214 The American Flower Garden 



much of the time, and that such plants as are in bloom will look 

 like isolated patches of colour among the foliage. The plan has 

 advantages for people who live in the country for only a few 

 months, when a garden might be planned to put forth concen 

 trated loveliness then. It certainly is unreasonable to expect a 

 plant to bloom longer than three months; some reward our pains 

 for not more than as many weeks; but masses of clean, healthy 

 foliage are not objectionable, surely, and the flowers need not 

 look spotty if secondary tints are grouped around stronger colours 

 and the whole toned down with synchronous plants. For 

 example, a long mass of flowers that run the gamut from deep 

 purples to pale blues had around its flowing outlines the common 

 catmint, whose cool, grayish foliage made an easy transition to 

 the greens in the herbaceous border. Green often divides groups, 

 it is true, but isolation is precisely what is needed in many cases. 

 Even screamingly opposed colours are rendered inoffensive by 

 broad green stretches between them, although it is sometimes 

 better art to tone them down with the weaker secondary tints 

 of the same colour until they gradually merge into the neutral 

 ground of green or white. 



White is the great peacemaker among warring flowers. Blue 

 lengthens distance and adds depth to shadows, just as yellow, 

 on the contrary, foreshortens the garden picture. Bright red 

 is always an exclamation point; it punctuates space and defines 

 its own position so insistently that the usual devices of grouping 

 secondary tints about it to bring it down to the colour scale of its 

 neighbours is not often successful. Usually it needs isolation to 

 reveal its splendour. The brilliant scarlet of Oriental poppies, 

 for instance, is sure to clash with the contemporary June roses 

 and pink peonies, or to totally eclipse other flowers. War rages 



