FLOWER PICTURES 155 



larkspur and madonna lilies together on a border 

 and callng the group a blue and white picture 

 much worse things than that happen in gardens 

 every year. It is far better, however, first to reach 

 the conclusion that a certain spot demands fairly 

 tall plants, which well define themselves. These 

 will, you feel, be more effective if there are two 

 kinds, of not only unequal height but marked dif- 

 ference in the shape of the blossoms and the way 

 they are carried on the stems. 



Then let personal preference step in and go as 

 far as it likes consistently. If larkspur and ma- 

 donna lilies are your choice, plant them. But re- 

 member that blue and white are not the everything 

 of color in your picture; the lily foliage is a delicate 

 green, that of the larkspur darker.* And you 

 must have brought other colors into your back- 

 ground perhaps a sky that from dawn to sunset 

 is everchanging. 



Whether a picture is the whole garden or a par- 

 ticular grouping in it, or an isolated spot on the 

 home grounds, matters very little; the main thing 

 is to have as many pictures as the circumstances 

 warrant. For this is not all of the growing of 

 flowers; it is merely the supreme incident. 



A garden may be made a well composed picture 

 at all times of the year, but that would mean either 

 being a veritable slave to it to the end of life or 

 expending an amount of money that most gardeners 

 for pleasure could not afford. Even then there 

 would very likely come intervals of imperfection 



