the average gar- dener a mixture, so called, is a thing of danger. What more hopeless than a timid one ! "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold" — Spenserian advice holdsjhere. To return to crocus. Awhile ago, in the bor- ders of this small Michigan place of ours, there was in one place a most lovely carpet of colonies of pale-lavender crocus Maximilian, with grape hyacinth (Muscari azureum) running in and out in peninsulas, bays, and islands. Tall white crocus 78 COLOR HARMONIES Reine Blanche, in large numbers, was near by, itg translucent petals shining in the sun beyond its more delicately colored neighbors. I believe I have before expatiated in these pages on the great beauty of Crocus purpurea, var. grandiflora, carpeting large spaces of bare ground beneath shrubbery, principally used in connection with great sheets of Scilla Sibirica, which blooms so very little later than the crocus as to make the two practically simultaneous. These, in order to get a telling effect, should be planted by the thousands, and this, I beg to as- sure the reader, is a less serious financial observa- tion than it sounds! Hepatica that year bloomed with 7m reticu- lata. As an experiment I arranged the following spring some groups of this smart little iris, with hepatica plants threading their way among the grasslike leaves of the iris, and near by a few hundreds of Muscari azureum. The cool, delicate pinks of the hepatica were in most lovely accord with the rich violet of the iris, yet affording a striking contrast in form and a full octave apart in depth and height of tone. Is there a valid objection to thus using imported and native plants side by side? I know Ruskin would have 79 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN hated it, but the great mid- Victorian man prob- ably never had a chance to see the thing well done. You recall what he wrote of English flower gardens: "A flower garden is an ugly thing, even when best managed; it is an assembly of unfortunate beings, pampered and bloated above their nat- ural size; stewed and heated into diseased growth; corrupted by evil communication into speckled and inharmonious colors; torn from the soil which they loved, and of which they were the spirit and the glory, to glare away their term of tormented life among the mixed and incongruous essences of each other, in earth that they know not, and in air that is poison to them." I should like to bring Mr. Ruskin back to life again, show him some color achievements in flower gardening in England and America to-day, and hear him say, "A new order reigneth." But back to the crocus ! Where drifts of Crocus purpureus, var. grandiflorus, were blooming under leafless Japanese quince, blooming quite by them- selves, a fine show of color of the same order was had, really only a transition from one key to another, by flinging along the ground, planting where they fell, heavy bulbs of hyacinth Lord 80 PUSCHKINIA BELOW SHRUBS TULIP KAUFMANNIANA IN BORDER COLOR HARMONIES Derby. The full trusses of this superb flower made the most lovely companions for the just- about-to-fade crocus. How can I adequately de- scribe the color of Lord Derby ! Never, no never, in the words of one of the Dutch growers, who calmly says, "Porcelain blue, back heavenly blue." May I venture to ask the reader what impression these words convey to him? To me they are as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. They mean nothing. From my own observation of the hya- cinth, I should say that its blue, in the early stages of development, has a certain iridescent quality which makes it uncommonly interesting, almost dazzling when seen beyond the green of the fresh grass of May; and in full bloom it shines out with a half-deep tone of purplish blue. Crocus purpureus, var. grandiflorus, blooms with this hya- cinth; the two tones of purple are distinct from each other and extremely interesting together. Is, or is not, Puschkinia little known? How distinct it is from most of the smaller spring things, and how lovely in itself with its tiny bluish- white bells, pencilled with another deeper tone of blue! And so rewarding, coming up valiantly year after year, without encouragement of the compost or replanting! A little colony of it is 81 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN here shown (page 80) very badly because rather too tightly planted. Puschkinia could be asso- ciated with Iris reticulata most beautifully; or its slender bluish bells would be delightful growing near Tulip Kaufmanniana. The bloom of all these bulbous things may be quite confidently expected at the same time. Another illustration shows practically nothing but crowds of the fine white crocus Reine Blanche, grown as naturally as possible below Pyrus Ja- ponica. Here they dwell calmly and seem to sleep year after year, except for the time when they show their shining faces to the sun of April. The most dreaded enemy of the crocus, to my mind, is a wet snow. The petals, once soaked and weighted, never recover their beautiful texture, and when, one fatal April, as my note-book shows, our hectic climate brought in one hour upon these charming but tender flowers rain, hail, and snow, the wreckage may be left to the imagination of the tender-hearted. Nothing, to my thinking, can exceed for beauty the picture made by the majestic Tulipa Vitellina, with its beautifully held cups of palest lemon color, when supported by the lavender trusses of Phlox divaricata — and the stems of that, in turn, COLOR HARMONIES almost hidden by the fine Phlox subulata, var. lilacina. Long reaches of these three flowers hap- pily planted, or a tiny corner against shrubbery — it matters not one whit which — "and then my heart with pleasure fills !" What a wonderful thing to see below the glowing buds and blossoms of the Japanese quince clusters of tulip La Mer- veille or — but not and — tulip Couleur Cardinal. La Merveille, with its tremendously telling orange- red hues, puts dash into the picture; Couleur Car- dinal, sombreness, richness. No one could think for one moment of allowing these tulips to appear near each other. Crocus and early-flowering things below and among the shrubs, to bloom when the quince is leafless; tulips toward the grass, to show when tiny points of green and the red quince blossoms make a fiery mist above them. The lucky householder or gardener who has sometime placed a group of the glorious shrub, Mahonia, on his ground, may like a planting which has seemed good to me against the shining dark-green of its low branches. Narcissus poetaz, var. Elvira, to bloom with the lavender hyacinth Lord Derby or Holbein; with the gay tulip Ver- milion Brilliant near by, and some groups or col- onies of tulip Couleur Cardinal associated with 83 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN these. The fine Darwin tulip Fanny, used with masses of Phlox divaricata and Phlox subulata, var. lilacina, below it, is a marvel of color. Mr. Hunt's description of Fanny I give: "Clear, rosy pink, with white centre marked blue. Not a large flower but one of exquisite color and form." I have never yet made a May pilgrimage to Mont- clair, but I know I should be a wiser gardener if I might, for Mr. Hunt's blooming tulips must be worth many a league's journey. Nothing I have ever had upon our small place has given me more spring pleasure than the plant- ing which I next describe. A shrub, two tulips, and a primula. The shrub was Spircsa Thun- bergii, with its delicate white sprays of flowers. Below and among these spireas are the great tulip La Merveille, orange-scarlet, and the old double Count of Leicester, in tawny-orange shades — and before the tulips lay low masses of the Mun- stead primrose. On this primrose, which fares so well with me, I have enlarged so often and so vol- ubly that I fear the reader is weary of my praises. But to me it is an essential of the spring. With this primrose, with the hardy forget-me-nots, and arabis, the lemon-colored alyssum, the lavender creeping phloxes, and with a charming low-grow- 84 COLOR HARMONIES ing thing whose name is Lamium maculatum (the gray-green leaves have a rather vague whitish marking upon them, and the flowers are of a soft mauve — grow tulip Wouverman back of these, I beg !) — the most delightful effects may be had. As for tulips, again, the loveliest of combina- tions under lilacs, or immediately before them, would surely ensue if groups of tulips Fanny, Carl Becker, Giant, and Konigin Emma were planted in such spots. And speaking of tulips — the ones just mentioned I got of the Dutch, the originators of the Darwin and Rembrandt tulips and who thereby have made all bulb-growers their eternal debtors. The photograph of tulips which accom- panies these notes shows how exhibition beds may be made beautiful — it is a picture of the Haarlem (Holland) Jubilee Show in the spring of 1910. In the illustration, page 86, the blackish group of tulips in the right-hand middle distance is La Tulipe Noire — "the blackest of all the tulips.'* The circular group in the centre distance is Ed- mee, a bright cherry-rose color, also Darwin; and at the extreme left L'Ingenue, a fine white Dar- win, slightly suffused with pale rose. Mr. Krelage gave last autumn to one of his 85 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN English friends a list of the Darwin tulips he considers the best. These are the ones: Clara Butt, salmon-pink; Crepuscule, pinky lilac; Faust, deep violet; Giant, deep purplish-crimson; La Candeur, ivory-white; La Tristesse, slaty blue; Madame Krelage, rosy pink; Margaret, soft pink, almost blush; Mr. Farncombe Sanders, rosy crimson; Prince of the Netherlands, cerise-car- mine; Raphael, purplish violet; and Haarlem, a giant salmony orange-red. Five of these I have grown. The man to whom this list was given, a distinguished judge of flowers, comments on the evident partiality of Mr. Krelage for the rich deep-purples, as shown by these choices of his own. Last spring Miss Jekyll wrote of her pleasure in some beautiful varieties of tulips, Darwins and Cottage both, sent her as cut blooms by a well- known grower. And I was so charmed with her description of these, especially with what she said of the purple and bronze tones of some of them, that I cleared out a lot of shrubbery to make room, and planted last fall the following groups: Ew- bank and Morales together, Faust, Grand Mo- narque, Purple Perfection, and D. T. Fish; Bronze King, Bronze Queen, Golden Bronze, Dom Pedro, 86 CROCUS MONT BLANC DARWIN TULIPS AT THE HAARLEM (HOLLAND) JUBILEE SHOW, 1910 COLOR HARMONIES Louis XIV; Salmon Prince, Orange King, Pan- orama, Orange Globe, and La Merveille. I am not a collector; but how readily, save for one reason, could I become one, in ten different directions in the world of flowers ! Tulips should be one of my choices; the narcissus another; no one could pass by the iris. The collecting of tulips is, I fancy, simple beside, say, that of daffodils. The varieties of the daffodil are so many, the classes not as yet quite clearly defined; while the tulip is simplicity itself, except when it comes to tulip species — there the botanist comes to the front and no unlearned ones need apply. Tulips are unfailing, certain to appear. No coaxing is necessary, nor do they require special positions. They may, for instance, grow among peonies; they are delightful among grapes. While the narcissus may not flourish among peonies, because of the amount of manure needed by the latter, tulips come gloriously forth. The question was put to me some time since by Doctor Miller as to the probability of injury to or failure of narcissus when planted among peonies, on account of the amount of manure generally used among such roots — the statement made originally, I believe, by some English writer. May I give here the opin- 87 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN ion of an English authority on daffodils in his own words ? "As to daffodils among peonies — well, if you don't get manure (new) among their roots, and only top-dress with farmyard or stable manure, using bonemeal underground, I think many daf- fodils would do very well; but you should try them from more places than one when you buy. Like humans and others, a rich diet coming on top of a long-drawn-out poor one upsets matters." Crocus-collecting, judging from what Mr. E. Augustus Bowles writes of it, must have charms indeed. I confess to the germ of the fever in the shape of several of Mr. Bowles's delightfully read- able articles safely put away in a letter-file. Each time I take these out to reread them, I grow a little weaker; and by next July when fresh lists of crocus species lay their fatal hand upon me, I expect to be a crocus-bed-ridden invalid indeed ! VII THE CROCUS AND OTHER EARLY BULBS 'The groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould, Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea." — TENNYSON. VII THE CROCUS AND OTHER EARLY BULBS ET me begin by presenting these "rumina- tions," as he calls them, from the pen of the Reverend Joseph Jacob, of England, whose name is known wherever two or three daffodils or as many tulips are gathered together. _"Was there ever a time," writes he, "when bulbs were not pop- ular? Probably not. At all events, there is not much doubt about it at the present time. Every horticultural firm which considers itself at all 'up* in the world considers one of its annual necessities the issuing of a bulb-list. Contrari- wise, the reception and perusal of these lists are among the perennial pleasures of every one who has a garden. Bulbs are wonderfully accommo- dating things. I have a tortoise which we call Timmie, and for the last three months he has been fast asleep under some nice dry leaves in the cellar. Just now, with a little careful packing, he could very easily undertake a long journey. 91 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN "Bulbous plants are the 'Timmies' of the vege- table kingdom. When they have retired into their shells, they can be sent about so readily and so safely that if they lived to about ten times the age of Methuselah, I should not be surprised to find that, if it is really true what botanists tell about dispersion and propagation being the two things that plants worry themselves most about, then all well-brought-up plantlets would be taught, just as we teach the * three RV to-day, how to take on a bulbous state as an essential part of their life cycle." With Mr. Jacob's whimsical wish I heartily agree, more particularly as I recall the few choice aubrietias by post from Ireland, the glories in delphinium from England in the same manner, all of which, when opened, were found to be exhausted by their journey. Now, before rushing toward — before leaping to our main flower, the crocus, may I pay a word of tribute to the tribe of muscari, the grape hya- cinth? While these small bits of perfection in flowers, in blue flowers — yes, a true blue in some forms — are wonderful in color, they must, in my experience, be packed closely together in planting for any really good effect. While several flowers 92 EARLY BULBS come from each crocus bulb set in earth, from Muscari azureum, the small and early sky-blue, I usually have but two, and the tiny things seem not to spread, to multiply, as the crocus does. Of the other grape hyacinths, a delightful color picture is seen each May on either side of my little brick walk. The late muscari Heavenly Blue clusters below the pale-yellow lily-like heads of Tulipa retrojlexa, and below the grape hyacinth (whose strong dark-blue has a metallic quality) quantities of fine myosotis plants are blooming at the same moment. The earliest muscari are true crocus companions — azureum in dense companies, with crocus Mont Blanc (cut facing page 86) — or with such a lav- ender as Madame Mina a most unusual color combination may be made. Since the spring of 1912 I have felt that I must take up my pen for the crocus, to introduce it in a few of its newer and less-known varieties to those who have never grown those at all. The desire to get "something for nothing" is quite as noticeable among the guild of amateur gardeners as among those who find joy in bar- gain sales. And in the crocus we have first of all THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN a bargain. Thousands for a few dollars, hundreds for some cents. Next in cheapness to seeds they are; and have a habit, when not bothered by a nervous or too transplanting owner, of multiply- ing in a fashion comforting to see. In the nine years in which I have been growing the crocus on our small piece of ground, I cannot now remember having lost any except in cases where the growth of overhanging or overhungry shrubbery has eaten up the little things at its feet. One of my first plantings before the bare east wall of brick of a then new house was of the cro- cus Reine Blanche, a fine white, in groups now dense, now more open, with hosts of Scilla Sibi- rica crowding among them, and that first glory of the tulip family, Kaufmanniana, holding outspread back of and above the little blue-and-white multi- tude its lilylike flowers — flowers which only open to the sun. Tulipa Kaufmanniana is costly, I admit, and growing more so, but, as in the case of Darwin and May-flowering tulips, many of which are rapidly increasing in value, delays are dangerous. Therefore, buy now if possible. I must have often described it before — its general color within the flower a rich cream, running into clear yellow toward the centre of the bloom; on 94 EARLY BULBS the outside of each petal a broad band of dull reddish-rose. To myself I called it a water-lily long before I read that it had been often described as the water-lily tulip. In warm corners it has opened with me (latitude of Boston) as early as March 25, though its usual flowering time in our climate is mid-April. Among the florists' varieties of crocus, the one with true magnificence of form and color is Crocus purpureus, var. grandiflorus. Magnificent is a large adjective to apply to a low-growing flower; ordinarily one should reserve it for the altheas, or the finer gladioli, sensational in their beauty. But it is a fact that people unaccustomed to the sight of so large and fine a crocus as this can sometimes not be persuaded that it is a crocus; therefore, the word may be permitted. And when close-growing numbers of this particular beauty are near other close colonies of Scilla Sibirica, there is then a spring effect worth going far to see. Maximilian, a clear light-lavender, is a fa- vorite with me. Madame Mina, white with rich lavender stripes the length of its fine petals, is a beauteous flower; and Reine Blanche, of which mention has just been made, one of the loveliest imaginable whites. Mont Blanc, white, is also 95 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN very fine. In these whites, and in Madame Mina as well, the rich orange stigma gives a very glow- ing effect as one looks down into the crocus cup. As for the yellow crocuses, I never look at them if I can help it! I have a few remnants of them from misguided purchases of years gone by, but I am always meaning to clear them out and al- ways forgetting to do it till their small squat flowers are gone and the track of the position of the bulbs is lost. This antipathy to the yellow florists' crocus, which, let me add, does not extend in my case to the yellow of the species crocus, may be the prejudice of ignorance, for of varieties other than Cloth of Gold and Large Yellow I know nothing. In these the yellow is the crude yellow of the dandelion (a flower I hate with all my might) ! Mr. E. A. Bowles, of Waltham Cross, England, tells us that the more delicate and subtle tones of yellow are to be found in sev- eral varieties of crocus species; it is to these that I plan to turn my attention with great ardor another season. Few of these species crocus do I already know in my own borders — only half a dozen — and as I believe readers will rejoice as I have done in some of Mr. Bowles's enthusiastic comments 96 EARLY BULBS on or descriptions of these flowers, I offer no apol- ogy for quoting from him, as I mention the flowers of which he knows so much, through years of col- lecting, growing, and study. Now, in spite of my aversion to the large yel- low florists' crocus, I do like Crocus susianus, which is one of the bright-yellows before mentioned (Color chart, Cadmium yellow, No. 1) . But Crocus susianus, blooming as early as April 9, planted very thickly, gave in my border the interesting impression of a large-flowering yellow Phlox subu- lata — practically no green leaf visible below the masses of bloom. Five to seven flowers appear in small, tight bunches from one bulb; and back of and among this flowering mass of yellow I had colonies of the white crocus Mont Blanc. Let me commend this very simple and unstudied ar- rangement. C. susianus is much dwarfer than Mont Blanc, therefore have it mainly to the front. Crocus Sieberi I call a warm pinkish-lavender (Color chart, Violet mauve, No. 1). Six to eight flowers come from a bulb, and the bright-orange stigmata within give a glowing centre to the little flower. This is very small and low. Mr. Bowles calls it a "crocus for every garden" and adds that 97 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN it "seeds freely and soon spreads in any sunny border." "Crocus Korolkowi" to quote Mr. Bowles again, "from the far East, has two good points — it flowers early and is of a peculiarly brilliant form of yellow." This little crocus I have grown for a few years myself, and it always surprises me by appearing practically with the snowdrop. Crocus biflorus, the "Scotch crocus," is white, with pencillings of grayish mauve on its three outer petals. The markings are exquisite and the early blooming of this crocus marks it as a specially necessary one. My prime favorite among all these species cro- cus is Crocus Tommasinianus. It is tall, slender, delicate, with narrow, pointed petals, of a lovely lavender, slightly bluer than Sieberi. An orange pistil within it is like a vivid star. It has great height of stem, and tapering form of flower. It is the one which most delights me as a novice in crocus-collecting; and last spring, in a limited space where the ground runs up into a rather steepish slope for a few feet, which slope is cov- ered by a thick group of the little tree known as the garland thorn, there beneath the small tree stems I hope to see next spring hundreds of little EARLY BULBS candles, lavender candles of Crocus Tommasini- anus running up the tiny hillside, and racing along beside them a company of Galanthus Elwesii, their companions in time of bloom. "I have found," writes Mr. Bowles, "C. Tommasinianus so far to prove the most satisfactory of the wild species for spreading and holding its own when planted in grass." Several beautiful new seedling crocuses have come within a few years from Holland — May and Dorothea — the latter a "soft, pale lavender- mauve," May "a beautiful white of fine form." These two I have; not, however, Kathleen Par- low, said to be an extra-fine white, with wonder- ful orange anthers, nor Distinction, the nearest approach to a pink color in crocus. The beauty of tulip Kaufmanniana was never, I fancy, better set forth in a photograph than in that which is shown on page 98. To the kind- ness of Mr. Bowles himself I owe this picture of perfect spring loveliness, and to the kindness of the distinguished Scottish amateur Mr. S. Arnott the picture of the blue grape hyacinth, Hyacinthus lineatus azureus. This flowered in Mr. Arnott's garden in February, 1912, and is, I believe, a rare variety. 99 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN To my eyes it is so charming a picture of the type that its inclusion here will surely give pleasure to those to whom these "small and early" things are objects of interest. 100 VIII COLOR ARRANGEMENTS FOR DARWIN TULIPS AND OTHER SPRING-FLOWER- ING BULBS 'Along the lawns the tulip lamps are lit.** — ROSAMUND MABRIOTT WATSON. VIII COLOR ARRANGEMENTS FOR DARWIN TULIPS AND OTHER SPRING-FLOWER- ING BULBS I BELIEVE I shall always remember May, 1913, as the Darwinian May. As the mention of this adjective is doubtless music- to the ear of the scientist, so its sound is equally delectable to the possessor and lover of the Darwin tulips. In a bit of writing appearing some time ago in this journal, I set down a list of Darwins arranged for color combination, taken from a fine English source. These I tried for the first time this year; and I assure the reader when I saw them I fell down and worshipped. A pageant of color, a marvellous procession of flowery grandeur — no words are mine in which to tell of my sensations on seeing this beauty for the first time; and the sensations were not mine alone. They were shared by all those who saw them, among them some sophisticated eyes, eyes which might not show delight without good cause. 103 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN The color arrangement proved not so good as I had hoped. And, thanks to an ingenious guest, we rearranged for next year in this fashion: One tulip of each variety was cut and labelled with a slip of paper. These cut tulips were then placed in the open spaces of the rattan or cane seat of a Chinese chair, the large flowers resting against the back and sides of the chair. The round open- ings in the woven cane exactly admitted the stiff stems of the Darwins; the background of basket- looking stuff was most becoming to the gay flowers, and at our leisure, seated in comfort be- fore our tulip galaxy, we arranged and rearranged till the following plan evolved itself — a plan of which I append a rather feebly drawn chart — a plan, however, which I recommend with my whole heart, a Darwinian theory less abstruse if not more certain in its outcome than that of him in whose honor these noble spring flowers are named. Another probably successful arrangement of spring flowers suggests itself. Why should not the tall lemon-colored blooms of Tulipa Vitellina show back of rather close groupings of Scilla cam- panulata's lavender bells, while the tender yellow of Alyssum saxatile, var. sulphureum, creates a charming foreground ? The three flowers bloomed 104 TULIP VITELLINA, PHLOX DIVARICATA TULIP GESNERIANA ELEGANS LUTEA PALLIDA ABOVE PHLOX COLOR ARRANGEMENTS with me this year at the same time, and I cannot but advise a trial planting of them together — say a dozen of the tulips, fifty scillas, and six or seven roots of the beautiful hardy alyssum, and you have a picture which a true "garden soul" will feel beneath the ground in winter. This could be done in a spot apart, a bit of ground sacred to adventures in flowers. And while we are on adventures in flowers, may I impart a few impressions of some tulips seen this spring for the first time ? Really revela- tions — some of them unspeakably beautiful. Coming, for instance, unexpectedly upon Tulipa viridiflora was like coming upon a specially beau- tiful green-and-white trillium in a wood. This tulip has that precious look of not having been evolved. Yet it is a May-flowering or cottage tulip. What pleasure in a few bulbs of this unique flower, in its aspect of untouchedness ! It cannot be possible, one thinks, that the deli- cate bands of green up and down its palest yel- low-painted petals were not set there by the skil- ful eye and brush of perhaps the Japanese ! Tulip The Fawn, a Darwin this, was almost un- believable in its beauty. No description of it in print satisfies me. May I here give my own? 105 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN Pale amber to cream-color outside, suffused with soft pinkish lavender, the whole effect that of a tea-rose. Why not give it a subtitle — the tea-rose tulip ? And why not grow it with that deep, rich purple Darwin Faust? The contrast between these two is tremendously striking, yet there is a certain harmony of tone which allows of their dwelling together not only in peace but in beauty. Gudin, a tall tulip of a pale-mauve hue, look- ing its best near a group of the stately Innocence, was another of the wonders of the spring. Or- pheus was a charming flower turning to warm rose in its last days; Emerald Gem, oddly named when its richest of salmon blooms are considered, with Orange Globe should form a combination of bril- liant color unsurpassed; and in Dom Pedro we have a Breeder tulip, a flower of wonderful ma- hogany tones which I should ever choose to see associated with Coridion, lovely "clear yellow with stripe of lilac through centre of petal." About June 3 comes Ixiolirion macrantha, like a small lavender lily, with delicate tubular flowers, as many as a dozen up and down the graceful waving stem. The leafage of this flower is scanty; what there is, is of a grayish-green which makes the flower a fit companion for the dusty miller 106 COLOR ARRANGEMENTS (Senecio cineraria). The ixiolirion is one of the bravest of bulbs, coming triumphantly through the bitter frosts of last winter. Ixiolirion pallasi is named as a good one, and this I hope to try. The lasting quality of ixiolirion in water is one of its recommendations; and because it is so very perfect when cut, if used with sprays of Deutzia Lemoineii — for daytime use on the table, that is, for I have yet to find the blue that can prop- erly be used under artificial light — I hope to let a quantity of these beautiful waving things blow near and before the low bushes of the deutzia next spring. These will follow the tiny Italian Tulipa clusiana, whose slender beauty grows dearer every year. Clusiana is neighbored by Puschkinia and the two are preceded by some species of crocus — the Scotch, I think, var. C. biflorus pusillus. So we achieve an uncommon spring planting, delicate and lovely for weeks from the end of April to the first of June, always interesting whether the small flowers are coming or going — and if planted with judgment and discrimination as to natural-looking arrangement, regard to height and color, we may without fear of disap- pointment think in December of the rare joys in 107 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN store for us in that spot when it shall have been touched by the suns of spring. A charming happening has just taken place in the borders. The bush honeysuckles of Michigan were never more gloriously covered with their veils of white and rose than this spring. It may have been the gradually warming season, the uninter- rupted progress from leaf -bud to blossom; in any case, the tale is the same all about us — the loni- ceras have been remarkably fine. Below a tower- ing group of Lonicera, var. bella albida, whose flowers in early June are just passing, crowds of the swaying long-spurred hybrid aquilegias bloom and blow. Most of us now know the unusual deli- cacy and range of color in these charming flowers — faint pinks, yellows, blues, and lavenders — all pale and poised as they are. But oh ! to catch beyond, under the shadow of the honeysuckle boughs, as I did but now, the sight of masses of blooming pink scillas, Scilla campanulata, var. rosea, at precisely the moment and in precisely the place where its modest beauty was most perfectly displayed — to have this as a surprise, not a special plan — here was a pleasure of a quality all too seldom felt and known. Noth- ing could carry on and repeat the tones of the pink 108 COLOR ARRANGEMENTS and lavender aquilegias as does this loveliest of late scillas. In appearance more like a tall lily- of-the-valley than any other flower I can call to mind, in tone so cool a pink that it is perfect in combination with the blue, lavender, or pink col- umbines. It is enchanting as their neighbor and far more interesting thus used than in the more commonplace proximity to its cousin or sister, the lavender Scilla campanulata, var. excelsior, blooming at the same time. To me it would be dull to see sheets of these two spring flowers near each other or intermingling. Dull, I mean, com- pared with such a possibility as the combination I have tried to describe and which was simply one of those heavenly accidents befalling all too rarely the ardent gardener. On this June day the buds in my garden are almost as enchanting as the open flowers. Things in bud bring, in the heat of a June noontide, the recollection of the loveliest days of the year — those days of May when all is suggested, nothing yet fulfilled. To-day I have been looking at something one of these photographs feebly tries to show — tall spikes of pale-pink Canterbury bells, the flowers unusually large, standing against a softly rounding background of gypsophila in 109 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN bud; to the left of the campanulas, leaves of Iris pallida Dalmatica, so tall that their presence is immediately felt; a little before, but still to the left of the pink spikes and the iris, perhaps a dozen tall silvery velvet stems of Stachys lanata, whose tiny flowers give but a hint of their pale lavender as yet, and are lost in the whiteness of the young leaflets, and — and this is the thing which really creates the picture — three or four spreading branches, a foot from the ground and directly below the campanulas, of Statice incana Silver Cloud, tiny points of white showing that the whole dense spray will soon be full of flowers. Below and among the campanulas (which I keep in bloom a very long time by a careful daily taking off of every shrivelling bloom) stand sal- mon-pink balsams, these to replace with their two- foot masses of flowers the campanulas when the latter's day is over and to rise above the gray- white leaves of the stachys when its blooming time is also past. This stachys is a lovely ad- junct to the garden. The texture of its leaves is a matter of surprise to every one who touches them. Most people would call stachys "woolly," but I do not like this word — (is it because I live in the West ?) — and why apply an unpoetic 110 PINK CANTERBURY BELLS, STACHYS LANATA ..< By courtety of Frederick A. Stoke, Company BELLIS PERENNI8 AND NARCISSUS POETICUS COLOR ARRANGEMENTS word to any one of the lovely inhabitants of OUT gardens ? It came about that a space before the bush honeysuckles — the pink flowering variety, Loni- cera Tatarica, var. rosea — in a border, needed fill- ing with lower shrubs. The piece of ground to be furnished was perhaps fifteen feet long by three wide, though irregular in both width and outline. Last autumn Rosa nitida had been there set out, planted about three feet apart. Bare ground for this year and next was sure to spoil the look of things while these roses were yet young, and a covering for it was thus managed. Canterbury- bell plants were distributed in small groups among the roses, especially toward the back of the border; and English irises, Rossini and Mr. Veen, were tucked in in longish colonies before and among the campanulas. In ordinary seasons these irises might not have bloomed with the campanulas, but this year it was Monte Cristo-like — the flower and the hour! — with a resultant superb effect of color. Mr. Veen, a true violet iris, Ros- sini, a purplish-blue, were good together to me, who differ from Miss Jekyll in possessing a penchant for blue combined with purple or with lavender. To compare a bloom of one of these irises with 111 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN a spray of the Dropmore anchusa is to get an ex- tremely vivid and interesting idea of the effect of colors upon each other. Taken alone, Iris xiphioides, var. Mr. Veen, is a blue without very much purple in its tone; beside the anchusa all the blue vanishes — the iris is a distinct purple; place it beside Rossini, it becomes blue again; and grow masses of Rossini below the anchusa, es- pecially the variety Opal, and there is one of the most beautiful juxtapositions possible in flowers — so far as I know an original combination of color and one to charm an artist, I believe. An- chusa of a year's standing, a three-foot anchusa, might be best to use in this way. The two-foot iris would prove a good companion. There follows, soon after the gray-and-pink com- bination in my garden of which I spoke a few paragraphs back, the combination of pink Cam- panula medium and Stachys lanata, a time when one of the loveliest of all double poppies lights up the little place with color. For this poppy — an annual — there is no registered name. It is dou- ble, extremely full, perhaps three feet in height, and of a delicious rosy-pink, exactly the pink of the best mallows, or of the enchanting half -open rose- buds of the ever-lovely rambler Lady Gay. To COLOR ARRANGEMENTS see three or four of these poppies in full bloom among the white mist of gypsophila, either single or double, the oat-green of the poppy leaves below, is to see something more delicately beauti- ful than often occurs in gardens. Many packets of the seed of my poppy are always in readiness, as I have a superabundance of the same; and if ten people read these words, and if, peradven- ture, there be ten gardeners with vision to see through the veil of these sentences the rose-pink beauty of this flower, let them ask for a bit of this seed, for it is theirs for the asking ! The love of flowers brings surely with it the love of all the green world. For love of flowers every blooming square in cottage gardens seen from the flying windows of the train has its true and touching message for the traveller; every bush and tree in nearer field and farther wood becomes an object of delight and stirs delightful thought. When I see a rhubarb plant in a small rural garden, I respect the man, or more generally the woman, who placed it there. If my eye lights upon the carefully tended peony held up by a bar- rel hoop, the round group of an old dicentra, the fine upstanding single plant of iris, at once I ex- perience the warmest feeling of friendliness for 113 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN that householder, and wish to know and talk with them about their flowers. For at the bottom there is a bond which breaks down every other difference between us. We are "Garden Souls." 114 IX NOTES ON SPRING FLOWERS 'April appeared, the green earth's impulse came Pushing the singing sap until each bud Trembled with delicate life as soft as flame, Filled with the mighty heart-beat as with blood." IX NOTES ON SPRING FLOWERS AST ever-astonishing thing to me in gardening is the overlapping of the times of bloom in flowers. As I walk about in May I am sure to see some inhabitant of the borders up and doing, earlier than I think he should be. One is ab- sorbed in what is already open; the budding of coming flowers goes unnoticed and their little soft, colorful cries for attention come as a surprise. Under an ancient thorn, known to Professor Sargent and a few others as Cratcegus punctata — a thorn which stands against old apple-trees, and which, as soon as the petals of apple-blossoms have fallen and disappeared, becomes a wreath of white against the apple-leaves — under this blooming thorn there stands in a bold group the fine late tulip, Flava. This tulip has a way of fading in curious and beautiful fashion. In its first stage it is one of the grandest and most imposing of early flowers; its bloom is held high in air; its stem is absolutely erect; its color a soft straw- 117 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN yellow; its leaves very low, large, and of a fine bluish-green; the blooms open wide, their four petals at the top of the stalk, like lilies held erect, and the inside of each petal seems to take on a certain pallor toward the centre, leaving an edge of deeper tone. The effect is indescribably beau- tiful in its way — a tulip swan-song, thought I, as I gazed. A fine tulip new to me last spring was Nau- ticas. Here the color within the petals is Vin de Bordeaux No. 1, shading toward the upper edges to Rose lilace No. 2.* The inner basal spots of Nauticas are of Indigo grisatre No. 1, very strik- ing in effect; and the leaves of this tall tulip were of so rarely good a green that even their color was recorded. It proved to be a trifle darker than Vert bouteille No. 4. If any reader wonders at my enthusiasm for this tulip, a flower incompara- ble as it seems to me, let him place next each other the color plates here mentioned, imagine a finely rising stem and large broad leaves, of the richest of greens, crowned by a rose-purple flower of per- fect form. He will wonder no more that the tulip is thus commended. * Color references apply either to the French color chart " Repertoire de Couleurs," or to "Color Standards and Color Nomenclature," by Dr. Robert Ridgway. 118 SPRING FLOWERS Of Zomerschoon the rare, the beautiful, I own but a dozen bulbs. A detailed description from the color chart is necessary, as this wonder among tulips has many colors. The upper outside of inner petals shows Rouge d'Andrinople No. 1, but a trifle lighter than the shade in the plate. There is remarkable life in this color as it appears in the tulip. Flamed and feathered with a true cream-white, with a slightly bluish sheen on the centres of the outer petals, the flower is of inde- scribable beauty. There is not one to equal it for charm, for luscious combination of salmon and cream. It is never likely to become plentiful, it is such a slow one to increase. Although we hear rumors of a possible short- age for next season in tulips in violet, lavender, and bronze tones, it is quite out of the question in these notes to pass by one of these beauties. Mauve Clair, a Darwin variety of unusual quality, is one of the best. The general tone of this tulip is Violet de Parme No. 1, while the flame or mark- ing of the outer petals is of Violet d'aconit No. 1. Tulip Bouton d'Or, whose yellow as seen in the French chart is Jaime cadmium No. 1, has a per- fectly unvarying tone throughout the flower. Thus I found several of these tulips; yet again, 119 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN with other blooms of Bouton d'Or, Jaune chrome moyen No. 1, petals edged with No. 3 of the same color, seemed a more perfect description. I give the two for accuracy's sake. The black anthers of Bouton d'Or add appreciably to its interest. A tulip of far paler yellow than Bouton d'Or is Moonlight, another cottage tulip, so elegant, so distinguished, as to relegate Bouton d'Or at once to a sort of tulip bourgeoisie. Moonlight is beautifully named, with its pale tones of yellow and charmingly proportioned flower. The gen- eral tone of Moonlight in the chart is Jaune citron No. 1 or Jaune primavere No. 1 ; within its petals Jaune soufre No. 4 prevails. While among the yellow tulips, Sprengeri, the latest of all tulips to bloom, must not be over- looked. Tulipa Sprengeri, to be sure, is not yel- low; it is an orange-scarlet and thereby related to the yellows (Orange de Mars No. 2, edges of inner petals Orange rougeatre No. 1). The out- side of each outer petal is flamed through the centre with Rouge cuivre. This tulip I have growing among close-packed roots of a pearl-gray German iris, name unknown. The two come into flower simultaneously; the tulip is quite as tall as the iris, and the two flowers are strikingly 120 SPRING FLOWERS good together. Sprengeri grows taller with me than any other tulip, Louis XIV alone excepted. It is a persistent grower, too, appearing year after year as do almost no others except Tulipa Gesneriana, var. rosea, that gay and resolute little bloom always so enchanting above forget-me- nots. Near Philadelphia last spring a marvellously lovely combination of tulips and iris was to be seen. A long, narrow bed had been made in the centre of a similarly long and narrow piece of sward. This straight line was a glowing band of German iris of the richest purple-blue, and of a brilliant yellow tulip set in tall and ordered groups alternating in effective fashion with the iris. Of the tulips there seemed to be fifteen or twenty in a group, and the variety, I thought, was Mrs. Moon. The name of the iris is wanting; but it was the counterpart of one of my own which I owe to the kindness of a farmer's wife, and whose colors, according to the chart, are Bleu d'aniline No. 4 in the standards and Violet de violette in the falls. A further suggestion for iris-and-tulip grouping (this from an English source) is a bold use of the deep purple-blue iris thinly interspersed with the 121 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN lavender Darwin tulip Reverend H. Ewbank. In my own part of the country it is rarely that the Darwin or May-flowering tulip overlaps in time of bloom upon the German iris, but in the lati- tude of Philadelphia these plants may be expected to give flowers together. A group of Darwins in brilliant cherry-rose tones we may notice next. These gay occupants of the spring border hold less charm for me than some of their less flaunting fellows, the reason being the difficulty of combining them well with tulips of other colors. True, they may serve as a climax where first lavender, then deep-violet tulips are used in successive groupings. But with white tulips, dead-white, they are not agreeable to the eye; with primrose and yellow they do not particularly agree; with mauve and bronze not at all. The two which shall be singled out for special mention are both Darwins, Professor Fran- cis Darwin and Edmee. The tones of Professor Darwin according to the chart are Rouge fraise No. 2 within the petals, Vin de Bordeaux No. 2 outside. This tulip has a pale lemon-colored pistil and a prismatic blue-black base. In Edmee the outer petals are of Amaranthe No. 1, with much blue in these pinkish tones. These tulips DARWIN TULIPS WITH IRIS GERMANICA SPRING FLOWERS are beauteous instances of the development of their race. Let me suggest to those who do not yet know the newer Darwins, Cottage tulips, Breeders, and Rembrandts an investment in a few bulbs next fall, if only a half-dozen of each of some of the finer varieties, and, each for himself, see the won- ders of these flowers. Make your selections now and place your orders at once for fall delivery. In the first three classes, if I were to choose four out of each as introductory lists, they should be these: Cottage or May-flowering Tulips: Retroflexa su- perba, Moonlight, the Fawn, Inglescombe Pink. Darwins: Clara Butt, Reverend H. Ewbank, Gudin, and Sophrosyne. Breeders: Coridion, Golden Bronze, Louis XIV, Goldfinch, Velvet King, and Cardinal Manning. These are but short lists, not combinations of color — samples of some of the finer varieties in the three classes. Would that I might have named Zomerschoon in the Cottage group — Zo- merschoon, that too costly tulip of unforgettable beauty. And now for a few combinations of tulips with other flowers. The gayest knot of flowers of 123 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN spring may be produced by the joint use of Tulipa Gesneriana, var. rosea, with one of the taller forget- me-nots, such as Perfection or Royal Blue. In this vivid-crimson tulip there is a dull-blue base; something of that blue is perhaps imparted to the rosy chalice of the flower and makes it perfect company for the sweetest of pale blossoms. Mr. Divers, head gardener to the Duke of Rutland, makes these suggestions as to combina- tions of tulips and low-growing plants to flower together: Couleur Cardinal, a single early tulip, with Phlox divaricata; tulip Picotee is also rec- ommended with the phlox; and the same fine tulip with myosotis Royal Blue. This should be exceedingly good, especially as we recall the rosy flushing of Picotee as it ages. For a very lively effect, tulip Vermilion Brilliant is suggested as a companion to the pale-yellow primrose. Mr. Divers uses ribbon grass (Phalaris arundinacea, var. variegata) with Phlox divaricata, tulip Picotee, and Avbrietia Leichtlini, plants which when prop- erly set with relation to each other's heights and habits must surely make a perfect picture in lavender and rose. Another authority on tulips would have tulip Thomas Moore, that tawny-orange flower, rise 124 SPRING FLOWERS above yellow primroses; the Darwin Erguste bloom over Phlox divaricata, or Bouton d'Or with myosotis. All these are good; and a trial of any two together must convince the doubter that half spring's pleasure lies in tulip time. Tulip Bouton d'Or, almost droll in its fat round- ness, and whose rare rich yellow is already de- scribed, proved most excellent in conjunction with the cushion irises in flower, such varieties as Isis and Helense. Their strange red-purples were very sumptuous among groups of these tulips. Tulip Le Reve, that flower whose beauty is one of my perennial delights, showed a peculiar charm rising among colonies of Mertensia Virginica. The general tone of Le Reve, according to the color chart, is Rose brule No. 1; the petals are feath- ered with Rose violace No. 4, while the centres of the outer petals show Lilas rougeatre. The mertensia flowers are of Bleu d'azur No. 1, though more lavender-blue and with greater depth of tone. The buds are of Violet de cobalt No. 1, the leaves Vert civette No. 3. A suggestion for spring planting noted last season was the remarkably rich effect of tulips Purple Perfection, Vitellina, and Innocence with cut buds and blooms of the superb purple lilac Ludwig 125 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN Spaeth. A noble combination, this, for a border in which interesting and original color is desired. Tulip President Lincoln I thought a great find. The chart description of it would be this : darkest tone of petal, Violet d'iris No. 2; paler part of petal, Lilas violace No. 2. Let me suggest with every confidence in its value the growing of Presi- dent Lincoln with the two tulips, Mrs. Collier and Doctor Hardy, shown in color on the cover of the Reverend Joseph Jacob's capital book, "Tulips," that book written from "the innate fire of an enthusiast's heart." The Fawn, the well-known Darwin tulip, was grown among two- year-old plants of Hydrangea arborescens. Blanc rose No. 3, in the chart, gives an idea of the tone of the outer petals of this very wonderful flower, but its luminous quality will not be de- scribed. An underlying tone of palest yellow in the tulip made it peculiarly lovely among the leaves of the hydrangea. I have come to believe myself among the most impressionable of gardeners; delighted at the least indication of the love of flowers in a casual acquaintance; ever ready to set off at short no- tice to look at gardens; but not always so de- lighted with what I find. And since there is in 126 SPRING FLOWERS me this critical quality, born doubtless of much looking and comparing when I see, as I saw lately, a garden comparatively small in compass but in- comparably interesting, my heart fills with a plea- sure not unlike the poet's at the sight of the cele- brated daffodils. In this garden, some of it under tall trees, a city garden not a hundred miles from where I live, on a day in earliest June, there was to be seen a most lovely flower grouping, in which the following flowers had place: Masses of that wonderful pinkish-mauve Iris pallida, Queen of May, tall lupines of rich blue near by, with Iris Madame Chereau back of this, while before the group and among it were opening on tall stems the luscious silken salmon-pink flowers of the two Oriental poppies Mrs. Perry and Mary Stud- holme. Below these the coral bells of heucheras (alum-root) hung at the tops of slender swaying stems, a slightly richer note of pink than the poppies. As I beheld this beauty in flowers, I said to myself: "Here is an end to adjectives." I have none in which to adequately describe this loveliness. It must be seen for its delicacy, its evanescent quality. All who garden know the texture of 127 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN the poppy petal, of the flower of the iris. In no medium but water-color could possibly be ex- pressed the beauty, the daring yet delicate beauty, of this arrangement of flowers. I am permitted the privilege of trying to describe it to my readers; and, while my words are weak, I know full well that any flower-grower is to be congratulated who may endeavor to arrange for himself the picture here set forth. All hardy perennials, all very hardy. Do pray experiment with the beauteous blooms; set them out together this coming au- tumn in some sun-warmed spot, and in two years behold a picture unsurpassed for subtle color har- mony and contrast. In this garden again I saw that the superb poppy of the group above, Mrs. Perry, and the ever-glorious Iris pallida, var. Dal- matica, dwell most happily together, the poppy a round flower, a flower on horizontal lines, the iris perpendicular, standards and falls; the greens of iris and of poppy foliage delicately contrasting; in the one the yellow predominating, in the other the blue. 128 A SMALL SPRING FLOWER BORDER "Though not a whisper of her voice he hear, The buried bulb does know The signals of the year And hails far Summer with his lifted spear." — COVENTRY PATMOBB. A SMALL SPRING FLOWER BORDER THE tale of this border is soon told — not the pleasure of it, for I can assure the reader that from early spring to late autumn, from the hour when peony shoots and bulb leaves first pushed their way through the ground, there has been no moment when this place had not a pecul- iar interest. A slight description written imme- diately after the original planting was made, and first printed in the Bulletin of the Garden Club of America, may here be introduced, thanks to the courtesy of that society. The border in question is a double one, a bal- anced planting on either side of a walk of dark brick about two and a half feet wide. The space allotted to flowers flanking the walk is some three feet._ Eight subjects are used; combinations of color, periods of bloom, form and height of flowers and plants, all are considered. At those edges of the borders farthest from 131 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN the walk are peonies of white and palest pink — Madame Emile Galle, that flower of enchant- ment predominating. Next the peonies toward the walk, comes a row of Iris pallida Dalmatica, then an alternating line of 7m Kaempferi and Spircea astilbe Arendsii Die Walkiire; next these the Darwin tulip Agneta planted alternately with English iris Mauve Queen; then the double early tulip Yellow Rose with myosotis. Bleu Celeste, the double early tulip which Miss Jekyll calls the bluest of tulips, was to have bloomed with the vivid flower of tulip Yellow Rose. But because of Miss JekylPs commendation of Bleu Celeste, or possibly for the more prosaic reason of crop failure in Holland, my very late order remained unfilled, and Mr. Van Tubergen substituted for it the Darwin Agneta. This, he assures me, is nearly the color of Bleu Celeste. Alas! unfortunately for me, Agneta blooms after Yellow Rose, thus I may not look for the lovely bands of clear yellow and dull blue which were to have adorned my border in early May. Close to the brick itself are mounds of Myosotis dissiti- flora and Sutton's Royal Blue, an early and a late, while back of these are lines of Alyssum sul- phureum, the hardy one of primrose-yellow. 132 SPRING FLOWER BORDER I count on the Japanese iris as an ally of the English one (though, oddly enough, this was ar- ranged long before war broke out), the latter said to be a delicious shade of pinkish mauve. The cool pink spirea, too, should create a delicate foil for the broad-petalled 7m Kaempferi, and my faint and perhaps foolish hope is that a few forget- me-nots may be tricked into blooming on till iris Mauve Queen shows its color; for of all garden harmonies I dearly love the pale blues and mauves, brilliant blues and deep violets, set over against each other. How charming were the flowers along my little brick walk about the 15th of May ! Myosotis half in bloom, and the soft yellow-green buds of Yellow Rose among and above it; tulip Agneta only ranks of pointed buds back of these. One week later great blooms of yellow tulip (was ever tulip better named?) were in clusters among the myosotis while, above this canary color and blue, Agneta lifted beautiful lilac cups. The effect was indescribably gay and original. Leaves of Iris pallida Dalmatica were now broadening back of the tulips, spirea spreading its delicately cut green and brown-madder foliage between the iris spears, and young peonies repeated these tones 133 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN of spirea leaves in a vigorous row farthest from the walk. The form and habit of Yellow Rose make it a tulip particularly fit for use with myosotis, but its yellow is too strong in tone for the lilac and sky-blue of the other flowers. Moonlight, how- ever, is too near Agneta in height. Perhaps Brim- stone (Safrano) would be the better subject here, but Brimstone blooms earlier than Yellow Rose. In using Brimstone, however, off should go its head so soon as the rose-pink flush begins to show, since that pink would doubtless to some extent interfere with the effect of the three pale colors here desired, blue, yellow, and lavender. An- other suggestion is, as substitute for the Darwin Agneta the use of the fine tulip Gudin, certainly one of the most ravishing of all the Darwin tribe; or of William Copeland (Sweet Lavender), the beauty whose charming portrait was shown in the colored plate with the issue of the "Garden- ers' Chronicle" (English) for November, 1914. Brilliant, telling, as these spring flowers were, running from arch to arch and seen against green lawns, after ten days the picture was yet sweeter, for the yellow tulips' race was run, the myosotis had lifted delicate blue-clad stems in air, and the 134 SPRING FLOWER BORDER Darwin pink-lavender petals were atop of the straightest, tallest of green shafts, so many, so exquisitely erect, that a memory of Velasquez's great canvas "The Lances" flashed into the mind. Blue and lavender, delicious colors near each other, made this walk a place of beauty for days after the yellow tulip blooms had fled. As I have said, this is a beauty of lavender, deep yellow, and pale blue for perhaps two weeks. The early tulip first departs, leaving no void, for the mauve and pale blue then present a picture interesting if more quiet. About the 27th of May tulip petals fall, leaving the myosotis a band of misty blue on either side the walk; and as Ag- neta fades the deep blue-purple Iris Germanica, which has for some days held its shafts of buds closed and ready beside the Darwins, suddenly bursts into great flowers. Unfortunately for my complete satisfaction, there was one of those mis- takes in the identity of roots which must some- times occur in gardens, and only a few of these proved of the variety and the tone required for this setting. There is for a week, the first week of June, a lull. Not, however, uninteresting, for the blue- greens of tulip leaves are still fresh, the iris swords 135 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN are fine to see, and the delicately cut yellow-green of spirea foliage is charming, covering the earth where irises have sprung. Back of these are the young peonies all filled with rounded buds, straight, handsome, and distinct against the smooth-shaven grass beyond the border on either side. July, and the tardy spirea Die Walktire in this border has not flowered yet. Brownish buds are held above every plant and soon there will be bloom. Although there are now no flowers along the walk, the effect of various types of plant foli- age is exceedingly good. Blue-green leaves of Iris pallida Dalmatica rise among all the spireas at regular intervals — to be exact, eighteen irises on either side; back of these, away from the walk, are dark-green peony leaves; toward the walk are lines of drying stems of English iris, pale-gray mounds of the hardy alyssum, which I shall have to confess failed to do well this year, but which shall have another invitation to this spot, next time by means of seed-sowing, not transplanting. In May zinnias in those pale tones I so much fancy were sown among the myosotis leaves; by mid- July they were opening their first flowers; and from that time on, the walk was gay till late 136 SPRING FLOWER BORDER October, the rather shallow roots seeming not in the least to affect the welfare of other subjects near them. The illustration shows them in Sep- tember. Back of these borders of flowers since this description was written have since been set close rows of Spir&a van Houtteii, whose boughs, in time to come, are to be permitted to fall natu- rally on the side away from the walk, but to be kept close-shaven on that toward the flower- borders so that a formal green background may be supplied. To leave the border now for a few generaliza- tions on the flowers of spring and early summer. The blooms of tulip Jubilee are of varying heights, which gives this tulip a peculiar value, even as the twisting of stem in certain gladioli makes them more valuable for some purposes. Avis Kenni- cott, on the other hand, seems to keep the yard- stick always in mind, and her flowers are a regi- ment of golden magnificence. Ordinarily, I should never place Avis Kennicott near Jubilee and La Fiancee, as they are here; nor should I allow Le Reve to neighbor these. The perfect place for Le Reve is in company with Mertensia Virginica alone, as has often been suggested before. Each year this combination grows upon me. 137 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN The effect of sunlight through the cups of La Fiancee and Jubilee as they stand together up a little slope fairly well covered with young hem- lock spruces, is exceedingly nice. The deep violet of Jubilee and rich lavender-rose of La Fiancee make of them excellent comrades in the border. A drift of tall gold flowers stands farther up, and beyond the group of spruces, which are from three to ten feet high, Heloise shines in the picture with one of the tallest and richest of flowers of a fine deep-red. Beyond Heloise comes Herzogin von Hohenberg, of a medium blue-purple tone, a won- derfully valuable color in Darwins, rising from quantities of myosotis; and far up the rise of ground stands a group of tulip Couleur Cardinal. Beyond these again, and to the right, a whole colony of Tulip reirqflexa gleams from among the dark gray-green boughs of hemlock and of young white pine. Two or three years ago some charm- ing pictures in the bulb-list of Messrs. E. H. Kre- lage and Sons, of Haarlem, filled me with a desire to see tulips grown among evergreens. The pic- tures from Holland showed this effectively done for a great flower-show at Haarlem, and it seemed to me that nothing could be more lovely, more striking, too, in effect, than the use of bulbs 138 SPRING FLOWER BORDER among small conifers of formal habit. The true place for daffodils, as we all know, is in spring meadows; but tulips require a less careless han- dling, and, while it is true that I have grown them nearly always in loose groups and masses, I am fast coming to the belief that the tulip, from its own aspect, calls for design in planting. Do not for a moment think that I favor the planting suggestions for tulips found in some of the repre- sentative bulb-lists of America ! Far from it ! Iris Crusader is a magnificent flower. As many as four blooms are open at one time, the lowest a foot below the topmost; for these flowers occur at four places, four angles on the stem. The single flower is a glory, its prevailing tone (Ridgway) a deep bluish-violet. There is some- thing in the spring of the long curves of this flower both in standard and fall which gives it a unique beauty. The brownish pencilling at the top of each fall, the orange-yellow beard which surmounts those charming tones of blue-violet which suffuse the whole, make it a distinguished flower. It is a knight among irises; and, bloom occurring just before the pallida section, it seems to herald a company of nobles of the garden. No flower could bear a fitter name than does this iris; 139 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN whoever named it had a sense of fitness all too rare. The Rembrandt tulip has for the last two or three seasons cast its spell upon me. "America is biting," says an English tulip authority in words better calculated to give pleasure to our friends, the Dutch growers, than to us! Yet this is true: the charm of the Rembrandt is be- ginning to make itself felt in the land. One of the most interesting of this group is Bougainville Duran, the tones of whose markings are (Ridgway) light vinaceous-purple and neutral red — these laid upon a ground of delicious ivory-white. For richness of color and general beauty of appear- ance this is the finest Rembrandt I have seen. Its use below lilacs, especially below a group of young low-flowering bushes, is sure to give pleas- ure — before Toussaint 1'Ouverture, Souvenir de Ludwig Spaeth, those rich red-violets in lilacs, and those bluer ones, President Grevy for instance. Semele is another fine tulip in this class — Ru- cellin-purple, flaked pomegranate-purple. A planting of these four tulips (names below) over or back of a low-flowering plant such as the deep-purple aubrietia, or that new variety which is so warmly commended, Lavender, might make 140 SPRING FLOWER BORDER a good spring picture, the tulips to be Reverend H. Ewbank, Bleu Celeste, Morales, and a very few white ones, such as Innocence or La Candeur. Another plan is to plant well in front of that grand tulip Flava the beautiful lavender Scilla campanulata Excelsior; and between this and the tulip the wonderful mauve iris of about fifteen inches' height, Mrs. Alan Gray. There would be a sight whose loveliness the "scant gray meshes of words" could never catch and show. A fine delicacy of effect this — palest primrose tulip, blue-lavender scilla, and pinkish lavender in the iris blooms. A wondrous new all-yellow iris in the Germanica tribe, named by its originator for Miss C. P. Sher- win, is treasure-trove for the June garden. Aqui- legia chrysaniha in connection with this iris, or groups of the latter planted below the perfect sprays of that perfect rose known as spinosissima, or, for a livelier picture, the new iris before the vivid blue of the anchusa — beauty could not fail the gardener here. The "lily-flowered" tulips just announced from Holland and never yet shown in America will cre- ate great interest here. Sirene, Adonis, Argo, mar- vellous tones of satiny rose, rich rose, golden yel- 141 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN low, salmon-rose, all with the reflexed petals and tall habit of Tulipa retroflexa, will be welcomed with enthusiasm if they prove as beautiful as their just-named parent. 142 XI NOTES ON SOME OF THE NEWER GLADIOLI "In summer a strew of fresh rushes, mint, and gladiolus (that flower so dear to mediaeval eyes) covered the pave- ment with a cool fragrance, while a bough of some green tree or flowering bush filled the hearth." — (From chapter The Mediaeval Country-House), "The Fields of France," MADAME MART DUCLAUX. XI NOTES ON SOME OF THE NEWER GLADIOLI IT is November and all tuberous things, all ten- der bulbs, have been "safely garnered in, ere the winter storms begin." Dahlias are in their sandy nests; gladioli repose in labelled paper bags; tritomas, Galtonias are in dry, cool spots for winter safety. As we work under leafless trees and where noth- ing of green remains save the bright grass and the rich hues of pine and hemlock, the colors impris- oned within each bulb are sure to rise before me. I see again the rainbow of that wonderful exhibit of gladiolus as it was to be seen in Chicago last August; the matchless beauty of such blooms as Niagara and Panama. And I here set down a few notes on the gladiolus made last summer, both at home and away from it. And first let me say that the best recent hap- pening for the lover of this flower, and conse- quently, of course, the best thing for the grower 145 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN of gladiolus in this country, was the formation of the American Gladiolus Society. To all who take serious interest in this flower, I would recom- mend the small monthly publication, "The Mod- ern Gladiolus Grower," published at Calcium, New York, by Mr. Madison Cooper, himself an amateur; this paper is the organ of the American Gladiolus Society, and a very fountainhead of expert information in all matters relating to gladioli. But to the gladiolus itself ! Let me herald first the coming, the glorious coming of the lavender beauty, Badenia by name. No words can paint the beauty of this flower. A true lavender in color, not too blue, its flowers are large, finely expanded, and many open upon the stem at one time. Countless combinations of this with other flowers crowd upon one's vision. Which would be fairer, an arrangement of like colors? Shall we let Badenia open above a mass of well-staked velvet-purple petunia? Or shall we see it rise above quantities of cool-pink Ostrich Plume aster ? Again, we might grow it near palest yellow snap- dragon; or, a more subtle arrangement yet, plan to have it late against Salvia azurea, the junction 146 THE NEWER GLADIOLI of its stems with the ground masked by rippling mounds of Phlox Drummondii, var. lutea. All pale yellows and buffs, all rich purples, all blues which are almost turquoise, rise to the mind as I think of the delicious pictures easily created with this noble gladiolus. Badenia has but one serious de- fect, its price is very high. To remedy that con- dition let us wish it the Arab wish: "May its tribe increase." Now for the glorious pair Niagara and Panama. Niagara shall have the first word. Niagara is quite worthy of several descriptions. I therefore give first its commercial one, prefacing that by the fact that it has already secured three honors from horticultural societies, including one from the American Gladiolus Society. "In type," says its originator, "the variety resembles America, but the flowers appear to be somewhat larger, meas- uring four and one-half inches across. In color the flowers are a delightful cream shade, with the two lower inside petals or segments blending to ca- nary-yellow. The flower spike is very erect and stout and is wrapped with broad dark-green foliage." Now, to be exact in my own color description of this flower, Niagara is of the tone known as 147 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN Naples yellow (color chart, Jaune de Naples No. 2). Deep in its throat are lines of faintest lilac (color chart, Rose lilace No. 4). These, however, do not in the least interfere with the general effect of palest yellow or cream given by the whole fine flower. Two combinations of Niagara with other flow- ers flew to my mind, as I held this beauty in my hand. Phlox E. Danzanvilliers back of it, agera- tum Stella Gurney below and in front. The phlox can be made to hold its bloom for some time — the ageratum, as we know, is incessant. Again, nothing lovelier, thought I, than Niagara with salpiglossis of that dark velvety mahogany known as Faust; or below phlox Von Hochberg. The color at the base of the gladiolus, slight though it is, is very little lighter than the wine-purple of this phlox itself. Lovely, too, should Niagara be with all-lavender hardy asters, especially with that of the barren name of James Ganly. Panama, a sister of Niagara, was the third cap- tivator of the gladiolus show. I here declare, speaking with all possible calmness, that it is the softest and most charming tone of pronounced rose-pink I have ever noticed in a flower. It makes one think of roses, of the best roses, par- 148 THE NEWER GLADIOLI ticularly of Mrs. John Laing, and while I have never fancied the idea which obtains here and there of growing gladioli among roses, because of the leggy look of both roses and gladioli at their best, yet, if it must be done, Panama is the flower to place in our rose-beds ! The pink of Panama is that called mauve-rose (color chart, Rose malvace No. 2). Almost invisible markings there are, deep in its throat, of purple-carmine (Carmin pourpre No. 2). A setting of lyme grass, Elymus arenarius, is suggested, with perhaps, near by, a few blooms of the new decussata phlox of luscious pink, Elizabeth Campbell. While the phlox is lighter in tone than the gladiolus, the pinks are of precisely the same type, for I have compared the living flowers. Verbena Dolores might fur- nish the base of this planting to charming ad- vantage. With the older gladioli, Peace, Dawn, and Afterglow, we have a sextet of what seemed to me the most beautiful of the newer gladioli, America excepted, but America is now established. It will be noticed, too, that I am far too modest to describe my own beautiful namesake, but I own to such a prejudice in favor of this flower and its brilliant and unmatchable flame-pink, that I could 149 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN not under the circumstances write dispassionately of it. The above-mentioned sextet, then, I would say, comprises several of the newer varieties of gladiolus whose interesting color and fine form fit them particularly fcr garden groupings of orig- inality and charm. Of other fine varieties I shall presently speak, but these are really marvellous for beauty. One has but to see them to feel ideas for placing them, flocking softly to one's brain. Next year, oh, next year! It is impossible to overpraise the cool elegance of gladiolus Peace. Its flowers are milky-white (color chart, Blanc de lait No. 1) with well-defined nar- row stripes on the lower petals, far back in the throat, of rosy magenta (color chart, Magenta rougeatre No. 1). The variety is said to be un- surpassed for cutting, as the flowers keep well in water, and buds will open the entire length of the spike. Peace is surely the noblest white gladiolus. Its large flower, the slender violet markings so well within the throat that there is hardly an effect of color, gives one the impression of a pure white spike of bloom which had once looked upon an evening sky. Two gladioli with charmingly suggestive names 150 THE NEWER GLADIOLI are Dawn and Afterglow. Dawn, the lovely and poetic both in name and in look, has for its gen- eral color salmon-carmine (color chart, Carmin saumone No. 1). In my own tongue I should call this flower suffused with delicate coral-pink — the buds like the palest coral from Naples — these buds, too, gracefully drooping with a large softness peculiarly their own. Dawn — what sug- gestion in the name! Dawn rising among well- established groups of the Japanese anemones Whirlwind or Beaute Parfaite; Dawn with the salmon-pink geranium Beaute Poitevine; Dawn in conjunction with Niagara — all these are sure to prove arrangements to charm one's eye in mid- summer. There is a salmon-pink balsam above which Dawn might be enchanting. Afterglow greatly caught my fancy. In general tone it is a flesh-pink (color chart, Rose carne No. 4), with throat markings, very apparent, lilac-purple (chart, Fuchsine No. 4). A rich salmon of generally the same tone in all its flowers would be my own description of it. Taconic I had opportunity to observe closely last August; its general color is mauve-rose (Rose malvace No. 2), though the flakes of white very finely distributed over the prevailing tone make 151 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN it difficult to exactly place the color. Its mark- ings are of carmine-purple (Pourpre carmine No. 3), slim, narrow lines. The effect of the flower was of a beautiful warm pink flaked and feath- ered with white, as in a Breeder tulip; the mark- ings, however, much more delicate. Philadelphia and Evolution come next to mind; the former in color mauve-rose (chart, Rose mal- vace No. 1), clear pale rose-pink tone, fine form, a wide, large flower with sharp, narrow markings in the throat, of carmine-purple (chart, Pourpre carmine No. 3). Evolution's prevailing tone is mauve-rose (chart, Rose malvace No. 1, flaked with No. 4 on the same plate, and with dark old- rose — chart, Rose brule No. 3). The anthers of this pair of lovely gladioli, with their pale-pink tones — the anthers are of the shade called bluish lilac (Lilas bleuatre No. 1) — give genuine distinc- tion to these flowers. Gladiolus Rosella is a lovely thing. In its main tone carmine-purple (chart, Pourpre car- mine No. 1, with its throat markings No. 3 on the same plate), the effect is of a huge flower of rich orchid-like pink, very beautiful, a very open, spreading flower. Rosella above ageratum Stella Gurney cannot fail to be a success in color plant- 152 THE NEWER GLADIOLI' ings; Rosella below Salvia azurea, with the an- nual pink mallow near by; and, last, Rosella with Baron Hulot, that small-flowered but ever-needed gladiolus of the color known as bishop's violet (chart, Violet ev£que No. 4). I am myself minded to grow Baron Hulot in the midst of ageratum Stella Gurney — precisely as one lets a colony of tulips appear above forget-me-not; and Baron Hulot would be also most perfect among the fine creamy flowers of chrysanthemum Garza. With a few very short descriptions I have done. Senator Volland is an interesting flower, the gen- eral tone of its petals bright violet (chart, Violet de campanule No. 1). Blotches of amaranth (chart, Amarante No. 4), with yellow-white spaces below these, occur on the inferior petals, with a lovely mottling of the amaranth on these lower petals as well. "Bright violet" does not describe the color of this flower to me as well as pale cool lavender, with richer lavender or purple on the throat, flakes of a true cream color upon the purple. Canary-bird, with its clear light yellow (no visible markings of any other color), is most charming in combination with Senator Volland. And the Senator again might stand to great ad- vantage before tall groups of Physostegia Virginica, 153 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN var. rosea, the soft rosy false dragon's-head. The color of Canary-bird on the chart is sulphur-yel- low (Jaune soufre No. 1). Isaac Buchanan may not be a new gladiolus but it was new to me — a lemon-flaked soft pink, the flakes giving a charming effect. The flower is not large, but rare in color, and above Phlox Drummondii, var. lutea, an interesting effect should be got. Snowbird is a lovely white with pinkish- violet slender markings in the throat; La Luna, a soft creamy white with a very clearly defined marking of richest Pompeiian red on the throat; California, a pinkish lavender gladiolus, is an ex- cellent color for use with America; Princess Al- tiere, a very large pure white with royal-purple markings on the lower petals; and Independence, a magnificent salmon-pink, very light in tone, re- minding me in a general way of the fine old Wil- liam Falconer, but far and away better in type — every gladiolus named here is to me worth getting and growing. I emphatically advise the buying of small quan- tities of these bulbs as a starter, as one would with fine tulips; the careful labelling, staking, comparing with other flowers differing in form, color, and habit but blooming simultaneously; and, 154 THiE NEWER GLADIOLI most necessary of all, the note-making in one's little book — that little book which should never be in the house when the gardener is in the garden ! I was greatly interested to learn that florists pre- fer for cutting in some cases, the gladiolus whose stems are allowed to bend and twist as they bloom. A hint of this kind may be valuable for some of us who grow this superb flower mainly to put about our houses. It is easy to see the agreeable variety of line afforded for such purposes by the gladiolus which has not been strictly staked. On going over what has been said, I marvel at my attempt to write on the glories of this special flower. I have, in the first place, left out so many beauties, such for instance as Sulphur King, Mrs. Frank Pendleton, Jr. (bright rose-pink, a little deeper toward centre of the flower, the lower petals blotched with carmine — so remarkable that a connoisseur writes of it: "Mrs. Pendleton is in bloom, has a five-foot stalk with twenty flowers and a smaller offshoot with twelve; it is simply magnificent"), William Falconer, America, Kunderd's Glory — there are dozens which should come into any writing in connection with this flower. No flower of the garden proves more irre- 155 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN sistible to me than this. Its lovely perpendicular line first, lily like, irislike; then its truly pris- matic range of exquisite color. No wonder that hybridizers in Holland, France, Germany, Great Britain, and this country have been earnestly working now for years upon so beautiful a sub- ject, or that amateur hybridizers are beginning to crop out in our own land. The cultivation of the gladiolus is so exceed- ingly simple; the results so wonderfully reward- ing; the color effects so certain of accomplish- ment with flowers which come as true to type and color as these; there is everything to praise in this flower, no check to the imagination when forming one's summer plans with lists of it by one's side. Gardens of enchantment might easily be created by the careful use of two annuals such as dark heliotrope, ageratum Stella Gurney, and the lavender, cool, pink, and palest-yellow gladi- olus, mentioned in these pages. A mistake of judgment would be almost impossible with these materials in hand. 150 XII MIDSUMMER POMPS *Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with his homely cottage smell, And stocks in fragrant blow; Roses that down the alleys shine afar, And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, And groups under the dreaming garden-trees, And the full moon, and the white evening star." — MATTHEW ARNOLD. XII MIDSUMMER POMPS A! I sat in my garden one fine evening in late June of the year just gone, my eye wandered over near-by heads of pale-pink peonies, and beyond other white ones, to a distant corner where a rather unusual color effect had appeared. At the back of this flower group was a tall dark-blue del- phinium, name unknown; to the right stood the charming one La France, its round flowerets set thickly and evenly up the stem, their general tone a pale pinkish-mauve. Directly below La France the fingered stems of the lovely perennial foxglove, Digitalis ambigua, were to be seen. Be- side the buff foxglove masses of the purple-blue Campanula persicifolia, erect and delicate, had place, and the foremost flowers of the group were gay single pyrethrums, with a high light in the presence of a few of the common white daisies. In the warm evening light the flowers seemed to take on a new aspect. The blue of the tall lark- spur spires had acquired a translucent quality; 159 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN the little Annchen Mueller roses set thick against opening gypsophila glowed like rubies; the great white peonies flushed in the setting sun till one might fancy that Festiva maxima had magically become that beauty of beauties in peonies, Ma- dame Emile Galle. A few particularly fine delphiniums have this year attained special perfection in the garden, in better shades of light blue than any before seen here, except perhaps for the blue of the old fa- vorite Cantab and the fine Madame Violet Geslin which a year ago was a revelation. La France, elsewhere described, gave great delight. Kelway's Lovely was remarkable for its overlaid petals of palest blue and palest lavender. The beauteous Persimmon, too, was there; its color so truly sky-blue that when a flower was held against the heavenly canopy of a fine summer's day, it seemed to disappear, to melt into its own hue. One could wish that handsome spring-blooming thing, muscari Heavenly Blue, relieved of its present ill-fitting name and the pretty title bestowed in- stead upon delphinium Persimmon. This it in very truth describes. One of those discerning friends who send de- tails of flowers seen afar off, wrote from England 160 DELPHINIUM LA FRANCE, CAMPANULA PERSICIFOLIA, DIGITALIS AMBIGUA AND PYRETHRUM MIDSUMMER POMPS the first news of the two delphiniums shown facing page 164; these were prize-winning flowers at the Holland House show of 1913, and first shown in 1908. On the left is a marvellous spike of palest sky-blue and lavender Statuaire Rude. The enormous size of the flowerets and the man- ner in which they range themselves loosely up the stem, joined to a rare beauty in soft color tones, give this delphinium a peculiar distinction. In the Alake, at the right of illustration, petals of the richest blue are overlaid by others of richest vio- let, affording an effect entirely unique and entirely sumptuous: delightful to record, the flower is named for an Indian potentate! The celebrated "what" that's in a name never troubles me so much as in this matter of flower nomenclature. Most women gardeners who are readers, too, are sensitive to the fitness of flower names. I have been ever averse to the naming of flowers for in- dividuals, unless the individual so honored shall have rendered some service to horticulture. In the terminations "Willmotti," "Sargentii," and other such, we rejoice; similarly in "nigella Miss Jekyll," "peony Baroness Schroeder"; these bring most properly and with a certain mental stimulus to our recollection those whose gardens, whose 161 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN scientific knowledge, or whose writings have been of world-wide value to the gardening public. But I could not bring myself to buy a Japanese iris yclept Hobart J. Park — no, not unless some ac- count of Mr. Park, his tastes and his doings, should accompany his name in the plant list. Nor do I find the name of J. G. Slack peculiarly inviting when attached to one of that same poetic tribe of iris. Do seedsmen name flowers for good cus- tomers ? I mightily fear it ! Names, to be per- fection, should first carry some descriptive qual- ity, and next they should be words of beauty. Many examples might be given: Dawn, most aptly fit for the lovely pale-pink gladiolus which it adorns; Capri (a name, of course, to conjure with), a true felicity as a name for a delphinium of a rav- ishing tone of sky-blue; Eyebright, for that won- drous daffodil with scarlet centre; Bonfire, for the salvia's burning reds; Lady Gay, the happiest hit in names for that sweet little rose which will dance anywhere in the sun and wind of June. A sight most lovely is, of a summer's evening, to see Delphinium Moerheimi lifting its white spires of flowers against a green background of shrub- bery with a blue mist of sea-holly below it, and in the foreground, rising from gypsophila masses, MIDSUMMER POMPS other spires of richest rose-pink hollyhock. White and lavender phloxes in the middle distance add to the charm of this picture. Tapis Blanc, and Antonin Mercie, and the little dark balls of box- trees, and the blooming standard Conrad F. Meyer roses with their formal flavor, are agreeable acces- sories, really enhancing the beauty of the freer flower masses. As each summer appears and waxes, I think I have found the companion for sea-holly. One year it was phlox Coquelicot or its brilliant brother R. P. Struthers; another year phlox Pantheon was my favorite for the honor; while last year I was entirely captivated by the effect of the an- nual Statice bonduelli, primrose or canary-yellow, with the blue-gray eryngium. But this season a large group of the sea-hollies chanced to bloom beside another group of pentstemon, and a happy alliance it was, quite the happiest of all. The brilliant color of the pentstemon, Pentstemon bar- bolus Torreyii, found its perfect concomitant in the cloudy blues of the eryngium, and the two to- gether formed a satisfying spectacle. This pent- stemon, not one of the newer hybrids, I also liked for use in the house, especially when rising from bowlfuls of the creamy heads of Hydrangea 163 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN arborescens; the effect, a severe contrast, was good. The pentstemon is a trifle too near scarlet to be welcome in my garden — it must remain without the gate; but in gayer gardens than mine it should always have place. Lovely it would surely be above mounds of cream-white zinnias in full bloom with a sweet pea like Barbara rising back of the pentstemon. Sea-holly ! I could sing its praises for pages ! Sea-holly has never seemed to me to find its per- fect companion for cutting until, in the trial gar- den, acquaintance was luckily made with the an- nual Statice sinuata bonduelli. Statice incana has here been known and loved; Statice latifolia, that beautiful violet statice which ladies buy on Edin- burgh streets; but Statice bonduelli, with its deli- cate yellow blooms, became in a day a prime favor- ite. The loveliness of its foot-high branching stems covered with tiny canary-yellow flowers, when cut and held against the bluish sea-holly, can hardly be imagined. Gypsophila paniculata, the double variety, is good with the two, but possibly the pair are best alone. For out-of-door effect the statice should not be overlooked; though its stems are rather sparse, its leaves entirely basal, it is nevertheless a treasure, and a charming result 164 DELPHINIUMS THE ALAKE AND 8TATUAIRE RUDE MIDSUMMER POMPS occurs when the later mauve variety blooms, with many heads of a new pale-yellow centaurea gently forcing their way to the sun through the tiny lavender statice blossoms. Gladiolus primulinus hybrids are a delight to the "garden soul." Exquisite soft tones of pale yellow with now and again some spikes of a pale flame-pink, they are most lovely as they grow, while for cutting, used with Statice bonduelli and the double gypsophila, nothing could be more attractive. Add to your arrangement of these flowers a cluster of that enchanting sweet pea, Sterling Stent, you shall rejoice in what you have created. Sterling Stent! I betray a valuable gardening secret when I tell of him. His color, according to the French chart, is Laque de Ga- rance from 1 to 4 with occasional tones of Rouge peche 4. Beautiful beyond description is he, and he f adeth not in sun ! And now a word concerning a certain double rose-colored annual poppy, a poppy which has become a rose-pink essential to this garden. One of Sutton's hollyhocks, a double pink of the exact tone of these poppies (chart, all shades of Rose Nilsson), has made a picture here and there, lifting its tall stems set with rich pink bosses of rosy 165 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN petals above the rounding gypsophilas in whose lacy masses some poppies softly bloom. So like are the poppies to the individual hollyhock flowers that it is as if some of the former had whimsically decided to grow along a hollyhock stalk. If one were to try for this effect, a new gladiolus, Display, should be freely used within the range of vision here; and the beauteous sea-holly would again prove its high garden value if groups should be set in this picture. Among the pink poppies I very much fancy the white platycodon, P. grandi- florum album; the pearly tone of these flowers charming with the gay poppy-blooms, and the platycodon's smooth pointed cups affording an interesting contrast to the other's soft fulness of fringed silk. Gladiolus Display among sea-holly could not but be excellently effective. It is a gladiolus of rare beauty. Let us not pass by the Oriental poppy in our consideration of the flowers of the poppy tribe. In the latitude of Boston the fresh pale-green tufts of the former may be discovered in early April, a heartening and lovely sight as the last snows of winter are vanishing before the spring sun. These have formed in the previous autumn, but this perennial has a constitution to withstand 166 MIDSUMMER POMPS the severest of winters. Here is a flower which does well in any good garden soil, though sunlight is its prime necessity. Equally vital to its well- doing is its transplanting when dormant in August or September, or so I used to think. I know now, after some experimenting, that the Oriental poppy can be safely moved in spring as well. Until two years ago, when some of the varieties of this flower of recent introduction were revealed to me, I was ignorant of the development of the flower. "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken." Princess Victoria Louise, the huge bloom of a delicious rosy-salmon hue, was a sensation. One who enjoys the delicate suggestion of thin flame should stand before this flower transported with delight. And now the list of Bertrand H. Farr, of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, gives us no less than thirty varieties of Oriental poppies in only five of which the word "scarlet" enters into the descriptions. All the rest verge upon the salmon, apricot, amaranth, and deep-mulberry shades. The lighter colors of these newer poppies are, as has been suggested, very like those of the Shirley poppy, and how remarkable to find in the larger, 167 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN stronger, and more enduring flowers the charming color characteristics of that poppy, whose one defect is its ephemeral quality! From a color-plate in the list of the plantsman just mentioned a very beautiful combination of poppies should be got by using the rich amaranth Mahony, described as "deep mahogany-maroon," but which I should call a blackish mulberry, with Rose Queen, a fine satiny rose-pink. The revolu- tion in color in these poppies transforms them at once into subjects of the greatest interest for the formal or informal garden, the garden which pre- cludes the use of scarlet, orange, or any deep yellow. The rich darkness of Mahony would be a heavenly sight with the Dropmore anchusa ris- ing back of it, but for real nobility of effect the two should be used alone. Some plants seem a bit dull in their beginnings; not so with this, for from the first the lovely form and curve of each leaf is apparent, aside from the fresh yellow-green of the leaf-group. To fill the wide spaces of earth which should occur between plants destined for so rapid and so large a growth, tulips are suggested; to follow the poppy bloom and act again as a ground cover, seed of salpi- glossis sown early, or of tall marigold, whose foli- 168 MIDSUMMER POMPS age and bloom will in August and September seem to be the only inhabitants of this part of the border or the garden. If the objection be raised that the poppy leaves must shade such seeds in May and June, I reply that it is easy so to stake aside a leaf or two of the poppy in many places as to allow the sun full access to the little seedlings of annuals. Shall I be forgiven for returning to the subject of sea-lavenders, or statices, for a moment ? Seeds of several varieties started under glass not only made a pretty effect in rows but became a ne- cessity for cutting. The variety bonduelli already mentioned was tried for the first time, taken on faith and the word of Sutton & Sons. It found favor at once. Statice sinuata, mauve, came true to its name, bearing pale-mauve flowers in what might be called tiny boughs or branches about a foot from the ground. Statice sinuata Mauve proved to be of many lovely tones of pale mauve, bluish mauve, and cream-white. But, oh, the pale-yel- low variety, S. sinuata bonduelli, again ! In this we have almost a primrose-yellow Gypsophila pa- niculata for the making delicate of our bowls and jars of July flowers. One should see it with sea- holly. On its fitness for use with Gladiolus primu- 169 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN linus hybrids I have already dwelt; indeed, there is hardly one flower whose beauty it might not enhance. And then — amusing to me who dislike dried flowers for decorative uses — the texture of all these statices is like that of tissue-paper. Draw the finger lightly across their flower clusters when in full bloom and hear the soft rustle of them ! Statice bonduelli against brown-seeding gypsophila, the single, with the great orange lily, Lilium superbum, is exceedingly good in effect because of the yellow-green of the statice and of the lily-buds. The decorative value of seeds ripe, but not too ripe, is seldom dwelt upon, but I can assure the reader that the three things mentioned make together a most lovely planting for early August and are equally beautiful when cut. It may be of interest to set down here a brief account of trials of some newer gladioli, only of those which made themselves uncommonly wel- come. In Display, mentioned above as a fine neighbor for the rose-colored poppy, I noticed a flower of very beautiful form — a broad, well- opened flower of most decided character and good looks; on its outer petals is a suffusion of Rose begonia No. 1, deepening toward the outer edges to Rose vieux No. 2. The anthers bore a dis- 170 MIDSUMMER POMPS tinct lavender tone, and a fine cream-white on the lower petals of the gladiolus connected the darker shades of rose above and below it. The marvellous Mrs. Frank Pendleton I also saw a year since for the first time, and this was an experience apart. The flower, a broad, finely opened one of white, carried petals all flushed to- ward the tips with Rose malvace; the markings of lower petals were of extraordinary richness and depth of color. In chart colors the nearest to this tone was Rouge carombier No. 4, but the plate was really neither dark nor velvety enough. Rouge Andrinople No. 1 is the tone of these large oval markings. Mrs. Pendleton is a gladi- olus in a thousand, and its American origin should be a matter for pride to all in this country who cherish their gardens. The longer I garden, the more deeply do I prize all flowers in tones of violet or deep, rich purple. We need more such as foils for paler colors, yes, and for richer too. The Buddleia is a garden godsend and, pleasant to record, is rapidly becom- ing better known. The grace of its habit, the charming lavenders and purples of its flowery racemes, not to mention its gray-green foliage and its absolutely constant bloom make it already of 171 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN value high and wide. At the thought of the vio- let gladioli the vision of those enchanting wreaths of lavender held out from every Buddleia plant floats before my too imaginative eye. The illus- tration shows a group of Buddleias blooming above gladiolus America, which in its turn is grown among hardy French chrysanthemums partly for support from the latter, partly for succession of bloom in the trial garden. Phcebus, Nuage, Abyssine, Colibri, and Satel- lite are the lavender or violet flowers I would now name. The first, possessed of long, narrow petals, whose general tone is of Violet de campanule No. 2, has markings on the inferior petals of Violet vineux No. 3. These markings are long, pointed blotches terminating in spaces of tenderest creamy yellow; the whole a very handsome flower of the hooded type. In Nuage the throat markings are of Violet rougeatre No. 4, turning below to Violet petunia No. 3 ; the petals are of a grayish lavender, Violet franc No. 1. Abyssine is a small gladiolus whose general tone is Violet prune No. 4 ; a flower one would not be without, so velvet-soft, so won- derful in color. Baron Hulot has long been indis- pensable to us all; Abyssine ranks with Baron Hulot. 172 BUDDLEIA VARIABILIS MAGNIFICA, WHITE ZINNIA BELOW MIDSUMMER POMPS Colibri is a flower of many lovely tones of mauve and violet, not large but in color unique. On its three inner petals are narrow central mark- ings of yellowish cream. The dark edges of the petals are of Violet pourpre No. 1 ; a lighter tone is seen toward the centre, though all is so veined and touched with mauve and violet as to be difficult to describe. Satellite is the last of this dark-hued list. Here the general tone is Violet prune No. 4 relieved by tones of Amarante in all its shades in the chart. Two perfectly rounded lower petals of Violet pen- see No. 4 give an astonishing beauty to the flower. In my notes concerning it I find this entry: "No gladiolus to compare with this," coupled with an admonition to myself to grow it with delphinium Mrs. J. S. Brunton, or, for a richer effect, among or beyond the tall phlox Goliath. For those who would know accurately the color of the delphin- ium just mentioned, I may add that the first two shades of Bleu de cobalte factice exactly represent its petal colors, while its eye is white tinged with canary-yellow and palest lavender. Yet another gladiolus, the last; and this is of those lasts which shall be firsts, for it is a giant in size of flower and height of stem — a superb 173 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN addition to the ranks of gladioli. London is its imposing name. In color almost the counterpart of America, its cool pink eminently fits it for use with the beautiful lavender gladiolus Badenia. The flowers of the two are of almost equal size, measuring four inches on each side of the triangle made by the petals; and they are quite ravishing together. Badenia, the purple verbena Dolores, and that charming hardy phlox Braga used to- gether in a garden should make a most happy color arrangement. Gladiolus Satellite, too, is exceedingly good with phlox Goliath. I spoke just now of verbena Dolores. To be explicit as to its color, it has over its fine trusses or panicles of bloom the darker shades of Bleu d' aniline, but the flower is much darker than No. 4 of this shade, and has that velvety texture which gives the dark verbenas a richness possessed only by the darkest snapdragons. In the trial garden a few new hardy phloxes as- serted themselves last year: two or three dozen planted in the spring of the year before rose in their might the second season and sent forth glo- rious trusses of flowers to proclaim their presence. A first cousin in color to the lovely Elizabeth Campbell, and very beautiful with it, is Rhyn- 174 MIDSUMMER POMPS strom, a recent acquaintance. Rhynstrom has a wonderfully large floweret of a delicious pink; per- fect it is before phlox Pantheon, as it is dwarf and of a tone of rose to positively accentuate the loveliness of the taller of the two. Baron von Dedem has decidedly the most dazzling hue of all phloxes. Its opening flowers are nearly if not quite as brilliant as Coquelicot in full bloom, and the expanse of its great blossoms makes it in the garden a far more telling phlox than the latter. Widar and Braga, two beauties in themselves, lend themselves well to use as foregrounds for the taller lavender phloxes E. Danzanvilliers and Antonin Mercie, again needing to complete the picture that good verbena Dolores. Phlox Braga is en- trancing with ageratum Stella Gurney and with the same humble but most useful annual, Widar, discreetly used, may afford an effect as subtle as it is lovely. The recent vogue of lavender in all sorts of feminine accessories is known to us all. There is in this hue a certain refinement, a charm, which makes it a special favorite for the woman no longer young. Can it be, I wonder, that the sug- gestion is taken unconsciously from Nature's own use of the tone in the waning of summer, from 175 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN those flowers which embroider the roadsides with lavender-purple in September — aster, ironweed, the tall liatris? Be this or not a foolish fancy, there is no flower of more value and of greater beauty in the September garden than the Bud- dleia. It is at every stage of growth most lovely, and in its fulness of bloom a thing to marvel at. For an autumn picture, set the variety known as Magnifica back of phlox Antonin Mercie (in its second bloom, all first flowers having been cut immediately upon passing), with masses of green- white zinnias also in the foreground. Phlox Jeanne d'Arc, the tall late white, creates a beau- tiful background for these Buddleias, the graceful lavender plumes of the latter very delicate against the round white mounds of the phlox trusses. Mr. E. H. Wilson, an authority upon Buddleias as well as upon all other Chinese plants, shrubs, and trees, suggests the planting of Sorbaria arborea and its varieties by the brook or pond side in com- bination with Buddleia. "The effect is every- thing the most fastidious could wish for." Also in mid-September, a great group of flow- ers then in perfection in the trial garden gave ex- cellent suggestion for a planned planting. This, altogether a happening in arrangement, was seen 176 MIDSUMMER POMPS against a trellis covered with leaves of the vine. Close against the green stood in slender dignity a group of blooming Helianthus orgyalis, Miss Mellish, ten feet tall, its blooms of clear yellow shining against the upper blue. Below the Helian- thus, Sutton's Dwarf Primrose sunflower raised its pale-yellow heads with dark-brown centres, the yellow-green leaves forming a spreading back- ground for tall white zinnias arrayed in groups below. The semi-dwarf lavender phlox Antonin Mercie, with fragrant creamy-white Acidanthera bi- color before it, made the foreground of this picture, and those who would have tones in flowers ranging from pure chrome-yellow through primrose to lav- ender and cream-white will do well to plan this simply made and satisfying group. Introduce a few hardy asters such as James Ganly, with a bit of low-growing verbena Dolores in the extreme foreground, and a delicacy of form and a rich color accent, too, are at once added to such a scheme as this. To return to midsummer flowers — three brief suggestions and I have done. A rich royal-purple Antirrhinum, Purple King by name, was excellent when cut, with Statice bonduelli; the new giants of double zinnias, rose-colored ones only, were 177 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN permitted to show their stout heads among the early-flowering white cosmos, the dwarf variety; and more lovely even than these was the picture before touched upon of pearly-white platycodon with fluffy heads of the double rose-pink poppy encompassing it about. These arrangements may strike the expert flower gardener as too common- place to be entertained. I offer them as points of departure and already think with satisfaction of the loveliness that may spring from them in better hands than mine. 178 XIII GARDEN ACCESSORIES "Mary, my dear, I am very particular about my baskets. If ever I lend you my diamonds and you lose them I may forgive you — I shall know that was an accident; but if I lend you a basket and you don't return it, don't look me in the face again." — "Mary's Meadow," J. H. EWINQ. XIII GARDEN ACCESSORIES AS the pen to the writer, as the brush to the •**• painter, so the trowel to the gardener! This implement must be right — must be, to its user, perfect. The trowel, for my own hand, is an English one bought long ago in London and whose like I have never seen for sale in this coun- try. It formed a part of the furnishing of the Vickery Garden Basket shown in the illustration, and is a small, slender tool. It may be that every gardener is ready to declare that he or she has the perfect trowel. Be this as it is, mine has stood me in good stead for nearly fifteen years, bright all that time with use. Its dimensions are a bit unusual. The length of the trowel is over all thirteen inches, of the blade six and three-quar- ters. This blade is unusually narrow, only two inches from edge to edge of curving blade. Handle and blade are set at a slight angle to each other and excellent leverage thus secured. My trowel dwells resplendent in a pigskin 181 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN sheath. No player of the violin, after finishing with his instrument, ever unscrews his bow or covers the violin itself with more care than that with which I wipe my trowel and replace it in its leathern home. So necessary has my trowel become to me that I am even now lending it as a model to a manufacturer of tools; and my hope is that trowels of this type may soon find their way into the hands of all those who feel with me that without perfection here the work must languish. The Vickery Garden Basket, mentioned above, is as convenient as such a thing may be. Fitted garden baskets, however, are apt to be unsuited to individual needs. Either they contain articles useless to their owner or they lack the things he cannot do without. Twelve or thirteen dollars, according to a writer in "The Garden Magazine," will supply the ama- teur with all tools absolutely necessary for his garden; and this is based upon the use of the best in tools, not the cheapest. The bill becomes higher when one begins to add to these necessaries little expediters and simplifiers of garden work; but if such additions are made only occasionally the financial strain cannot be severely felt. Thus, 182 GARDEN ACCESSORIES for instance, wall nails with the short, sharp point and the lead arm so easily bent are wonderful first aids for the putting up of ramblers or of such creepers as Euonymus radicans, which seldom seems inclined to take hold of a wall of its own motion. There is the fascinating tool known as "cueille-fleurs" which a dear traveller once brought to me from France, and which is, I think, now ob- tainable in this country. A rod about a yard in length has at its farther end small scissors which cut and hold a flower, and these are opened and closed by a small arrangement in the handle of the rod. Designed for reaching into a wide border or up above one's head, this is a useful addition to gardening aids. Raffia tape on a spool, with a hook which may be caught in a belt or button- hole, is something which it is delightful to find at one's hand, and verbena pins of galvanized wire are resources which one appreciates as ver- benas commence to throw about their branching stems in June. A small steel finger-cover I have often used for light cultivation around small lesser plants; and in our gardening those stout paper bags in which the Dutch bulbs come are never thrown out, but kept for bulbs of gladioli which must be sorted into their varieties at the 183 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN very time when spring-flowering bulbs go into the ground. Those three-piece sets of garden tools — rake, hoe, and spade — known as ladies' sizes are not only constantly in my own hand, but are evidently regarded with some favor by those members of the sterner sex whose business it is to keep the garden trim. These tools have small heads, but handles of the regulation length, and far be it from me to find fault if the little neatnesses of the gar- den can be best maintained by the use of these ladies' sizes. Without the Capitol Lawn Edger, a marvel of a little six-inch lawn-mower going rapidly about on one wheel, we could not garden. "The tyr- anny of the grass edge," as Miss Jekyll calls it, loses some of its severity when this small edger is at hand. Only one going over of an edge with scissors is ever necessary after these little knives, carried along by their one little wheel, have shaved the turf finely and evenly at the edge of walk or bed. In labels an ingenious thing from England has lately presented itself. This is shown in the illustration of the Vickery Garden Basket, ris- ing from one edge of the basket. It consists of 184 GARDEN ACCESSORIES a stout wire so bent as to hold the somewhat shield-shaped wooden name-piece which swings from it. The label has these advantages over the average slender wooden ones which are thrust into the ground, that it is far enough above the earth to be kept clean, that one does not have to bend so low to read it, and that it is really more readily seen than the accustomed type. At a recent convention of florists' societies, accom- panied by a show of flowers growing, the labels used were very favorably mentioned. Painted grass-green, they were lettered in white, and, while names were particularly clear, the labels them- selves were exceedingly unobtrusive. Not that the flower enthusiast ever objects to the presence of labels; no, it is too often their absence which he has to deplore. Half the pleasure in a fine garden lies in an acquaintance with the correct names of its plant inhabitants. To be sure, these labels, as Mr. Bowles somewhere plaintively re- marks, at times become tombstones. Even then, how much better to have loved, learned the name, and lost than never to have loved at all. Two sets of the widely used Munstead baskets, whose picture is shown herewith, have hardly suf- ficed me during the last twenty years, and these 185 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN are now weakening under continuous use. In these sets or nests there are three baskets — or really one might call them willow trays with handles — and better gathering baskets for flowers I never hope to find. They carry the name of Miss JekylTs place and were designed by her. The sweet-pea basket shown is somewhat on the order of the Munstead basket, but the handle is higher and the pointed steel rod, by means of which the whole may stand upright in the ground, is the addition which makes this of peculiar use. A sweet-pea basket it is called, and I can testify heartily to its garden value. Two bowl-shaped baskets of split bamboo have been my compan- ions in the garden for many years, light, capacious, convenient, and very beautiful to send about the neighborhood filled with flowers. Especially do I recall their lovely appearance when holding Clarkia of that most charming type known as Sutton's Salmon Queen. These bamboo bowls are Japa- nese. From Japan, too, come the small brown baskets (of which we have no picture) with arching handles entirely made of twigs woven roughly to- gether; little boat-shaped things these, and when filled in April with crocus, scilla, and Iris reticu- lata, they are like entrancing bits of woodland 186 THE TROWEL, THE LABEL, AND VARIOUS BASKETS GARDEN ACCESSORIES brought within doors. From some Chinese mis- sion station came the nest of bucket-shaped bas- kets woven of coarsely split strips of an unfamiliar wood and stained dark brown. These are, I understand, beyond our getting now; I shall, therefore, not describe them further than to say that their shape and lightness have combined to make them indispensable. And last, the little straw plates woven in North Carolina of a native grass are most desirable additions to garden fur- nishings, light, convenient, perfect for a few apples or clusters of grapes, and precisely what is needed when seedlings are to be transplanted, their tray- like proportions fitting them specially for carrying such objects as must all be seen at once. A clever little garden accessory has lately come to hand. This is called the Crossroads Bulb Planter. It is a light, round, wooden stake of some thirteen inches in length. The lower part of the stake is divided by lines burnt in the wood, lines to show the depths at which should be planted the narcissus, hyacinth, tulip, scilla, crocus, and anemone. While I know little as to garden-pest remedies beyond the universal ones common to all gardeners, the blight which has affected hardy phlox within 187 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN the last few years has really affected my spirits too. Nothing is a greater menace to August beauty in our gardens. It is therefore with par- ticular pleasure that I mention two kinds of pre- vention, one from no less a gardener th^ • Mr. W. C. Egan. Mr. Egan advises the cutting off of all leaves immediately upon their showing signs of infection. These should be burned. The plants then are to be sprayed every ten days with Bor- deaux mixture until the blight disappears. The other remedy suggested by a friend who has tried it is a spray of X. L. All once each week from the time the leaves of phlox appear above ground. This is declared to be highly effective and I can from my own knowledge of this spray recommend it. In our own garden practically nothing more than this is used for roses or sweet peas. It routs the enemy quickly and completely, be he leaf- hopper, aphis, or that deadly worm known as the rose-slug, who in the twinkling of an eye changes a fine green rose-leaf into a white skeleton. So generally is the camera becoming a garden- ing accessory that a few considerations of its best use may not be amiss. Garden photography pre- supposes a trained eye — an eye trained first in proportion and line, next in composition. Is it not 188 GARDEN ACCESSORIES true that one's first decision in working with a camera whose area of exposed film is, say, four or five inches must be this: Shall the picture be on lines horizontal or lines perpendicular? To take the most obvious illustration: tall spruces or pop- lars cry aloud for a perpendicular framing of line; apple-trees, round masses of shrubbery, for the horizontal. So in using the camera in the formal garden — a bit of high wall, tall cedars perhaps against it, there is your photographic instruction, your perpendicular hint most evident; lilies, fox- glove, hollyhocks in groups suggest the same plan, while reaches of little spring flowers photographed for detail always need the horizontal position of the plate or film, with, what is to me peculiarly interesting, a high horizon line, well above the centre of the plate. Round masses of phloxes, Shasta daisies, usually mean the horizontal posi- tion likewise. All depends upon the character of the subjects to be photographed. In getting pic- tures of whole gardens, too, the good photographer always considers the general proportions. True, if the height of garden subjects seems to exceed the breadth, the perpendicular position is the only one; if vice versa, the horizontal. It is not often possible to photograph one's garden in its entirety, 189 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN and fortunately so; for where in the actual gar- den would be our garden mysteries, our garden surprises, as we walk and gaze ? A knowledge on the part of the amateur of some of these principles of drawing and composition is the first requirement for successful picture-making in the garden. Amateurs there are who can do full justice in black and white to their lovely gar- dens, in whose productions is suggestion of color, too, equally and unmistakably delightful. Others miss the whole spirit of the beauty before them for lack of knowledge of these simple basic prin- ciples. Indeed, I am wishing to go a step far- ther and say that I believe we all know gifted amateurs addicted to the camera who quite un- consciously make out more beauty in their gar- dens and their goodly walks than actually is therein. And how legitimate this is! — the art which can so select and transmute is in itself a wonderful possession. 190 XIV GARDENING EXPEDIENTS "As midsummer approaches the energies of the gar- dener must be directed towards keeping the garden at a high level of excellence, and this can only be done by unceasing care and attention." — "Saturday in my Garden," FARTHING. XIV GARDENING EXPEDIENTS TNGENUITY can nowhere be better exercised •1 than in the garden art. Small ways of im- proving, ingenious methods of doing, often result in benefit quite out of proportion to the amount of effort employed. Let the gardener ever keep his eye open to all that he sees going on about him. A valuable lesson crops out in a least prom- ising spot. The treatment of a bit of turf before the electric power-house in our own town gave me a suggestion of great excellence for mowing. This grass was cut often during spring and early summer, and always twice over whenever the mower was used, first in an easterly and westerly direction, next time north and south; the grass never allowed to grow long enough to form a visible mulch when cut, except in midsummer when such a mulch formed a protection from burning suns. Of all this I took careful note, and our own mowing operations have been car- ried on in similar fashion. Where, however, there 193 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN is a larger expanse of grass to keep in order, we mow east and west one day, and a day or so later north and south; but never under any circum- stances, in our dry climate, make use of a grass- catcher. When sudden clouds darken a hot June sky, the gardener and I, taking plenty of twine or raffia, hurriedly tie into sheaves the taller and more delicate flower-stems such as delphiniums, Canterbury bells, pyrethrums, physostegias, and taller phloxes, and other especially precious things. Taller or shorter stakes are hastily driven in, and this support and close tying has saved for us many a raceme and panicle of later bloom. I commend this plan as excellent, particularly if one's Garden Club is expected on the following day and the hostess's heart sickens before the possible dev- astation by wind and rain. Flower cutting is a subject by itself and one not frankly enough discussed. It may be — it con- stantly is — done wastef ully, and there is not among us a true gardener who would willingly waste a flower. It may be done too sparingly, and, to my thinking, sparing the garden shears spoils the garden more quickly than the proverbial rod the child. After years of cutting, certain habits be- 194 GARDENING EXPEDIENTS come instinctive, and these I will give as numbered suggestions. First: If your cutting is done in a formal gar- den, give a comprehensive look at the whole before taking up your basket and shears. If it is a question of which matters more to you, your house or your garden, always consider the garden. Notice where flowers are spindling up, where a ragged spot exists, where bloom is so luxuriant as to injure the effect, where the blessed require- ments of balance should be looked after. In the case of overluxuriance of bloom, a constant hap- pening, the plant which is advertised as being "covered with flowers" is considered by discrimi- nating gardeners as either a monstrosity or a curiosity. I have no doubt that a painter of gardens such as Mr. George Elgood insists upon cutting away a bit here, a mass of color there, before placing his easel in final position for the painting of the delicious garden pictures for which he is renowned. Wealth of bloom ! When shall we learn that this is a phrase which seldom or never leads to beauty? Not in quantity dwell the best joys of gardening ! The advantage in the idea of too many flowers lies in the fact that here we have material for picture-making by skilled 195 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN and judicious cutting. Who does not love to so attenuate the rambler rose over the good gateway by taking out here and there a cane, as to leave it a characteristic climbing one, throwing its lovely garlands lightly over their support and per- mitting all the beauties of stem, thorn, leaf, and flower to be clearly seen and gratefully enjoyed ? Second: If cutting for your own or another's table, take your freshest and finest; if for use in a church, a crowded hall, or other public place, it has always seemed to me true flower economy, and perfect fairness too, justice with generosity to every one, to cut such flowers as may have but a day or two more of life, and which will be fresh and effective for the time in which they must be exposed to that arch-enemy of flowers, close and overheated air. My own experience is that by observing some of these simplest rules a garden is never touched by the shears without ensuing improvement. Discordant colors are quickly re- moved, combined in one's basket or jar with flowers of tones to quiet and enhance them, and thus two are the gainers — the garden and the receiver of the flowery gift. And now for brief mention of a minor conve- nience of mine for recording spring or fall orders 196 GARDENING EXPEDIENTS of plants or bulbs. Taking a strip of heavy manila paper twenty -four inches long and four deep, I fold it to open after the manner of those small books of so-called "views" which one can buy at any watering-place here or abroad, making a crease at every two and three-quarters inches, which secures eight pages at once. On each of these pages I paste a sheet of writing-paper torn from a small block of about the size of the page. The book then, with the addition of a gummed label for title affixed to outside of upper cover, is ready for use. The advantage of such a trifle is that by taking each end of the little note-book at once and moving the hands in opposite directions, the whole inner surface of notes lies open at once before one. Each spring and fall I make a fresh book of this type. I find it an immeasurable help where time is precious. Now my bills or invoices may be left indoors instead of proving fluttering anxieties in the garden ! Of the little kneeling-mat I use, I would like to say one word. It is an oblong mat, dark crimson in color, and is made of nothing more nor less than two thicknesses of woollen-plush covering from an old "Shaker*' chair. This mat might in one way be better. Its color might be a bit 197 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN brighter, so that the small convenience should be more easily discernible on the grass before a border, or between the beds of a garden. I would suggest a bright blue or a yellow. Aside from this, the little arrangement is very perfect for its purpose. Soft, thick, and light, it is the faithful compan- ion for all seasons when planting, transplanting, or cultivating is the order of the day. For carrying flowers, if baskets happen to be less conveniently at hand than usual, or where it might prove a burden to the flower-recipient to have to return baskets, I often cut double sheets of heavy wrapping-paper into a roughly graceful shape of some picturesque arching basket which is in my memory, leaving two strips at top for handle. These strips are fastened together by pins at their ends, the sides of the papers are joined in the same manner, and the whole pressed gently open from within, when a practical and satisfactory receptacle is created for holding and keeping cool the stems. Frosts, with us, are due in early September. Heliotropes are apt to blacken then, Japanese anemones to receive that baptism of cold from which they do not recover. To offset such di- minishings of the garden's color, I keep hidden 198 GARDENING EXPEDIENTS away back of some white spruces a number of pots of the good geranium Mrs. E. G. Hill, whose color, according to Ridgway, is appropri- ately enough geranium pink. These, when set among the foliage of plants which have done their duty by the garden, give a look of gayety at once, and help enormously to prolong the feeling of summer which with each day becomes more dear. Miss Jekyll it surely was who first suggested this expedient, but I cannot at the moment give chapter and verse. Not long ago a delightful defense of the ge- ranium appeared in "The Point of View" in "Scribner's Magazine": "The truth of the mat- ter is, we can none of us get along without the geranium. Or, if we do, we all of us suffer the consequences of great empty crying holes in our flower-beds. We all know how it is. During May and June and part of July our gardens exult in crowded ranks of glory upon glory. Most of our temperamental flowers catch enthusiasm from one another and have their fling all together. The result is intoxicating while it lasts, but it is followed by a disheartening midsummer slump. Suddenly the mood changes, the petals fall, and the color and the fragrance are gone. As dull 199 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN and sober as they were erewhile brilliant and ani- mated, our irises, peonies, roses, foxgloves, lark- spurs, rockets, present a monotonous sequence of barren green leaves to our disappointed eyes. The hopeful annuals are not yet more than in dubious promise; the phlox and dahlias have hardly set their buds. The whole garden suffers eclipse. "This is precisely the geranium's opportunity, and we are as cruel as we are stupid if we deny it to her. She would only fain prevent an entire collapse and would gently keep the garden's head above water until such time as it feels like swim- ming again. She can do this as no one else can, blooming brightly and quietly here and there among the discouraged plants, keeping up general appearances, saving the gardener's self-respect when passing wayfarers pause to look over his fence in quest of the color which they have come to expect of him." Where shall we look for a stock of geraniums from which to choose our colors and our types? No farther than to Maryland, where from White Marsh Mr. Richard Vincent sends forth a list of hundreds of beautiful examples, single and double, ivy-leaved, plants with variegated foliage, 200 GARDENING EXPEDIENTS seventeen varieties of scented-leaved, one so- called Regal pelargonium, and nine cactus-flowering geraniums. All this is a most sumptuous illus- trated list, a perfect treasure-house for those who plan gay color for their borders. On page 8 of this list is not only a geranium shown of loveliest delicate pink, Berthe de Presilly by name, but immediately below this picture is another with a really most happy use of geranium and sweet alyssum together. I do not stand for the copious use of Scarlet Bedder, no, not at all; but who could not find a spot where Alpha with its lovely small blooms, not unlike a scarlet lychnis, might not be useful, or, near cream-white stock, Baron Grubbisch or Rosalda might not create a picture ? In the geranium lies an almost untouched field of beautiful and practical resource for gardens. I am perhaps not too rash in saying that I believe most of us have not seen over ten varieties of this flower. We bring to any consideration of it a preconceived idea of ugly misuse. Why not de- vote a small portion of ground another season to trials of the geranium for uses of our own devis- ing? If, therefore, the geranium, being a garden standby and a garden adornment, may be called 201 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN a garden expedient, as indeed it may, one other faithful flower may aspire to the like honor. The zinnia has during these last years of gardening furor come into its own. Among all the charm- ing things for garden and for house it holds high place. If one buys, as has before been hinted, packets of seed of white and flesh-color only, almost all the softer tones of creamy white and pink, with often wonderfully arresting hues hardly describable, are forthcoming. A flower of splen- did form and substance, a flower of great rigidity of stem, a flower of generous freedom of bloom, a flower of the most fascinating decorative possi- bilities, where would my garden — my September garden — be without the zinnia ! As for other planting expedients, to my think- ing, none are better than that of alternate planting in the row. This, of course, is for formal effect. Two periods of bloom are so easily thus secured in practically the same spot. My first experi- ment in this matter was with Michaelmas daisies, early and late, as has been told in a former chap- ter; my next was with a close-set row of pent- stemon barbatus coccineus and hardy phlox; the latest and most ambitious was with a border of spring flowers arranged with the idea of securing 202 GARDENING EXPEDIENTS much bloom and some beauty in a small given place. This, too, is fully described elsewhere. A note in a recent number of "The Garden Maga- zine" seemed to me full of practical possibilities. It concerned a system of "planting-cards," and I will tell of these in the contributor's own words: "I cut cards of strong white pasteboard, mea- suring eight by twelve inches, and in the middle of the narrow side of these I put a loop of string for hanging. The back of the card is left blank so that garden notes and memoranda may be writ- ten there, and on the face of the card I paste the names of the vegetables to be planted and their cultural directions. These I obtain from the catalogues of the seedsman from whom I order my seeds. For example, with 'Corn* I paste first their cultural directions, then under this the names and descriptions of the four varieties I intend planting, in the order of their earliness and lateness. By each variety I make a note in ink of the quantity of seed ordered and another note, 'Plant every two weeks till July 15.' This is done for each kind of vegetable and toward the right I leave a margin of one and one-half inches on which to note the dates of sowings. These cards will not take the place of garden note-books 203 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN or of systematic garden records, but have the advantage of costing nothing and of being ever ready." The writer prefaces this description of what seems a really useful, if slight, gardening expedi- ent by the remark that such cards save much time and trouble of a fine spring morning. They are ready to hand to a man who does garden work, and form an excellent reminder for oneself besides. I cannot see why such a little card ar- rangement might not be equally good for the recording of notes of flower-seed sowing as well as for that of seeds of vegetables. 204 XV THE QUESTION OF THE GARDENER The relation between gardener and employer is not an easy one, especially if the employer is a gardener him- self. There is apt to be a conflict of tastes; and the better the gardener the more acute the conflict is likely to be. — "Studies in Gardening." XV THE QUESTION OF THE GARDENER "~P\O write for me" — thus runs a letter lately A-/ from a clever friend — "a manual entitled, 'The Gardener-less Garden/ telling how to get the most joy for the least trouble ! Or call it 'The Lazy Gardener,' — I like to moon around in the garden and I do not want to meet the man with the hoe at every turn. Nor do I like to work very steadily myself, though I always think that I shall want to next year. "'Oh, what is life if, full of care, We have not time to stand and stare?'" Still, a book on gardening in its varying aspects could hardly omit mention of that man who must be constantly in sight of those who garden, the gardener, the paid, the earnest, and almost always the friendly, assistant in our labors with flowers. That charming anonymous book, which appeared first in the form of letters to "The Times" (Lon- 207 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN don), "Studies in Gardening/* has a chapter, and a capital one, which I would commend, and it is called "Behavior to Gardeners." The few para- graphs I shall commit to paper on the subject will deal partly with this matter, the employer's attitude, and partly with the question of salary or wages; in the latter case taking the gardener's own standpoint. It has often gone to my heart as a worker among flowers to see the misunderstandings which all too frequently arise between an American and his gardener. And so often this is entirely due to the difference in temperament. The average gardener, slow, careful, methodical, cannot but feel the heckling comments of his employer who wants things done in his way, yet who, in nine cases out of ten, does not know what that way is. The gardener must recognize and resent igno- rance, haste, prejudice, and excessive criticism, and particularly is this hard to bear because as a rule the gardener loves his work, cherishes his plants, and, to his credit be it said, does this more faith- fully and thoroughly than the untrained gardener for whom he labors. To take up the other side, for the employer it should be set down that he may himself be a 208 THE GARDENER good amateur gardener, coupling to this an im- aginative ingenuity which I like to think a char- acteristic of Americans; and the lack of imagina- tion, the dumb devotion to traditional methods of gardening whose outward and visible signs he cannot but observe on each visit to his garden, go hard with him. It has been my lot to see in several cases employer and gardener antag- onistic, and the best interest of an estate lan- guishing under such conditions. One must be friends with one's gardener. I venture to assert that no great degree of success can be reached with flowers unless such is the happy case. Take note of a man's personality, of his temperament, when next you have occasion to decide upon the vital figure for your garden. If the candidate be not "simpatico," know that your garden can- not with him be carried happily, successfully along. That was a refreshing instance of friendship be- tween master and man shown in an anecdote of the great London flower exhibition, the Chelsea Show of May, 1912, and pleasant it is to repeat it here: "What a true aristocrat is, was forcibly illus- trated the other day by an incident concerning the speech of Sir George Holford, who won the 209 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN King's prize for orchids at the London show, and who, at the Royal Horticultural Society's dinner later, deprecated the great praise given him, say- ing that his friend Mr. Alexander deserved most of the credit. Mr. Farquhar met him the next day and complimented him on that portion of his speech. Sir George said: 'He is my friend; I never think of him otherwise.' The point of this illustration lies in the fact that Mr. Alexander is the baron's gardener; but the baron never thought of referring to that fact in his speech. He spoke of him as his friend." This, more remarkable where class distinctions are rigorously observed, has timely bearing upon the relations of master and man in our country too. But here consideration and respect are not always lacking. One of my friends, an indefati- gable worker on her own place, with her gardener, had spent the months of August, September, and October in rearranging much of the tree and shrub planting on her large place, moving hundreds of coniferous subjects in that time. Through all the arduous work — and who does not know the nerv- ous strain upon those who dig and lift, and those who watch with interest, while an evergreen travels from one spot to another ? — through all 210 THE GARDENER this time the young Scotch gardener's solicitude and anxious effort never flagged. The season waxed late, weather remained fine, and the chat- elaine felt that there was still time to move other trees, her mind's eye full of visions. But it oc- curred to her that the gardener should now be given a modicum of rest from his monotonous labor, that as the fit reward of diligence the word evergreen should not again that season reach his ear, and this reflection was at once acted upon. Often, I believe, is such consideration shown to the men who are our daily companions and co- workers in our gardens and without whom, where large gardening operations are concerned, we should be lost indeed. To paraphrase the Johnsonian dictum, much may be made of a gardener if he be caught young. The amateur who works constantly among his flowers has an ideal in his mind: a young, strong, willing man, an intelligent man, one who shall be quick not only to carry out his employer's wishes but to study the tastes and doings of the garden's owner, to learn to imitate them that he may do successfully in that master's absence. In the good professional gardener I have perhaps fancied that I noticed a certain gentleness of de- THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN meaner, caught, I like to think, from the delicate and care-taking occupation in which he is daily engaged. Surprises, however, may come at any moment — witness the reply of our young Ameri- can farmer, John, who gardens with zeal and ever- growing knowledge and gives me a service which is perfection for its place. John had just returned from a week's vacation. I was most truly glad to see him back, and said so, adding: "I missed you very much last week, John." To my entire confusion, John, without a trace of a smile, look- ing me directly in the eye, said with the simplic- ity of a child and without the least discourtesy: "I bet you did, Mis' K !" Gardeners, according to a classification given me by an expert, should be divided into their several grades as follows : 1. Gardener-superintendent. 2. Head gardener. 3. Working gardener. 4. Coach- man gardener. Whose respective executive duties are: 1. Has charge of the whole estate and with fore- men and assistants over the different departments of greenhouse, garden, farm, and so on. 2. Has charge of greenhouses and garden only, with foremen and assistant; does no physical work. 3. Does most of the work himself with laborers 212 THE GARDENER and takes care of small greenhouse, kitchen garden, and lawn. 4. Coachman first, gardener at odd times. While the immigration laws of the United States classify the gardener as a personal body -servant, and his admission to this country is free from restrictions, in England he is not looked upon as such. He is the gardener in all senses of the word, and in no well-regulated establishment would the employer take the liberty of gathering flowers, fruit, or vegetables without the consent of the gardener. Unfortunately, in the United States the majority of gardeners are looked upon as in- ferior to the chauffeur and the cook. The Amer- ican gardener, or rather the gardener employed on American estates, in many instances is the su- perintendent of the whole, including the farm and dwelling or mansion; his salary in a few cases being equal to three thousand dollars per year, with many privileges. From the same authority to whom I am indebted for the classification of the gardener comes also the following opinion, which I quote verbatim: "We are unfortunate in this country, not hav- ing botanic gardens and gardens carried on like the Royal Horticultural Society in England, where 213 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN the young gardener is taught the thorough, prac- tical work of the gardener and goes through all departments, even to the menial work of digging, attending to furnaces, etc. In England the gar- dener has to pay an apprenticeship to the head gardener on some estates. After he has served an apprenticeship to the head, he becomes an as- sistant, then journeyman, then foreman. So he must have at least ten or fifteen years of thorough experience before he becomes head gardener. The trouble with the American gardener is that he is a specialist either in roses, carnations, or orchid- growing, and has not the all-around knowledge of the European trained gardener. "You cannot get an assistant gardener in this country to-day for much less than fifty-five dol- lars to sixty dollars per month and board. I mean an assistant in a large garden, where they specialize in fruit-trees, rose-growing, carnations, orchids, palms and foliage plants, and kitchen garden. "This, you see, is far better than some wages paid to gardeners. I do not think the average wages paid to a gardener in this country would be equal to one hundred dollars per month. In many in- stances this is the fault of the gardener himself. 214 THE GARDENER Most places that I know of are where gardeners have made themselves valuable and created the place. I have in mind at least two instances where gardeners were employed at sixty dollars per month and are now getting as high as one hundred and fifty dollars per month; this all happening inside of five years." The question of the gardener's worth in money is surely to be considered as an important one to both sides. A discussion of this matter has lately taken place with a rather unusual freedom of speech in the columns of one of our best horti- cultural weeklies; and it may be of interest to quote here from some of these arguments. One writer, himself taking the words of a former Sec- retary of the Treasury of the United States, be- gins thus: "'In every profession which uses a man's highest powers and lays rigid demand on his idealism and courage it is always safe to as- sume that up to a certain point these men can be overworked and underpaid, because they are much more concerned with doing their work well than with being well paid for it. But when this imposition begins to reduce them and their fami- lies to poverty, they do not, as do workmen lower in the scale, go on strikes. ^They quietly resign 215 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN and seek some other occupation. It is a com- monplace among professions in which idealism plays a part: this idealism is deliberately exploited to the disadvantage of those of whom it is exacted/ This, I think, meets the gardener's case exactly, and, so long as conditions are as they are, garden- ing must necessarily be a labor of love." Now hear another, this time on the practical side: "The burning question seems to be how to get away from the fifty-dollars-a-month salary limit. There is no getting away from it so long as people of wealth are willing to hire a laborer who calls himself a gardener, at that price. The remedy, to my mind, is to start a campaign of education among the people who are wealthy enough to hire a real gardener and show them by facts, figures, and statistics that they are losing money by not doing so. A good gardener is worth anywhere from one hundred dollars up — just by the same process of reasoning that one would employ in engaging a lawyer or doctor. "The larger the estate, the more the responsibil- ity. The larger the responsibility, the higher the salary. If a good man is squeezed down to taking less than he is worth, the greater the temptation to make something on the side. If a poor man, 216 THE GARDENER that is, an ignorant man willing to take laborer's wages, is hired, then the estate will suffer not only in that, but in many other ways. So that it is the employing class that the campaign of education should be aimed at. It will do no good to scold the seedsman or other allied inter- ests; nor to split the ceiling in gardeners' meetings about the villainy of those fifty-dollar fellows call- ing themselves gardeners. One hundred dollars should be the minimum, and two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, or even more should not be considered anything out of the way if the train- ing, experience, and native ability be present. But the employers have to be educated up to that." I would not go so far as to say with the writer just quoted that four and five hundred a month should be given even to a fine superintendent. Proportions should be maintained, salaries of the learned professions kept in mind. Still, I person- ally believe that one hundred dollars a month is the least that should be offered by those whose fortune fits them to employ an excellent profes- sional gardener. In all these words, the subject of the gardener, his salary or wages, and his position, has been only begun. It is a matter which with the ever-in- 217 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN creasing interest in gardens must and will be more and more discussed; and in which the gardener's side must be better looked after by his employer than at present seems to be the case. "And if the reply of an alarmed employer might be that all this means higher wages, our reply is, first, that after all it is very little; and secondly, that the garden must be looked at in a new perspective, not as a tiresome and costly appurtenance every penny spent upon which is begrudged, while thou- sands are to be lavished on pictures, old china, and motor-cars, but as a great influence on life." There is reasoning here as cogent as it is vig- orous; I fully agree with this writer, and the more so when I think of the disproportionate use of money by those who would keep down the wages of the men engaged for their gardens; for those labors which go to produce what is becoming daily more and more precious to men and women in this age. Let us who think seriously of these things not only learn to value the services of our own gardeners more fully, but let us spread our convictions upon the subject, and soon must come a better understanding and agreement between employer and employed. 218 XVI NECESSITIES AND LUXURIES IN GARDEN BOOKS "What then I say is this, that we ignoramuses who know very little about it can derive a pure pleasure, not merely from the contemplation of gardens, but from the reading of books about them." — Preface to "The Scots Gard'ner," LORD ROSEBEBY. XVI NECESSITIES AND LUXURIES IN GARDEN BOOKS BIBLIOGRAPHIES are dull things — true, too, of many necessities, and I make no apology, to those who care for gardening, while dwelling for a little on garden books. What would winter be without them? "Summer," as the delightful David Grayson remarks, "is for activities; winter for reading." So it seems to the true gardener! His mental gardening is done while snow is flying, leaving the physical to be carried out as twigs begin to bud and grass to green again. The very watchword of an American gardener's winter — the slogan, I might almost call it — should be, "Look it up in Bailey." As the Irish judge remarked, "I yield to no one in my ignorance of scientific horticulture," therefore there would be no sense in my trying to garden without Bailey's Encyclopedia at my elbow. The six volumes are indispensable, filled with wonderful horticul- tural learning, yet not too technical for the begin- 221 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN ner. Bailey, too, is an absolutely American book, published altogether for this country, with cul- tural information for our varying climates of North, South, and West, containing marvellously fine articles by specialists. Professor Sargent writes on the genus Abies; Mr. Groff, of Ontario, on the gladiolus; Doctor Fernow on forestry; and so on. Yes, in the matter of books necessary to garden knowledge, Bailey is undoubtedly the keystone of the garden arch. Every other book may go — this cannot. And, the arch thus firmly held to- gether, let us proceed to decorate it appropriately by mentioning as our second necessary book Miss Jekyll's masterpiece, "Color in the Flower Garden." Given these two publications, any in- telligent man or woman with time, money, and the wish need have nothing ugly in his or her gardens. This is rather narrowing the matter down, I admit, but I feel strongly that these are the words of truth and soberness, and I believe there are many who will concur in this opinion. Bailey furnishes us the sound knowledge, the structure for gardening. Miss Jekyll — who bet- ter?— provides the structure with a more ex- quisite and carefully considered garnishment than GARDEN BOOKS has ever to my knowledge been given before by man or woman. With her ingratiating pen, too, she is so happy in creating pictures that the gar- den-lover cannot choose but hear and, what is more, follow in the lovely flowery path. Can anything surpass the beauty of description of the various gardens at Munstead Wood in the "Color in the Flower Garden," or the charm of the pho- tographic reproductions used to illustrate? Yet there is something here better than beauty; there is suggestion which amounts to inspiration — Miss Jekyll has the faculty of setting all sorts of plans going in one's head as one reads what she writes; and I will venture to say that most of her readers in this country do not attempt to copy slavishly her ideas but use them as points of departure for their own plantings. Miss Jekyll has suc- ceeded not only in so charmingly showing us what she has planned and accomplished in her Surrey garden, but in giving a great impulse toward the finest art of gardening — gardening as a fine art. We hear it said: "Miss Jekyll's books are writ- ten for England, and the English climate and con- ditions." Yes; but here is Bailey to set one straight culturally for one's own spot in America; and it is truly surprising to notice the increasing 223 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN numbers of plants which are perfectly suited to both England and the United States. And here, since Miss JekylTs name is con- stantly appearing and reappearing in current gardening literature in this country, it may be interesting to say that "Color in the Flower Garden" is one of eight books from Miss Jekyll's pen issued within nine years' time. The others are: "Wood and Garden," "Home and Garden," "Wall and Water Gardens," "Lilies for English Gardens," "Roses for English Gardens," "Flower Decoration in the House," and "Children and Gardens." In answer to questions on my part, Miss Jekyll quotes her publisher as saying, "I personally consider * Color in the Flower Garden* is the most valuable book yet got out," and Miss Jekyll herself adds: "I also think * Color in the Flower Garden' the most useful." Eight thousand copies of "House and Garden" have been printed, and twelve thousand of "Wood and Garden," and both books are now to be had in a cheaper edition than the original one. Now and again I am asked what I consider the best simple book for beginners in gardening. What a pleasure to have one to commend! It is 224 GARDEN BOOKS "The Seasons in a Flower Garden," by Miss Louise Shelton, of Morristown, N. J. I wish this book had been published twenty years ago — not five. It gives advice not only lucid and sound, but always looking toward good color arrange- ment, the very highest and finishing beauty of the garden. Here in a small volume may be found, admirably arranged, the first principles of good flower gardening. "Success in Gardening," by Miss Jessie Froth- ingham, of Princeton, is a book on the order of Miss Shelton's, and like hers it deserves a wide public. This, too, is to be commended to the inexperienced. From January to December gar- den work is suggested week by week and between the lines one sees much charming suggestion, the fruit of a long and sound experience on the part of the author. Mrs. Sedgwick's "The Garden Month by Month" is a capital addition to our garden lit- erature. Information here is in tabulated form — easy to get at, so well arranged and classified as to give at once facts as to any plant or bulb in general or even occasional cultivation. The pictures, as may be seen from the two here repro- duced, are, I believe, the most satisfying photo- 225 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN graphs of flowers and flower groups ever published in this country. These illustrations in black and white — a process as yet better than any color- printing we can achieve here — are remarkably well done, and present the actual aspect of the blooming plant to far greater advantage than any collection of such photographs which I can at pres- ent call to mind. The beautiful photograph (facing page 110) of BeUis perennis and Narcissus poeticus ornatus does more than give a faithful representation of the two flowers — it suggests a lovely combina- tion for spring planting; and, in cut facing, notice the perfect placing of Baptisia australis on the water- side, with budding delphiniums beyond and sky-blue water to carry out the lovely blue-toned picture. (This planting, I am told however, is not as good as I thought it, as the color of Baptisia is too slaty in its blue to make a really good effect.) Of the color chart at the beginning of the book I cannot speak so highly since comparing it with the clear tones of the "Repertoire de Couleurs" of the Chrysanthemum Society of France. The at- tempt of Mrs. Sedgwick and her publishers in this direction was a laudable one, for here was a real need; but again, owing doubtless to the lack of facilities for color-printing, the result is mediocre 226 1 The Garden Month by Month." BH courtesy of Frederick A. Stoket Compan BAPTISIA AUSTRALIS GARDEN BOOKS only. I remember, when this book appeared, how eagerly I wished for it because of the new and valuable color chart. And it was a disappoint- ment to have to fall back again upon the French publication. An American color chart which has been warmly received by those interested in this matter of proper naming of colors is Doctor Robert Ridg- way's "Color Standards and Color Nomenclature," a convenient and beautifully arranged chart, a boon to the lover of accurate color description of flowers — a rather costly book, too costly for the general pubh'c; therefore it will be good news to many that a small edition of this chart is now in course of preparation, to be offered at a mod- erate price. When this is done, the first impor- tant step taken in America toward this highly im- portant matter to the American gardener will have been accomplished. Among luxuries in garden books must be set down an imposing volume containing some price- less suggestions concerning color arrangement by Miss Margaret Waterfield, of England — "Gar- den Color." Here I first learned of certain beau- tiful tulips used separately or in lovely combina- tions described in Miss Waterfield's own chapters 227 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN in the book; and on buying these the results were to my eye precisely what they were to hers — a satisfaction that is nothing short of enchanting. Miss Waterfield's own water-color sketches, reproduced in her book for purposes of illustration, are in some cases valuable too to the gardener who would create pictures as he gardens. Her manner of planting seems always to me that of an artist and these drawings from her hand confirm that impression. A little volume of totally different character, but full of meat for a reader interested in these things, is the recently published "Spring Flow- ers at Belvoir Castle," by Mr. W. H. Divers, head gardener to the Duke of Rutland. Writ- ten in alarmingly dull style, it is still a mine of riches for the amateur who tries for spring ef- fects; for certain violas and primroses, aubrietias, arabises do quite as well in this country as in England, and, I believe, nearly all tulips and daf- fodils. These are the flowers most important in the plantings at Belvoir Castle and, wonderful to relate, the color descriptions of individual flowers by Mr. Divers seem to be as accurate as Miss JekylPs own. This is a remarkable thing; but just here the remarkableness of this little book 228 GARDEN BOOKS ceases for me, for the clear photographs with which it is thickly sprinkled show the most inane and tiresome arrangement of flowers possible to conceive, carpet-bedding gone mad. Piteous to see measured bands of these delicious flowers, mats of aubrietas studded with single tulip jewels in geometric arrangements, and one horror called a "raised flower-bed" in which the same out-of- date planting is practised. At Belvoir Castle, to make it worse, a rare chance is surely given by the great variety of graded slopes apparent in the pictures for much picturesque informal planting. The mention of daffodils turns our attention to two small but important books on this most fashionable flower. England seems daffodil-mad to-day; and as we are far behind the mother country in "gardening finely," yet always looking to her for sound advice, we shall probably soon catch the fever. In fact, some of us think we have symptoms now. The valuable book for the daffodilist is the monograph, "Daffodils," by the Reverend Joseph Jacobs, of England, in that set of books, "Present Day Gardening." In these pages all that is known concerning daffodils up to date is con- densed, set down by a true lover of the flower, 229 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN and not only a great grower of the daffodil, but an accomplished writer and authority on the sub- ject, as well as one in constant demand as a judge at the English and Continental daffodil shows. No possessors of this book need to waste time or money in the purchase of a poor variety of daffodil, if they consult Mr. Jacobs's chapter, "Varieties for Garden Beds and Borders." For prices of these, if one has at hand Barr & Sons' daf- fodil list (to be had for the asking), which Mr. Jacobs calls unique in its position in the daffodil world, there should be no mistake made by the gardener who would make an excursion into the wondrous world of yellow, cream, lemon, and orange flowers. Perianth and trumpet become terms of intensest interest, and I can testify from a short experience that once the daffodil catches the attention of the amateur gardener he never lets go. Indeed, his hold grows ever stronger with successive Mays. Two other Englishmen, novelists of repute, have given us their gardening experiences in de- lightfully written volumes. Mr. Rider Haggard's "A Gardener's Year" makes charming reading, but is a trifle orchidaceous for one who, like my- self, has not yet dared to "let go" in that direc- GARDEN BOOKS tion. Beware of orchids unless the purse is full. Mr. Eden Philpotts brings all the beauty of his poetic style to bear upon the subject of "My Garden," thus deliciously prefacing his book: "The time has come when, to have a garden, and not to write about it, is to be notorious." Let me commend the three chapters on the iris in this fascinating book to the attention of all iris-lovers. There never has been, there never can come from another pen, so poetic, so beautiful a bit of writing on this alluring flower. Done in entrancing lan- guage, it tempts the most unyielding to become an iris-collector. I myself, on reading these de- scriptions, felt so deep a debt of gratitude to Mr. Philpotts for them, and for the pleasure which for years back had been given me by his Dev- onshire tales, that I experienced a real delight when the following request caught my eye: "Many new and exquisite vines may now be ob- tained, and among lovely things that I am open to receive from anybody (and will pay carriage) are Vitis Thunbergii; Vitis Calif ornica, a tremen- dous grower; Vitis aconitifolia, a gem from China; and Vitis megaphylla, most distinct of all arrivals in this family." My heart leaped with joy as I thought: "Is it 231 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN possible that I, even I, may contribute to Mr. Philpotts's garden?" Promptly flew out my let- ters to Massachusetts, to Texas, in quest of the grapes. Answers showed that at least one of them could be mine for the asking and a little besides; but before I had actually ordered the plant, as good luck would have it, I happened upon the following passage in "My Garden," un- seen heretofore: "Green corn is a pleasant vege- table, and I surprise Americans who come to see me, by giving them that familiar dish. Let them have but that and ice, and a squash pie, and they ask no more, but to be allowed to talk about themselves and their noble country." Needless to say that, in so far as I can achieve it, Mr. Eden Philpotts has gone, goes, and shall go grapeless. Facilities for procuring new varieties of flower- ing plants, new colors, in this country are notice- ably improving. Witness each fresh issue of American seed and bulb lists. One firm in this country offered last spring for the first time, as far as my experience goes, roots of Cantab, the lovely blue delphinium which Miss Jekyll con- siders the best of all blues, and which has been difficult to find in any list, English or American. Another has a separate list of rare and charming 232 GARDEN BOOKS (alas, I must also add high-priced!) things; such published straws show the direction of the horti- cultural breeze. May this breeze become a wind strong enough to bear to us interested in the best development of gardening in America books by our own amateurs so delightfully and intelligently written that what is there set down shall help the matter with every page. To return again to catalogues for a moment — two or three American lists show great care and constant improvement in this direction, but none as yet, I believe, quite approach those of R. Wallace and Sons, of Colchester, England; of Barr & Sons; of T. Smith, of Newry, Ireland. Smith's list of spring-blooming plants and al- pines is of immense value to all as a little refer- ence-book, complete botanically and with admi- rable descriptions of color. Misleading pictures appear to this day in some of our seed-lists — the beribboned curving drive through an estate; the copious and vicious use of some of the early tulips such as Keizerkroon (whose publicly declared enemy I am and shall be until it is better used); the round bed which, as an agreeable man of my acquaintance says, "used to bust up the front lawn." All these things are still 233 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN forced upon the innocent and ignorant and much do I wish that a seed and bulb list might be given us in which there should not be a single actual error of taste in suggestion, even though that taste could not meet the wishes of all readers. Under luxuries in garden books falls a group whose contents are an addition to letters as well as to gardening. How rare and choice these are, and what a pity that all books on so beautiful a topic cannot be beautiful in themselves, I mean in their manner of writing! When such do fall in our way we have very real reason for thanks- giving, and first in my own affections always stand the writings of the Honorable Mrs. Boyle, "E. V. B." — those books "whose names Are five sweet symphonies" — "A Garden of Pleasure," "The Peacock's Pleas- aunce," "Sylvana's Letters to an Unknown Friend," "Seven Gardens and a Palace" — prose as beautiful as any poetry, wandering on over page after page, all on the delectable matter of flowers; and in A. F. Sieveking's book a "Proem" from the same golden pen, which for charm and grace exceeds all that I have ever read on gar- dening. It is my fixed belief that the more we •M GARDEN BOOKS read books of this high quality the more beauti- fully shall we garden. To return for a moment to books of the kind and type of Miss Water-field's — the two or three others which come to mind are Elgood's and Miss Jekyll's "Some English Gardens"; Sir Herbert Maxwell's "Scottish Gardens"; "Houses and Gardens," by Baillie-Scott. To read these books, to study their most charming pictures, is not only to revel in their own beauty, but to be well started on the way to achieving one's own. Every illustration in "Some English Gardens" gives practical suggestion of a principle of beauty, and with the illuminating text the several lessons are complete. I would rename this book, and "Per- fect Gardens" is the daring title I should bestow upon it. For books whose color illustrations are worth possessing, books on flowers of other lands than England, the lovely volume by the Du Cane sis- ters is always good to open — "Flowers and Gar- dens of Japan." Full of charm, too, are Flem- well's "Alpine Flowers and Gardens," and "The Flower Fields of Alpine Switzerland," with pic- tures finely reproduced from beautiful originals. "Dutch Bulbs and Gardens," by Nixon, Silberrad, 235 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN and Lyall, is a book full of character and beauty and of special interest to the spring gardener. Of finer books for those interested in garden design are Mr. Guy Lowell's "American Gardens" and T. W. Mawson's "The Art and Craft of Garden-Making.'* Two volumes of less size but of much value are Reginald Blomfield's "The Formal Garden in England" (whose brilliant first chapter refuting some of the Robinsonian doc- trines is greatly to my liking !) and Miss Madeline Agar's "Garden Design," a very practical recent book. William Robinson's great book, "The Eng- lish Flower Garden," has its place, and has ful- filled, indeed over-fulfilled, its purpose to do away with "bedding out" and to return to natural methods of planting; but the extreme views there set forth, views necessary to convince a settled public, are better in theory than in practice. "Studies in Gardening," a book whose contents first appeared in the form of letters to the "Lon- don Times" (that journal strictly under promise not to reveal the name of the author), is a remark- able book on gardening. Written in a direct and charming style, full of sound knowledge most tactfully imparted, it is valuable and captivating to a degree, and happy is the writer in whom these 236 GARDEN BOOKS qualities are combined. Unfortunately, this book is out of print. Of Mr. E. Augustus Bowles's two newly pub- lished volumes of the horticultural trilogy, "My Garden in Spring," "My Garden in Summer," and "My Garden in Autumn," I would echo the comment of an English journal: "We are loath to close the book, which every true gardener should read and read again. Like the author's garden, it is a 'thing of beauty and a joy forever.'" It is impossible not to be caught up by so strong a wave of enthusiasm for plants and the growing of them as sweeps along these pages. The writer's learning and his delight in his gardening pursuits are everywhere in evidence; yet all is so sponta- neously told that learning and delight are equally agreeable to the reader. There is in these books a true ecstasy in gardening. Before these of Mr. Bowles's there were a few such books — books carrying this quality of a spirit of joy in the work among flowers. Such is Mrs. Stephen Batson's "The Summer Garden of Pleasure," with such pretty chapter headings as "Incoming Summer," "High Summer," "The Rout of August," "Waning Summer." "The Guild of the Garden Lovers," by Constance 237 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN O'Brien, is to me enchanting in its charm, though many serious-minded gardeners would think it but a trifle. "The Garden of Ignorance," by Mrs. George Cran, also has its diverting niche in my affections; and last Miss Chappell's tiny vol- umes, "Gardening Don'ts" and "More Gardening Don'ts," which I charge my readers not to miss, if they are of those who would be light-hearted as they garden ! So many are the books, so short the time for reading, even for naming, them ! Let me beg any reader of my lines to fill his shelves with fine gar- dening publications as eagerly as he would furnish his garden-beds with plants, that his borders may reflect a well-stocked mind and his pleasure in his flowers then increase a thousandfold. XVII VARIOUS GARDENS "Others, again, amongst whom I number myself, love not only the lore of flowers, and the sight of them and the fragrance of them, and the growing of them, and the pick- ing of them and the arranging of them, but also inherit from Father Adam a natural relish for tilling the ground from whence they were taken and to which they shall return." —"Letters from a Little Garden," JULIANA HORATIA EWING. XVII VARIOUS GARDENS IF, on reflection, I have an ungratified wish in gardening, it is the wish to live in a country where were many fine gardens within easy dis- tance from my own. There is no sight so stimu- lating to the gardener as that of other people's ways of growing and grouping flowers. Thus it is that horticultural societies make annual and semi-annual pilgrimage to fine gardens; amateurs will soon group themselves into such bands as these, garden clubs go forth bent upon searching out such lovely and informing sights. For many of us still, however, all our adventures, like those of the Vicar of Wakefield, must be by the fireside, all our travels from the blue bed to the brown. For these the photograph, the printed page, must serve for the charming sights themselves. This book began pianissimo with a rather hesi- tating account of my own attempts at gardening; it has continued crescendo as my experience 241 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN seemed to broaden and pleasure certainly to in- crease in planting, working, and writing. And it ends, thanks to the goodness of stranger and friend alike, fortissimo and allegro too, with gar- den picture and garden sketch in writing, the latter intimate and fresh to a degree, since in most in- stances it is supplied by the garden's owner. It will be readily seen that these, like Sir Thomas More's Utopians, "sett great stoore be theyr gardeins." From East to West these gardens lie in a sort of dipping line across the continent, with the ex- ception of the Philadelphia example. But before setting forth on this horticultural journey, there are here to be noticed pictures of two gardens at a London flower show — one, though in an unfin- ished state when photographed, giving excellent suggestion in design; the other beautiful, rarely so, for its flower grouping. These were examples of fine gardening on exhibition at the International Show of 1912 in London by the English firm of Wallace & Company, of Colchester — at that show which will live in the history of horticulture as the largest and best ever held in Great Britain. The little sunken garden carries with it a quiet charm of line and proportion. Perhaps the dry 242 GARDEN AT LONDON FLOWER SHOW OF 1912 DETAIL OF ANOTHER GARDEN AT LONDON FLOWER SHOW, 1912 VARIOUS GARDENS wall (farther left of picture) might have been more beautifully laid, but from the photograph one catches the precious quality of serenity in a gar- den. The use of flowers is apparently somewhat restrained. Eremuri, it will be noticed, are used at regular intervals, and beside these there are in this so-called English border iris, anchusa Dropmore, habranthus, NepetaMussini, cerastium, erigeron (a low, daisylike flower not often seen in our own gardens), and dianthus. In the illustration showing the old stone seat — a vision of beauty and a most lovely example for the American gardener — the things which sur- round the seat are for the most part plants with scented foliage. Campanula Carpatica, however, may be noticed here; also irises, hypericum, and again erigeron, a variety by the name of Quaker- ess. The masses of delicate aspiring flowers back of the seat and below the Madonna lilies are, I fancy, either anchusas or heucheras in bloom. And, may I ask, was ever that flower beloved of poets and writers of songs, the water-lily, as perfectly set as in this place? Notice, too, the small ferns so cunningly placed as to overhang the pools. In this picture nothing is overdone — the walls are not smothered under flowers nor is 243 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN the dark water hidden by mats of uninteresting lily-pads, as is too often the case when one has a fancy for aquatics. Taking now our gardens in non-geographical order, but in their general groups as Eastern, Western, and Middle Western, we will look first at the two in the Middle West. This, happily, we may do through the medium of the pens of the gardens' owners. The first description is of an Ohio garden at Gates Mills, not far from Cleve- land; the second a lawyer's garden in the lively and agreeable city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The descriptions follow as given me, even to the humorous thrust in the line which concludes the second. "My garden is like my house; perhaps that is what all gardens should be. But it has pleased me to play that the old lady, with New England traditions, who built the little cottage seventy years ago, made a garden to go with it, which has gone on seeding itself and tangling all sorts of things up together. "There is an uneven stone walk leading from the gate to the front door, and before the deed of the place was in my possession I had planted on either side of it a border which blooms from 244 TERRACE PLANTING, GARDEN ON NANTTJCKET PHLOX TIME, GARDEN AT GATES MILLS, OHIO VARIOUS GARDENS February, when the snowdrops appear, until De- cember, when the snow covers the chrysanthe- mums still gayly flowering. "Old-fashioned flowers have always had the preference, though I have had to slip in the lovely blue salvia, Japanese anemone, summer hyacinths, and others which, alas, the first owner of my bit of ground never knew. There must be the historic 'fifty-seven varieties' in these borders, which are my chief est joy. Next is the bed around the sun-dial with its foundation of an old millstone — for this is a Gates Mills garden. Here only things with spiky leaves are allowed to grow. The crocus begins the season; daffodils, scillas, all sorts of iris, yellow lilies, yuccas, gladioli, mont- bretias follow in procession until summer hya- cinths and red-hot poker end the summer in a charming combination, and not one of them but has the long, slender leaves. My latest joy is my white border connecting two sets of beds where many old and some new fashioned flowers are massed according to a plan which does change somewhat every year, as my visions of color com- binations vary. What a lot of white flowers one can find to crowd in front of the background of tall white phlox! For close planting carries out 245 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN my pretending that it is really Mrs. Gates's old garden instead of an imitation of a dozen years' growth. "Here are all the white-flowering bulbs, and rock-cress, sweet-william, columbine, lilies, peo- nies, Japanese anemones, achilleas, the lovely Campanula pyramidalis, summer hyacinths, fever- fews; and after the bulbs have faded away every spot is filled with white annuals. "This border has just had its first birthday, but in my imagination — that first necessity of a garden — a charming and still more charming future stretches out before this band of lovely whiteness. "These and the long arbor with its flowering vines are the parts of my garden nearest my heart, the rest is just garden." The description of the Grand Rapids garden is next in order. "The conditions to which my flower garden is subject have made it what it is. These condi- tions are: "1. It is close to my house and not so large but that every part of it is always in full view therefrom. "2. I restrict myself to a garden which I can 246 VARIOUS GARDENS care for without a regular gardener and with only occasional hired help. "Because of the first of these conditions, the garden is always on parade. It must, therefore, be always sightly throughout its entire extent. So it must be treated as a whole; for pleasing beds, or groups of flowers, without regard to the condition at all times of the rest of the garden, will not produce a result always beautiful in its entirety. That effect will be the result not of the flowers alone, but of flowers, plants, and foliage, so massed and grouped as always, throughout the season's changes, to convey to the eye a pleasing impression of the garden as a whole. This involves consideration of the flowers, foliage, and habit of growth of each of the plants used, and of the time of its growth, its bloom, its decline and decay. It requires the proper grouping of all that the garden contains, so as to cover the ground, to hide unsightly plants in their decline, to present always a pleasing sky-line, and to se- cure harmony of color in foliage as well as in flowers. This is to treat the garden as a picture; and these things are the main factors in its com- position. To make the picture effective in its place there must be a relatively large quantity of 247 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN flowers, the high lights of the picture, and also an unbroken succession of bloom. The flowers chosen for this purpose should be reliable and prolific bloomers, and I think that only such kinds should be used as yield the most beautiful and effective flowers that can be had at the particular blooming season of each. Why seek to get results by using flowers insignificant in themselves when these re- sults may be got with flowers that are more beautiful as single specimens? "To obtain my unbroken succession of bloom and the other results I have outlined, I have used the following: crocuses, daffodils, Darwin tulips, German irises and pink Oriental poppies, peonies, Thunberg's lilies, larkspurs and Madonna lilies, Japanese irises, pink annual poppies, phloxes, late aconites, and Japanese anemones. These may be called my main-line forces, although nothing in the garden is planted in rows or in lines or accord- ing to any set figure or design. May-flowering scillas, heucheras, Rocky Mountain columbines, bleeding-hearts, brodiseas, ixias, lupines, gladioli, etc., come in as aids or reinforcements to add to the beauty and gay effect. Peonies and late aco- nites, on account of their lasting foliage, are used not only for their flowers but with reference to 248 VARIOUS GARDENS the sky-line and to desired screen effects. In this I am greatly aided also by the thalictrums and native ferns. Out of beds of the last-named come up many daffodils, tulips, and lilies. The peonies allow the larkspurs as well as the Dutch bulbs to retire and hide their unsightliness after they have bloomed. By the aid of the lasting foliage and difference in height of these plants, I am able also to obtain a varied and pleasing sky-line and to keep the ground from showing bare or unsightly spots. I have had more difficulty in treating the garden picture as regards these things than in matters relating to flowers and color in the garden. "My way of treating the garden for succes- sional bloom and for continuous sightliness in- volves planting many crops in the same space. No plant has any exclusive preserve in my gar- den. All are set in irregular groups or drifts, one kind crowded on top of another. In the same space the various kinds come up, put forth leaves and branches, bloom, and die down, or serve as ground screen — all in their allotted times, and according to their respective habits. This pro- miscuous commingling and crowding of races in- volves a * struggle for existence'; but since things £49 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN follow in succession it is chiefly a question of suf- ficient fertilizing, rather than of room or of light and air, so far as the flowers and garden plants are concerned. It is the weeds that this struggle bears most heavily upon; for such thick and con- stant cover as results from my scheme of planting holds them down. It also holds moisture and minimizes the necessity of cultivation, and thereby I satisfy the second of the conditions which I stated at the beginning. "A little thought will show that a garden main- tained on the plan outlined is no place for an- nuals or for most of the biennials. It is too crowded for their development, and, moreover, too much labor is involved in raising and renew- ing them. For the same reasons perennials that are difficult, or that run out in a year or two, are excluded, although I am still over-indulgent to the peach-leaved campanulas, the late-flowering aconites (chiefly on account of their height and the lateness and excellence of their foliage), and to the capricious Rocky Mountain columbine. "It is obvious, too, that color and color schemes are not the first thought, or the last word, in my garden. Flowers are not invited to grow there because they are pink or blue or mauve or this or 250 VARIOUS GARDENS that art shade. Color is not the test determin- ing whether a given species or variety can come in, but, so far as it is a test at all, whether it must stay out. Even if the color be satisfactory and harmonious, yet if the plant is bad in its habits, if it sprawls and is unsightly, if it is hog- gish and overruns its neighbors, it cannot get in. Color in this garden is a material factor in making the picture, only in the same way as beauty of foliage or of sky-line. Its importance may be greater, but that is a matter of degree only. Beauty of color and color harmony are essential, because if the colors are bad, or if they jar, the effect of the picture will be spoiled. Color com- binations and color schemes have no other recog- nition, however. "'If this be treason, make the most of it.'" Now come four Eastern gardens. Two are upon the Atlantic coast, one in the hills of Berkshire, and the third in a suburb of the most finished of all American suburbs, those of Philadelphia. On Nantucket Island has been created a garden spot which, from its very pictures, so delights me that to sometime see it, its lights and shadows, its lovely watery distances, is a thing to expect 251 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN with special pleasure. This garden is the more successful when one hears that its space is re- stricted, that its proportions are perhaps one hundred and fifty feet deep by fifty wide, and that the ground was originally the site of an ancient dwelling. The old levels of cellar and main floor were scrupulously and closely retained giving the necessary drop for two short flights of low steps. Along the street line there is a fence. Stepping- stones go through the entire garden, which over- looks at the opposite end the harbor of Nantucket. As foreground for this lovely picture of water, tree and flower have been used with a most ex- cellent eye for effect. The house is connected with the garden by a terrace of brick and against the wall of this terrace is a fine border of annual flowers. The first or lower garden, next the house, is oblong; the second square; the third informal in treatment, with the sea-lavender lead- ing up to a charming little pool with goldfish — papyrus growing there. In the cut, page 244, showing a part of the ter- race wall, one notices the old-time, fan-shaped supports for roses always a feature of the early New England garden. Here are seen tall fox- gloves rising from groups of the wonderful Iris 252 VARIOUS GARDENS Kaempferi, the little pointed box-tree at the left a good foil for the gay colors of the flowers. Everywhere balance, symmetry — that regularity which is perhaps more precious for the small piece of ground than for the large, since it pro- duces, in little, effects both agreeable and fin- ished. In the foreground of the highest garden shown in the illustration a perfect use is made of Statice latifolia, or, appropriately, sea-lavender. Below these plants, the beauty of whose purple bloom against the distant blues can be but faintly imagined, one may notice little gleams of sweet alyssum and, looking straight toward the sea, their flowers shining against the green of the next lower level, one sees delphiniums most happily in- troduced into the picture. Flowers found in this garden are, with others, Shasta daisies and many purple and yellow Japanese irises; hedges and box-trees everywhere to form enclosures, to af- ford backgrounds, to give that richness of dark green always peculiarly effective near the sea. The photograph of this garden with its sight of ocean is one of the loveliest gardening composi- tions ever falling beneath my eye; I am delighted that it may grace these pages (frontispiece). At Swampscott, Mass., set upon a great ram- 253 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN part of rock overhanging the Atlantic, is a series of small gardens on a property of three acres. The forms and flowers of these gardens send one's thoughts swiftly to divers beautiful parts of the earth. The house in this case has a site of great picturesqueness. It is also true that good minds as well as good gardeners have been at work here. Ingenious, indeed brilliant, use has been made of boldly varying levels, of the suddenly changing out- lines of the property as a whole, of the glorious outlook upon the sea. Entrance to the house from the highroad is obtained through a bit of wooded land, passing on the left the first of a group of gardens on lower and yet lower levels. This is the sunken garden of one hundred by fifty feet. Surrounded by a broad grass walk, bordered on one side by an arrangement for two periods of bloom of dahlias and hollyhocks, this is an English garden of per- ennials. The design shows four balanced beds, with central features in the form of three circular ones. Of these the middle is kept in turf, the endmost circles delightfully planted as color-har- monizing foci for their gay surroundings, in hues of lavender and white. One of these circles is filled with white geranium bordered by lavender- 254 AT SWAMPSCOTT, MASSACHUSETTS - FERNBROOK, LENOX, MASSACHUSETTS VARIOUS GARDENS blue ageratum, the other has for occupants helio- tropes encircled by a band of sweet alyssum. Terraces are here with fine retaining walls, well- planted terraces; curving stone steps and walks also curving follow the line of the precipitous rock which divides the wild from the cultivated part of this place; a charming fan-shaped rose- garden occupies a secluded spot but with its own view of the ocean. A little platform of green- sward enclosed by a square-clipped hedge of privet forms a base for the fine Italian well-head with its "overthrow" of restrained design shown in the illustration. All this clear green and dazzling ar- chitectural whiteness shines against the blue ex- panse of sea and sky. And in another portion of the place such blooming of Iris Kaempferi takes place as is seldom seen away from the Flowery Kingdom. (By the by, why does not some one have the sense and grace to call his or her garden by this ever-charming title?) It is with the mind's eye only that I have seen this garden. May it be my happy lot to walk in it at no distant time. While the work it requires is done, its mistress assures me, only by herself and her Italian gardener, the harvest of flowers here above the "unharvested sea" is truly remarkable. 255 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN There is at Lenox, in the Berkshire Hills, a place with the musical name of Fernbrook Farm. It is high on one of the glorious hillsides between Pittsfield and Lenox and reached by a romantic drive through pretty by-roads. The house itself is of white stucco and dark wood and here the eye catches first of all, perhaps, the decorative use of fruit, especially of rich black grapes, as the vines are caught upward above windows of the sec- ond story. The clusters hang clear and beauti- ful from the stem all the way up; few leaves are allowed to remain. Japanese plums and crab- apples grow as espaliers, and the effect of this bold decoration of fruit and leaf against the white stucco gives an Italian touch, a lovely reminis- cence of that land of sun and shadow. At the back of this house, looking into the mountainside, there is first a grass terrace in a court made by the projection of two wings of the house upon it; a few steps down a second and much larger terrace. Here is a fine sun-dial, a bronze cupid astride a globe — "Love Ruling the World," modelled by the artist-owner of Fern- brook. Flowers are so disposed about the ped- estal as to beautifully adorn it. At the farther side of this main terrace, through a small per- 256 VARIOUS GARDENS gola covered with berried matrimony-vine occurs a descent of a few steps into a long pleached walk of apple-trees running through the kitchen garden. In places the steep balustrades leading from the first to the second terraces are accented by the use of dwarf apple-trees in pots. These were in fruit when I saw them, and the shining red globes in the green leaves against that Italianesque wall of white were again good to see. Italian gourds hanging through roofs of light pavilions and against trellises showed a fine use of what to me was a new horticultural subject, physalis, the Chinese lantern plant, with its vermilion fruit lighting the borders against the house on the up- per terrace, and higher up its color was repeated by festoons of scarlet peppers and tomatoes hung with careless art against the plastered wall. Ac- tinidia arguta, the fine creeper from Japan, and our native bittersweet were in evidence here, very much thinned as to branches but full of fruit. The garden proper at Fernbrook Farm has been built on a bit of level and projecting ground be- fore and to the left of the entrance front of the house. This is an oblong hedged garden planted gayly in long narrow beds with delphiniums, roses, and very fine scabiosas. At the garden's end 257 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN farthest from the entrance is a circular pavilion, an informal gazeebo, its roof a light framework of rods or canes. Along these run bold vines full of blue-black clusters, this fruit of the vine hung against a distance of valley and mountain rich in every autumn color and bound together by that heavenly October haze of blue. It was in October, too, that I saw another garden, Fancy Field, at Chestnut Hill, near Phil- adelphia. In the soft autumnal light the summer freshness of all green was touched here almost to the gray-greens of Italy. Would that my memory of this garden equalled my delight in it ! I might then hope to describe with some degree of accuracy what I so enjoyed upon that day. My recollection is of garden after garden, one out-of-door apartment after another, perfectly connected, with a most knowing use of structural green in the way of hedges low and high; of the quiet effect of broad spaces of hedge-enclosed turf; of one garden modelled upon the Lemon Garden of the Villa Colonna at Rome; 'of another, illus- trated here, a reproduction of the Dutch Garden at Hampton Court made in the time of William and Mary; of a third, a knot or parterre fashioned after an ancient pattern still existing somewhere 258 VARIOUS GARDENS among the English dukeries — all these enchant- ingly enclosed and giving a series of delightful surprises; and last, a remarkable pergola at the back of all the gardens and bounding their whole length. This, very high, was so well proportioned that to look either at or through it gave instant pleasure. At the moment, too, all of its great rose-vines carried but bare stems. In this gar- den one had everywhere the sense of proportions finely maintained. The use of dwarf fruit-trees and of espaliers; of box, of privet, and of poplar in hedging; of slight but effective bits of terra cotta, marble, and stone now and again in these gardens, was exceedingly good. Indeed, a few pieces of bright Italian faience made one spot in the garden "si gai et si coquette" that the bright- ness of summer itself seemed to be caught and held there for the further beauty of that autumn day. Is there not true and tranquil beauty in the picture of one of these gardens ? — June, with some late foxgloves just overlapping the first delphin- iums; and the cleverest introduction of the two dogs into the picture, quite unconscious that they are the living repetitions of those lions cut in stone! 259 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN The end of my chapter comes quite naturally with those gardens which lie toward the setting sun. Two gardens near Tacoma fill me with envy of that wonderful climate of the Pacific coast. Lavender flourishes in Tacoma gardens; the broom is magnificent in May on the prairies which stretch from Tacoma toward American Lake some ten or twelve miles from the city; and here the heaths are at home as well, both Scotch and Mediter- ranean. The winter is mild, with much rain; the summer cool but rainless, therefore constant water- ing of lawns and flowers in the latter season is the practice. A glorious picture of natural plant- ing presents itself upon these prairies where superb spruce-trees are so cunningly grouped in colonies as to give an appearance of the utmost achieve- ment in studied art. At the far edge of one of these great natural parks we drive through a grove of beautiful dark trees and come suddenly upon a rustic gateway dripping with pale-pink rambler roses. We pass inside the gate between short bordering beds of hybrid perpetual roses, turn sharply to the right, and behold one of the most lovely flow- ering vistas it has ever been my good luck to see VARIOUS GARDENS real and living. It seems painted; it is too good to be true, this artist's arrangement of colors within a long pergola built of saplings with the bark still upon them. "I made it all myself," delight- edly exclaims our hostess as our unconcealed sur- prise and pleasure in this lovely garden pour forth in excited talk. On the right, entering the per- gola — a pergola with a raison d'etre, for it con- ducts from gate to house — are gray foliage of pinks, Canterbury bells back of those; farther down, masses of Shasta daisies, gigantic here in stature; beyond those, clouds of the gray gypsophila; and then a delicious mass of color in tones ranging from pale lavender to deepest purple, the flowers most excellently grouped, an effect of carelessness which in an informal border is supremest art; among the flowers used, the hyacinth-flowered candytuft which Burpee sends out, here appear- ing in pinkish mauve, deep purplish pink, and white; purple pansies snuggling among these; rich purple annual larkspur sending up a few spires here and there; and climbing above all a lavender and mauve sweet pea, faint notes of the color below reflected in the air. Pictures are here shown of the rustic tea-house, or recessed arbor, at one end of this pergola immedi- 261 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN ately after its erection (this is now wreathed in rambler rose Dorothy Perkins); of the pergola itself in its first summer, a tangle of scarlet dah- lias; and in the following summer, when annuals were the mainstay. During the third summer these were the subjects here: decorative dahlia Golden West, white dahlias, and a hundred feet of Burpee's Superb Spencer sweet peas, some un- usual Spencer seedlings among them, especially the heliotrope Tennant Spencer. No reds, not a red blossom in the pergola! Outside of it are white dahlias and white sweet peas. Turning again to the prairie for a mile or so farther, our road leads again to the lake. Here is a surprise of a totally different character. Ta- coma's "year one," as some one has said, is the year 1889, yet twenty years later, only twenty years later, here stands, surrounded by giant firs, between whose columns the blue reaches of the lake and the greener blues of distant shores are seen, an English house, a dignified and serene country house of the earlier Tudor period, with walled garden and lily-pool. The latter is set at a suitable distance from the house for effect from the second-floor windows; and a large cutting- RUSTIC ARBOR AND PERGOLA IN TACOMA GARDEN — FIRST YEAR VARIOUS GARDENS garden, formal in design, lies farther back toward the prairie. The wonder of the main garden lies in the fact that it has been most skilfully placed on an axis with that noblest of American peaks, Mount Tacoma. Clouds hid the mountain vision on the day of my visit, but what a sensation to see Mount Tacoma from one's garden ! To come upon this English picture, this delight- ful red-brick house, its low outlines possessing much of the sweetness of the ancient English manor- house, with its gardens masterly in design and rich with flowers — to come upon this, in the far- thest Northwest, in the new country, is to find a thing almost unbelievable. "And I saw in my dream" — yet the dream is a reality. One re- calls the beautiful house of Kipling's in "They" — it is here in America, in that noble State of Washington, near Tacoma. For the following description, full of sympathy and charm, of the gardens of Glendessary, not far from Santa Barbara, I am indebted to the owner herself. Parenthetically may it be said here that nothing the writer has ever seen in pictures has so strengthened her desire to see California as have these entrancing vistas full of color and of THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN sunlight, the roses and the fountains, of this so evidently cherished garden. Writing first of the picture shown here, the garden's owner says: "This is taken from the edge of a fountain basin looking toward the house. The trees are Italian cypress, and oaks in the extreme background. "The large bushes in the foreground are: right, the yellow Southern jasmine, Thuya aurea, fifteen feet high; pale-purple veronicas; the rough stone copings laid in sand along the paths are covered with Ficus repens. Left, Southern jasmine, Laurel nobiliSy Swainsonia, and various small things. This left bed is filled with Camellia Japonica in different colors, which bloom profusely from No- vember to May and are too perfect for words. They are small yet, not more than four feet high. There are palms alike in each bed, the Chamerops excelsa, whose very delicate fanlike leaves quiver with the faintest breeze. At the second steps there is a high green clipped hedge which encloses and also separates the Little Garden from the forecourt, in which there are only the lawn and the oaks with a stone railing. "It was in 1902 that we began taking the scat- tered rocks and bowlders out of the small piece of 264 THORNEWOOD, AMERICAN LAKE, TACOMA GLENDESSARY, SANTA BARBARA," CALIFORNIA VARIOUS GARDENS pasture, through which an old stream-bed still could be followed, and built the walls around the * Little Garden,' as it is called, to distinguish it from the Orchard, the Rock Garden, and the Shrubbery, etc. The ideas expressed in this small place were harmonious color, fragrance, plants mentioned in literature, and water. There were several large 'Live Oaks,' as the California oak is called, in the enclosure, which served as a start- ing-point for the walls, the seats, and the general shape of the garden. A formal plan of walks and beds was decided upon in the first place, varied slightly by the position of existing objects in the way that a Turkish rug varies from its pattern in places. I am told by garden architects that it is not exact enough, but I could not bear to lose a single old tree; and the mathematical glories must suffer a little. "A garden seems to me a collection of the flowers one loves best or has a very dear association with in one's mind from poems or books, and mine began with Laurus nobilis and orange-trees, jasmine and ivy, and climbing roses on the walls — Madame Al- fred Carriere, La Marque, and Olga of Wtirtem- berg, Celine Forestier and Beauty of Glazen- wood — the white wistaria in the oak-trees in the 265 THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN spring and the Daphne odorata and lemon verbena to lean over and breathe in. ... The pool in the centre is full of brilliant lilies, and the lotus-tank below is, in summer, a lovely group of perfect beauty around which the darting green dragon-flies, the humming-birds, and bees are constantly seen. The colors are very carefully considered, and the flowers are separated t>y green shrubs and plant- ings which break the garden into many nooks and corners. " Everything will grow in California if the proper care is taken, and the succession of flowers is a never-ending source of happiness. The earth is quite covered, as there are many low-growing plants, which serve as a setting for their more ambitious sisters; and, since we cannot easily have grass, the earth must be covered with tiny plants. The use of plants in pots is also very helpful in places where one needs a certain form or color; and the big, coarse red Mexican jar made in Los Angeles is a great boon. We have many plants indigenous to California which are most valuable to the lover of formal gardening; among them the numerous agaves and aloes fill many an impor- tant spot." It is gardening such as this which gives joy 266 VARIOUS GARDENS to the discriminating; it is beyond all a question of the mind and eye. The nobler the intellect, the more poetic the imaginative vision, the hap- pier he or she who gardens. And is there any one so happy as the fortunate possessor of a bit of ground and the wish to give a loveliness higher than earth has yet been known to show? He who has done this should be a supremely happy man, and "to the supremely happy man, all times are times of thanksgiving, deep, tranquil, and abundant, for the delight, the majesty, and the beauty of the fulness of the rolling world." 267 APPENDIX NOTE ON GARDEN CLUBS APPENDIX NOTE ON GARDEN CLUBS "Have we progressed in gardening?" asks Doctor Wil- helm Miller in "Country Life in America"; and then pro- ceeds to show that, while deprecating all boastfulness on our part, we have certainly made great strides as to the amount and the quality of our horticultural growth in the last ten years. Doctor Miller adds columns of interesting details to prove his assertion. In a single inconspicuous line occur these words: "First women's clubs devoted to gardening." Insufficient emphasis, it seemed and seems to me, to lay upon the sight of this organization of garden clubs now proceeding with such amazing rapidity. To those to whom the art of gardening is dear, to all heart-felt gar- deners, a significance of the very highest order attaches it- self at once to the spectacle of these clubs rising in every direction in our land — a significance which is really a prophecy, a promise of beauty. If the Garden Club of Philadelphia is, as I believe it to be, the first of its kind to come into being in this country, then it is one of the greatest horticultural benefactors Amer- ica has seen, and in time to come many gardeners will rise up and call it blessed. To some people it may seem that the art of gardening is too gentle, too delicate, to admit of its devotees' submission to rules made by ordered groups; on the other hand, it is a complex art; and now so popular a 271 APPENDIX pursuit that I do not exaggerate when I say that there has been a suspicion of midsummer madness in the way in which garden clubs have been springing up month by month in the years just past. A deep, persistent, and growing inter- est in gardening seems to have suddenly crystallized in this charming and most practical fashion, with the result that fifty or more of these organizations, varying in size and form, are now in existence. Offshoots of these clubs seem to be multiplying as rapidly as bulblets from a good gladiolus in a fair season. It is not the fault of the garden clubs that they have a distinctly social side. Gardening at its highest can best be carried on by men and women of high intelligence, taste, ex- perience, and — alas that it must be said! — the wherewithal. With the true gardener this money question, however, is the last, least requisite, for who that deeply loves a garden does not know that qualities most rare and fine shine out oftenest through the flowers of small and simple gardens? It is, I have sometimes compassionately thought, more diffi- cult for a richer man to achieve his heart's desire in garden- ing than for a poorer one. Many are the conventional ob- stacles to gardening raised in the path of the owners of great gardens. The Garden Club of Philadelphia was, I believe, the first of its kind in this country. It is now twelve years of age. It has, in these twelve years, had no change in the offices of president and secretary; and it has been the active agent in the organization of many other clubs of a like nature. This society has perhaps fifty members. It meets weekly from the middle of April to the first of July; twice in Sep- tember, and has besides three winter meetings; all "for plea- sure and profit." A paper is read at each meeting on a sea- 272 APPENDIX sonable topic, the club studying, besides, plants, fertilizers, insecticides, fungi, birds, bees, and moths, quality of soils, climate, and so on, care of house-plants, trees, and shrubs. The club has visited the gardens of Mount Vernon, Hampton near Baltimore, Princeton, Trenton, and many gardens at Bar Harbor. Specialists on horticultural subjects have from time to time addressed them. In the club's library are more than one hundred papers prepared by members. Their activities extend beyond their own limits in several direc- tions, notably toward the movement made by the Society for the Protection of Native Plants. Now, as to the age of the garden clubs other than the Philadelphia I am not informed. In the following mention of them, therefore, I shall not undertake to give any one club precedence, but shall first take up the Garden Club of Ann A.rbor, Michigan, because of its liberal use of the letter A! This club is unique in its ultra-democratic policy. Whereas the Garden Club of Cleveland, in two gentle sen- tences of its rules and regulations, remarks that "eligibility to membership in this club is limited to: A. Those who are fortunate possessors of gardens of unusual perfection. B. Those who plan and develop personally and enthusiastically gardens of their own design" — the Garden Club of Ann Arbor declares that only he or she shall enter their ranks who is possessed of "an active personal enthusiasm and working interest in one's garden," and follows this with the rigid exclusion of all others in this explicit language: "Only amateurs doing individual practical work in their own gar- dens or yards are eligible for active membership in the club." An interesting question here presents itself. Were this a discursive article, I should be tempted to set forth my rea- sons for believing that the Cleveland Club has the best of it ! 273 APPENDIX The Garden Club of Cleveland, of which mention has just now been made, has this fine sentence in its charter: "The purpose for which this corporation is formed is to cultivate the spirit of gardening in its fullest sense, together with an appreciation of civic beauty and betterment in and about Cleveland." No mean ambition here; though, as their sec- retary says, their aspirations are far more numerous as yet than their experiences ! Seventy-seven names are upon the roster of this club. The meetings are in summer weekly, in winter monthly. Mr. Charles Platt has spoken at one of these on formal gardening, a lecture on peonies has been had, and the prizes are already offered for this summer's flowers, one for a rose contest. New Canaan, Connecticut, has, it would appear, the largest membership of the garden clubs. It carries the name of its dwelling-place and shows a membership of about two hun- dred — all this within three years of life ! In each of these years an exhibition of flowers has been held, with none but professionals as judges. This powerful club has helped sev- eral other similar societies to come into being, and is a mem- ber of the Plant, Fruit, and Flower Guild, assisting that or- ganization in its work. It may be that the Garden Association of Newport might be called the most ambitious of the newly formed gardening societies, as may be seen by mentioning in order its objects. These are: "First: To increase the knowledge of owners of gardens in Newport by means of lectures and practical talks in the garden during the summer months by well-known au- thorities on trees, lawns, roses, hardy flowers, perennial borders, and so on. Second: To provide a corresponding secretary who will keep the association in touch with the de- velopment of new ideas and improvements in the varieties 274 APPENDIX of flowers among the seedsmen and gardeners of France, Germany, and the East. Third: To establish a bureau where the seeds of novelties from abroad can be obtained. Fourth: To develop by means of illustrated lectures on the gardens of England, Italy, and other countries more art, in- dividuality, sentiment, and variety in the planting of flowers, shrubs, and so forth. Fifth : To increase the practical knowl- edge of the care of trees and plants by demonstrating the methods used in Europe in the cultivation of flowers, fruit, and vegetables, and in forestry." Objects, these, most excellent, and most excellently set forth. In my judgment the Newport association is right; we still must go abroad to find most of that which is highest and best in gardening. This remark may provoke criticism. It is still true. The fine gardens, the great arboreta (with the exception of our own Arnold Arboretum, whose dollar bulletins no garden club should fail to get and read), the most perfect use of trees, shrubs, and flowers, are not yet found generally in this country. And the sooner incisive sugges- tions, such as these of the Newport association, wake us to a sense of what we have not, and where we should go to find it, the better for us. On the other hand, the library of the Newport society seems wofully behind, in that it has no books but English books, and that those, indeed, seem to me to be more the suggestions of an English gardener or super- intendent than of the fine English amateur. Six books wanting from this list, some English and some American, are "in my foolish opinion" indispensable to the serious ama- teur in this country, the gardener whose one desire is to call forth true beauty from the earth. The Newport association has had lectures or talks during the summer of 1912 on the subjects of soil, the art of 275 APPENDIX planting, and roses. No object-lesson in the advancement of gardening could be more effective than that of the decision of these dwellers in Newport — some of them pos- sessors of as fine gardens as America has to show — no object-lesson could be better than their admission that still they need to learn; that their gardens, some of them con- sidered practically perfect, still need contributions from the charming flowers and plants of that older world beyond the Atlantic. The Shedowa Garden Club, of Garden City, New York, has for president and secretary two whose brains are never idle in working for a progressive policy for their club. (Shedowa is an Iroquois word meaning Great Plains.) Their fifty-odd members meet about every fortnight. They have had sev- eral authorities address them during then* first year's exist- ence, they have already a library of forty volumes, and they have taken much interest in improving the flower exhibit at the Nassau County Fair. The president of the club is now exerting herself to get the various plantsmen and seeds- men of the country to adopt the fine color chart of Doctor Robert Ridgway, "Color Standards and Color Nomencla- ture." From an account of this club by its secretary I quote: "The management of the Shedowa Club is entirely in the hands of the executive committee. The membership is not limited; the dues are smaller than those of the average gar- den club, and men of the community are admitted as asso- ciates (since they cannot attend afternoon meetings) for a still smaller fee. The club is an all-the-year-round one, with meetings each month, and an occasional extra talk. The speakers and their expenses, prizes (except for four cups of- fered at each large flower show by members and not per- 276 APPENDIX mitted to exceed two dollars and fifty cents in price), and, in fact, all expenses, are paid from the club treasury. An en- trance fee for members, and admission to non-members, are charged at the spring and fall shows, and occasionally a small admission fee is charged to non-members for some of the illustrated lectures; but, as a rule, non-members are in- vited as guests; and no admission fee is ever charged to members except for the shows. Neither fee nor admission is charged for the little shows at meetings. Members are never assessed beyond their annual dues." At Short Hills, New Jersey, is a small but vigorous garden club, with so informal an organization that there is no officer but the president. Membership here is limited ; but meetings are frequent, in summer as frequent as once a week, "thus enabling us," to quote a member, "to watch carefully the development of color schemes and artistic planting, so en- thusiastically started in the previous season; and to note the growth of plants tried in our locality for the first time." The writer further remarks upon the incentive established by the frequency of meetings — and that in time of failure the meetings prove a consolation as well. The Short Hills Club has also for several years had dahlia shows. In this short account the most excellent suggestions are interesting novel- ties in plants, a subject which always touches one nearly, and an exhibition devoted to a particular flower. The Garden Club of Trenton, New Jersey, with a member- ship of twenty-four, is limited to twenty-five. (One cannot help envying that twenty -fifth member !) It holds its regular meetings on the second Monday of each month, with an extra meeting sometimes on the fourth Monday. The letter of the Trenton club's secretary is so beguiling that I yield to the temptation to quote a part of it verbatim — "We 277 APPENDIX started our club a year ago, and being perfectly overrun with clubs and rather tired of them, we have tried to make it as unclublike as possible. It has been the greatest suc- cess. We have had delightful meetings, with papers and talks by our own members. We have had two days in the country with the wild flowers, which were intensely enjoyed. Those who were able went to a lecture by Hugo de Vries, at Princeton; and in the spring some of us visited the garden planned by the late Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, doubtless one of the most beautiful smaller gardens in this part of the country. During the summer a number of meetings were held at the seashore, where most of the members had come together and studied the flowers of the coast, both wild and cultivated. Some of our topics are: 'Flowers in Mythology and History,' 'The Christmas Tree,' 'Evergreens from Prehistoric Ages to our Gardens,' 'Orchids, Wild and Cultivated,' 'English Gar- dens,' 'French Gardens,' 'Italian Gardens,' 'Kew and Its Research Work,' 'Flowers in Poetry,' 'Insect Pests,' 'The Hardy Border,' 'Roses,' 'Bulbs'; and always we have prac- tical discussion for the last hour." The range of suggestion here set forth is remarkable, and, if I am not mistaken, the enthusiasm warming every word of this short letter will affect others who may read it here, as it has already af- fected me. The Garden Club of Lenox, Massachusetts, has the great good luck to exist where backgrounds, both near and far, are pictures; where planting, however little, cannot fail to be telling. Disadvantages may exist. Frost surely arrives too soon; soil on those glorious hillsides may be scarce; yet where every prospect is one of beauty, the stimulus toward the creation of beauty must be unique. Add to this the fact that for at least a year a painter and sculptor was their 278 APPENDIX president, and could the most eager garden club ask for more? In this club men and women are again associated. The membership is limited to one hundred and twenty -five, and has, I fancy, barely reached that number. Regular meet- ings are held on the first Mondays of July, August, Septem- ber, and October. Two novel and highly interesting sections occur in the by-laws of the Lenox Garden Club. The first is this: "On the third Monday in June, July, August, and September there shall be meetings of the officers and council for the closer study of gardens and gardening problems and the general management of the club. All eligible to the council must do manual work in their gardens, and bring to the meetings, twice during the season, interesting specimens of plants, blights, or insects, giving their personal experience with them." The second follows and concerns a plant exchange : " Mem- bers having plants to exchange or give away may send a postal giving names and quality to the recorder. Members desiring plants may send in applications in the same man- ner. The recorder shall keep a list of both and shall bring the same to all meetings, that members may refer to it." The younger clubs naturally profit by such wise arrange- ments and suggestions as these. Thus it is not strange to see rules on these general lines in the book of the Garden Club of Long Island, whose membership seems to centre about Lawrence and which, though in existence only since Septem- ber of 1912, has the astonishing membership "already yet so soon, " as an old German gardener of my acquaintance was wont to say, of ninety-one ! This club meets twice a month in summer. Miss Rose Standish Nichols has spoken to them 279 APPENDIX on "Gardens," Miss Averill on "Japanese Flower Arrange- ment," and Miss Coffin on "Color and Succession in the Flower Garden." Returning again to the Middle West, we have the Garden Club of Cincinnati, which, to quote from a recent letter, "limits its membership to thirty." "The By-Laws read rather insistently upon its members being active workers in their gardens, although there are included a small number of associate and honorary mem- bers. From its inception the greatest enthusiasm has been shown by the members of this club, whose meetings are held fortnightly during most of the year. Lectures by profes- sionals have been given and papers read by the members. The bulletins have been most interesting, and the exhibi- tions have embraced displays of all sorts of bulbs, forced and outdoor grown, roses, delphiniums, iris, dahlias, cosmos, chrysanthemums, and floral arrangements for different oc- casions. These exhibitions have been accompanied by de- bates and prizes have been awarded. "The last dahlia show was given in the pergola of the Zoological Gardens and was on a large scale. Thousands of blooms were shown by amateur and professional growers. "One of the important aims of this club has been to beautify the city and adjacent country roads. Ten thou- sand pink ramblers have been planted, and seeds and bulbs are being scattered along the rural ways. "Meetings have been held with the botany class of the university, and the club now hopes, with encouragement, to establish a chair in gardening at this institution. "The oriflamme of the Garden Club of America is also car- ried by the Garden Club of Cincinnati, and it further aims to put Botticelli foregrounds in all of Cincinnati's landscapes." Now for the club in which I am most at home — the 280 APPENDIX Garden Club of Michigan. This was patterned mainly upon that of Philadelphia, and I here acknowledge with renewed gratitude our debt to that organization, which was most gra- cious in its assistance; and to the New Canaan Garden Club, also a friend in need. Our club, like the Philadelphia, has sixty members. We have had, during our first year's existence, seventeen meetings, with lectures upon such sub- jects as roses, new flowers, gardens of England, garden books, color in the garden, the making of an old-fashioned garden, the grouping of shrubs, and the planning and planting of home grounds. "We have learned," writes our secretary, "much about gardens, gardeners, and gardening; also that even garden clubs do not grow of themselves ! " For our club I have prepared from time to time a list of color combinations in flowers, simple ones, easily produced — a list of my own preferences in seedsmen and plantsmen, including specialists in this country and abroad, drawn from dealings of twenty years past. If a seedsman sends me a specially good sheet of cultural directions for a given flower, I do not hesitate to beg at once for sixty for our next meeting. Little piles of these things on the secretary's table do wonders in shortening the hard road to good gardening. We have, as a club, joined two or three plant societies, and during the coming year we hope to help in some public horticultural im- provement in Detroit, for in that city lies the balance of our membership. The annual dues of our club, which were two dollars, have now been raised to five. The dues of the va- rious clubs average this sum; though in one club the sub- scription is fifteen. In all clubs the meetings are held, as a rule, in the houses or gardens of members. Expeditions are undertaken by some of the clubs — jour- neys to fine gardens, public or private. This is as it should be. In England it is a common sight, that of horticultural 281 APPENDIX societies going about, en masse, forty or fifty strong, inspect- ing gardens. Many of these must knock daily at Miss JekylTs "close-paled hand-gate." I would suggest to mem- bers on the eastern seaboard that they avail themselves of the beauties of the Arnold Arboretum in lilac time, or in mid-June — and never without a note-book, for, as at Kew, every tree and shrub is labelled to perfection. Other clubs there are of which mention should be made, as the Garden Club of Warrenton, Virginia, an offshoot of the Philadelphia Club; the Garden Club of Princeton, New Jersey; "The Weeders," of Haverford, Pennsylvania; the club at New Rochelle, New York; one forming at San Antonio, Texas; indeed, at the time of writing, the whole number of clubs known to me in this country is forty-nine ! Twenty-six of these have combined to form the Garden Club of America (founded by the Garden Club of Philadelphia), whose hon- orary president was the late Mrs. C. Stuart Patterson, and whose president is Mrs. J. Willis Martin. The stated objects of this society are: "To stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening among amateurs, to share the advantages of association through conference and correspondence in this country and abroad, to aid in the protection of native plants and birds, and to encourage civic planting." In "American Homes and Gardens," August, 1914, appears an article on the association, by Mrs. Arthur H. Scribner, written with sympathy and charm. The best garden club is doubtless yet to be formed; it can now be a composite. It will adopt the more important and practical plans of those already in existence; it may start with the benefit of their experience. Existing clubs are al- ready recognized, reference to our gardening journals shows, as powerful factors for the right development of horticulture in America. May their tribe increase ! INDEX INDEX ACHILLEA PTAEMICA, 23, 32, 34; pearl, 50; white, 246 Acidanthera bicolor, 177 Aconites, late, 248, 250 Actinidia arguta, 257 Ageratum, blue, 70, 71, 73, 255; Stella Gurney, 148, 152, 156, 175 Alpine Flowers and Gardens of Japan, Flemwell, 235 Altheas, 95 Alyssum, 30, 84; saxatile, 104; sul- phureum, 132; hardy, 136; sweet, 253, 255. American Gardens, Lowell, 136 Anchusa Italica, 47; Dropmore, 69, 112, 141, 168, 243 Anemones, Japanese, 151, 198, 245, 246,248 Antirrhinum, Purple King, 177 Apple-trees, dwarf, 257 Aquilegia chrysantha, see columbine Arabis, 10, 30, 31, 49, 50, 228 Arbor, 246 Arnott, S., 99 Art and Craft of Garden-making, Mawson, 236 Aster, hardy, 36, 37, 43, 44, 74; Ostrich Plume, 146; James Ganly, 148, 177 Aubrietia, 10, 92. 124; with tulips, 140,228 BABY'S BREATH, see gypsophila Bailey's Encyclopcedia, 221, 222 Balsams, salmon-pink, 110, 151 Basket, Vickery Garden, 181, 184; Munstead, 185; sweet-pea, 186; bucket-shaped, 187 Begonia, 10 Bittersweet, 257 Blanket flower, see gaillardia Bleeding-heart (dicentra), 18, 248 Bloodroot, 16, 60 Border, double, 131, 202, 244; white, 246, 247; of annuals, 252 Bowles, E. A., 96, 99, 185; books by, 237 Box-tree, 253 Boyle, The Honorable Mrs., books by, 234 Brodiaeas, 248 Buddleia, 176 Bulb Planter, Cross-roads, 187 CALENDULAS, Orange King, Sul- phur Queen, 42 Camellia Japonica, 264 Campanula, hardy, 32; Die Fee, 45; pyramidalis, 45, 48, 110, 246; persicifolia, 159; carpatica, 243; peach-leaved, 250 Candytuft, hardy, 11; hyacinth- flowered, 261 Canterbury bells, 31, 32, 46, 48-50. 109, 111, 161 Century Magazine, The, 67 Cerastium, 243 Chamomile, 35 Chrysanthemum, Garza, 153 ; French, 172, 245 Chrysanthemum Society of France, 7, 15, 226 Cinerarias, 10 Clarkia elegans, 36; Salmon Queen, Clematis, purple, 13; recta, 61 285 INDEX Color chart, 15. 226. 227 Color effects, Ruskin quoted, 1, 2; use of trial garden for, 53 Color in the Flower Garden, Jekyll, 13; quoted, 14, 15, 222-224 Color Standards and Color Nomen- clature, Ridgway, 227 Columbine, early, see Aquilegia chrysantha, 27, 32; yellow, 45; white, hybrid, 108; with iris, 141; Rocky Mountain, 248, 250 Cosmos, 48; early-flowering, 178 Crambe eordifolia, 11, 54; orientalis, 83 Crocus, purpureus, 17, 79-81 ; Maxi- milian. 78, 95; Reine Blanche. 79. 82, 94, 95; collecting, 88; Mont Blanc, 93, 95; Mme. Mina, 95, 96; Susianus, 97; Sieberi, 97; Korol- kowi. 98; "Scotch," 98; Tom- masinianus, 98; May and Doro- thy. 98; Kathleen Parlow. 99 DAFFODIL, double 16; cream-white, 43; Jacobs's list, 58, 60, 88; trumpets, yellow, white, and bicolor, 68; yellow perianths, pheasant eyes, doubles, and bunch-flowered, 59; Eyebright, Firefly, and Elvira, 59, 60; with peonies, 87, 88; true place for, 139; books on, 229, 230, 245. 248 Daffodils, Jacobs, 229, 230 Dahlia, 6, 145; in border, 254; scarlet, white, and Golden West, 262 Daisies, common, 32, 159; Shasta, 33, 202, 253 Daphne odorata, 266 Delphiniums, blue, 10, 11, 13; pale- blue, 32; Belladonna, 33; Cantab. 33, 160, 232; chinensis, 34, 46. 72; dark-blue, 159; La France, 159, 160. Mme. Violet Geslin, 160; Kelway's Lovely, 160; Persim- mon, 160; Statuaire Rude, 161; Alake. 161 ; Moerheimi. 162 ; early, 259 Dcutzia Lemoineii, 107 Dianthus, 36; hardy. Her Majesty, 43 Divers, W. H., 228 Dogtooth violet, 77 Dragonhead, 47 Dutch Bulbs and Gardens, Nixon, Silberrad. and Lyall, 235 EGAN, W. C., 9; use of Bordeaux mixture, 188 Elder, common, 21 English Flower Garden, The, Robin- son, 236 Eremuri, 243; Erigeron, 243 Eryngium, 163 FARR, Bertram? H., his list of Oriental poppies, 167 Ferns, 243, 249 Feverfews, 246 Flower Fields of Alpine Switzerland, Flemwell, 235 Flowers and Gardens of Japan, Du Cane, 235 Flowers of the Alpine Valleys, Flem- well, 77 Forbes, 54 Forget-me-not, see Myosotis Formal Garden in England, The, Blomfield. 236 Foxgloves, 32; perennial, 159, 252, 259 Fruit-tree, dwarf, 72 Funkias, 11 GAILLARDIA, 21, 22 Galtonias, 145 Garden, formal, 11; experiments with, 65; clipped trees in a, 68, 195; trial, 53-57; of phloxes, 55; "wild," 67; Mrs. Tyson's, at Berwick, Me., 67; Miss Will- mott's, Warley, Eng.. 72; Mr. INDEX Chas. A. Platt's, Saginaw, Mich., 73; repetition in, 74; flower cut- ting in, 194-196; sunken, 242, 254; at Gates Mills, O., 244, 245; at Grand Rapids, Mich., 246-251; on Nantucket Island, 251-253; at Swampscott, Mass., 253-255; ter- raced, 255; Fernbrook Farm, at Lenox, Mass., 256-258; Fancy Field, at Chestnut Hill, near Philadelphia, 258, 259; near Ta- coma, 260-262; walled, 262; for- mal garden near Mount Tacoma, 262, 263; lily-pool in, 263; of Glendessary, 263-266 Garden, The, Rev. Joseph Jacob, quoted, 58 Garden Color, Waterfield, 227, 228 Garden Design, Agar, 236 GardenMagazine, The, Miller, quoted, 33, 182, 203 Garden Month by Month, The, Sedgwick, 15, 225 Garden of Ignorance, The, Cran, 238 Garden of Pleasure, A, Boyle, 234 Gardener, the, attitude toward, 208- 211; classification of, 212; salary of, 214-218; training of, 214 Gardeners' Chronicle, 134 Gardener's Year, A, Haggard, 230, 231 Gardening Donts, Chappell, 238 Geranium, 23; Beaute Parfaite, 151; pink, 199, 200; Vincent list, 200; Regal pelargonium, 201; cactus- flowering, 201; Berthe de Presilly, 201; Alpha, Baron Grubbisch, Rosalda, 201; white, 254 Gladiolus, Baron Hulot, 7, 28, 153, 172; purple, 13, 28, 48, 69; William Falconer, 37, 69, 155; Niagara and Panama, 145, 147, 148; Badenia, 146, 174; Amer- ica, 147, 155, 172; Peace, Dawn, and Afterglow, 149-151; Taconia, Philadelphia, and Evolution, 151; Rosella, 153; Senator Volland, 153; Buchanan, Snowbird, La Luna, California, and Princess Altiere, 154; Sulphur King, 155; Kunderd's Glory, 155; Mrs. Frank Pendleton, Jr., 155, 171; primu- linus hybrids, 165, 170; Display, 166, 170 Gladiolus Grower, The Modern, 146 Gladiolus Society, American, 7, 146 Guild of the Garden Lovers, The, O'Brien, 238 Gypsophila, 11; annual, 32; pani- culata, 32, 33, 50, 164, 169; elegans, 73; in bud, 110; in mass, 162; double, 165; gray, 261 HABRANTHTJS, 243 Happy England, Allingham, 77 Hedges, privet ibota, 35, 253; box, privet and poplar, 259; enclosing, 264 Helianthus orgyalis, 177 Heliotrope, 7; deep purple, 34, 65, 70; dark, 156, 198, 255; Tennant Spencer, 262 Hepatica, 77, 79 Heuchera, 11; sanguinea, 34, 55-57, 127, 243, 248 Hollyhocks, 10, 11, lemon and white, 35, 50, 66, 72; rose-pink, 163; border of, 254 Honeysuckles, bush, 107, 111 Houses and Gardens, Baillie-Scott, 235 Hyacinth, Wood, 3, 8; Holbein, 20, 83; Heavenly Blue grape, 28, 43, 78, 92, 93; Lord Derby, 80, 81, 83; summer, 245 Hydrangea, white, 11, 126, 164 Hypericum, 243 IBERIS Gibraltarica, 30, 50 Iris, 5; German, English, Siberian, and Dutch, 5; reticulata, 14, 79; dwarf, 18; Germanica, 19, 48, 66, 287 INDEX 185, 141 ; pallida,110, 127. 132, 136; English, 111; Kaempferi, 132, 133, 253, 255; Mauve Queen, 132, 133; Japanese, 5, 133, 253; Crusader, 139, 243, 245, 248 Italian cypress, 264 Ixias, 248 JACOB, Reverend Joseph, quoted, 91, 92, 229 Japanese quince, 80, 83 Jar, Mexican, 266 Jasmine, yellow Southern, 264 Jekyll, Miss, quoted, 13-15; on use of sea-holly, 22, 57, 86, 184, 199; books by, 224, 228, 235 Jonquils, Campernelle, 30 LABELS, 62, 185 Lamium maculatum, 85 Larkspur, annual, 12, 32, 261; Salvia patens, 46 Laurel nobilis, 264 Lemon verbena, 266 Lilacs, 18, 85; with tulips, 140 Lilies, white, 10; orange, 10; Lilium elegans, 21; longiflorum, 33; can- didum, 35, 48, 50, 66; plantain, 73; orange, superbum, 170; Ma- donna, 243, 248; water-lily, 243; yellow, 245 Live Oaks, 165 Loniceras, 108 Lotus-tank, 266 Love-in-the-mist, 36 Lupines, 127, 248 Lyme grass, blue, 87, 69; with gladioli, 149 MAHONIA, 16, 83 Mallow, 14 Mertensia Virginica, 125 Michaelmas Daisy, see Aster Montbretias, 245 Mullein, 72 Muscari, see Hyacinth My Garden, Philpotts, 231, 232 My Garden in Autumn, Bowles, 237 My Garden in Spring, Bowles, 237 My Garden in Summer, Bowles, 237 Myosotis, 19, 29; early, 28; dis- sitiflora, 43; Button's Perfection and Button's Royal Blue, 48, 124; hardy, 84, 93, 132-135, 138 NARCISSUS, Orange Phoenix, 16; poeticus, gardenia, 16, 226; Em- peror, Cynosure, 41; listed, 58 Nemesia, blue, 13 PALMS, Chamerops excelsa, 264 Pansy, 4; purple, 261 Peacock's Pleasaunce, The, Boyle, 234 Peas, purple, sweet, 13; Countess Spencer, 27; everlasting, 47; Sterling Stent, 165; lavender, 261, 262; white, 262 Pentstemon, 163, 202 Peonies, 31, 32, 49, 50, 57, 88; Mme. Emile Galle, 132, 159, 160; white, 246, 248 Pergola, 259; sapling, 261 Petunia, 7; single, 13; velvet- purple, 146 Phloxes, perennial, 3, 4, 61; annual, 11; purple, 13; Pantheon, 22, 36, 61, 163, 175; Eugene Danzanvil- liers, 4, 23, 34, 61, 148; Drum- mond, Chamois Rose, 31, 34, 37, 69; Antonin Mercie, 4, 6, 61, 163, 176, 177; Lord Rayleigh, 4, 6, 32, 34, 61, 70; Fiancee, 36; pink, 43; white, 50; dwarf, 54; garden of, 55; Aurore Boreale, 23, 36, 68; Von Lassberg, 4, 23, 36, 71; Jeanne d'Arc, 71, 176; R. P. Stru thers, 61, 163; Coquelicot, 23, 36, 62, 163, 175; Fernando Cortez, 22, 36, 62, 69; Tapis Blanc, 72, 163; Von Hochberg, 148; su- bulata, 83, 84; divaricata, 84, 124; decussata, 149; Goliath, 173; INDEX Rhynstrom, 175; Von Dedem, 175; Braga, 175; Widar, 175 Photography, garden, 188 Physalis, the Chinese-lantern plant, 257 Physostegia (Virginica rosea), 6, 36, 47; white, 69; rosy, 154 Pinks, 31; annual and hardy, 32; scented, white, 44, 261 Planting, balanced, 68, 253; alter- nate, 202; planting-cards, 203; successive, 249 Platycodons, 48; grandiflorum al- bum, 166; pearly- white, 178 Poker flower, 73, 245 Poppy, 34; White Swan, 42; Ice- land, 42; Oriental, 44, 127, 128, 166, 248; double, pink, 112, 165; Princess Victoria Luise, 167; com- binations of, 168, 169; see Farr list, 167; Shirley, 167; Mahony and Rose Queen, 168 Present Day Gardening, Jacobs, 229 Primrose, 4; Munstead, 30, 49, 84; pale-yellow, 124, 228 Puschkinia, 81, 82, 107 Pyrethrum, rose, 31; single, 159 Pyrus Japonica, 82 RAFFIA tape, 183, 194 Repertoire de Couleurs, 7, 15. 226 Rhododendron, 8 Ribbon grass, 124 Rodgersia, 33 Roses, 3; Frau Karl Druschki, 27; climbing, 34, 265; yellow, 44; ramblers, crimson, 3, 10; baby, 34, 49, 62; pink, 260; yellow, 44; Lady Gay, 34, 62; Excelsa, 62; Rosa Nitida, 110; Wichuraiana, 20; spinosissima, 141; with gladioli, 149; Annchen Mueller, 160; Con- rad F. Mayer, 163; Mme. Alfred Carriere, La Marque, Olga of WUrtemberg, Celine Forestier, and Beauty of Glazenwood, 265 Ruskin, quoted, 3, 80 Rustic tea-house, 261 SALPIGLOSSIS, 11, 13; Faust, 148 Salvia, blue, 13; patens, 36. 37. 46; farinacea, 37; azurea, 146, 153, 245 Scabiosa Japonica, 34 Scilla Sibirica, blue, 16, 17, 79, 94; campanulata, 28, 104, 108, 109; Excelsior, 141; 245, May-flower- ing, 248 Scottish Gardens, Maxwell, 235 Scribners Magazine, "The Point of View," quoted on geraniums, 199 Sea-holly, 22, 36, 62, 162, 163, 164 Sea-lavender, see Statice Seasons in a Flower Garden, The, Shelton, 15, 225 Seven Gardens and a Palace, Boyle, 234 Shasta daisies 23, 33, 261 Shelton, Louise, 225 Snapdragon, 35, 146 Snowball, Japan, 73 Snowdrop, 50, 245 Some English Gardens, Elgood and Jekyll, 235 Spireas, 33; Spiraea Thunbergii, 84; Astilbe Arendsii, Die WalkUre, 132. 136; Van Houteii, 137 Sprays, Bordeaux mixture and X. L. All. 188 Spring beauties, 77 Spring Gardening at Beluoir Castle, 228 Stachys lanata, 110 Statice, 11, 27, 34; incana, 110, 164; bonduelli, 163, 164, 169, 177; latifolia, 164, 253; sinuata, mauve, 169, 252 Stocks, 13; white and purple, 34, 36; pink, 37; Button's Perfection, 45 Stokesia cyanea, 34, 46 Studies in Gardening, quoted, 208, 236 INDEX Success in Gardening, Frothingham, 225 Summer Garden of Pleasure, The, Batson, 237 Sun-dial, 245, 256 Sunflower, Dwarf Primrose, 177 Swainsonia, 264 Sweetbrier, 31 Sweet-william, 31; dark red, 46; Button's Pink Beauty, 56; white, 246 Sylvana's Letters to an Unknown Friend, Boyle, 234 Syringas, 31 THALICTRUMS, 249 Therraopsis Carolinians, 28, 32, 68 Thrift, 10 Tools, 184 Tritoma, 73 Trowel, 181 Tulips, 8, 19; Kaufmanniana, 16, 17, 82, 94, 99; double, 20; retroflexa, 28, 30, 43, 93, 138, 142; Keizer- kroon, 8, 233; Vermilion Bril- liant, 41, 83, 124; Flora Wilson, 30; Yellow Rose, 44, 132, 134; Cottage Maid, 49; Gesneriana, 49; Vitellina, 82, 104; La Merveille, 83; Couleur Cardinal, 20, 30, 83, 124, 138; Darwin, Clara Butt, 19; Ewbank, 19, 122; Rembrandt, 85, 140; La Tulipe Noir, 85; Krelage list, 86; Vitellina, 82; La Merveille, 84; Fanny, Count of Leicester, Wouverman, Carl Becker, Giant, and Konigin Emma, 85; Bouton d'Or, 125; Darwin: Fawn, 105, and Faust, 106; grouping of, 104; varieties of, 106; Breeder, 106; Flava, 117, 141; Nauticas, 118; Mauve Clair, 119; Zomerschoon, 119, 123; Moonlight and Spren- geri, 120; Francis Darwin and Edmee, 12SL; Le Reve, 125, 137; border suggested, 125, 127; Ag- neta, 132, 134; Gudin, 134; Wil- liam Copeland, 134; La Fiancee, 137; Heloise, 138; Hohenberg, 138; May-flowering, 123; combination with other plants, 124; Picotee, 124; Jubilee, 137; Avis Kennicott, 137; among evergreens, 138; Bougainville Duran, 140; with lilacs, 140; Ewbank, Bleu Celeste, Morales, Innocence, and La Can- deur, 141; "lily-flowered," 141 Tulips, Jacob, 126 VERBENA, 7, 11; Beauty of Oxford, 23, 35, 49; Dolores, 149, 174, 177 Veronica, pale-purple, 264 Vines, Vitis Thunbergii, Californica, aconitifolia, megaphylla, 231 Violas, 13, 30; white, 50, 228 Violet, wild, 4; sweet, white, 50; dogtooth, 77 WATERFIELD, 235 Wistaria, white, 265 Wood and Garden, Jekyll, quoted, 14 YUCCAS, 245 ZINNIA, 36; "Flesh-color," 42, 70, 136; cream-white, 164. 202 290 ! tj Jen bv Daffodil Julio Vitellina JulipRose a Her veil le Muscari Heavenly blue Muscan azureum Crocus purpurea grand, flora 1 ^ I e 1 ^ 5 <^y le ib VL btfa £ % ^ ^ % v^x c^ ^ -^ ^ £ Jo ^ I j t * 1 1 .to §1 ; °^ j* s fe 1 1 > to o ? 1 •^ fi S^ K 1 § | § ^ 1 1 : ^ |1 "^ 0 3 1 1 / tpo/jog Aqu9± i •Si 1 1 CN F§- DjqjipucuD Ddjncfjnci 9noai^) uindjnzo uaxnu dfl/Q A/UdADd/-/ UDOSH^j 1 §| dl//9AJ9W Q dSOtf (Jljn[_ DUIH9^l/[ 0///21 jlpOJJDCJ fiC]U9j_ er _ 5te 1 1 a Guv n * v/ P ^a - » p)v. e . 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