My Garden in Spring 



and other yellow Tulips are there, but those I have 

 named I consider the best. Starting at the grey corner, 

 I planted pale lavender-coloured Darwin Tulips, working 

 into lilac and mauve sorts, and then carried them down 

 either side of the stepping-stones in small patches of 

 eight or a dozen, dotted here and there among the 

 variegated plants, and as they approach the purple-leaved 

 things at the end the shades of the Tulips grow darker, 

 until we end with the deepest purple ones we can find. 

 Erguste, Bleu Aimable, Rev. H. Ewbank are in fairly 

 large clumps to represent the lilac shades, and then 

 come Franz Hals, Greuze, The Bishop, Vespuccio, and 

 Velvet King, which are fine rich purples. Purple Per- 

 fection, Fra Angelico, Grand Monarque are rather deeper, 

 and of redder or browner shades, and Faust is the finest 

 and darkest of all. I have not planted anything nearer 

 black in this bed, such as Sultan, Zulu, and La Noire, 

 as they would not be effective against the Prunus ceras- 

 ifera atropurpurea, Purple Barberry, and Hazel that form 

 the background. The most beautiful of all purple-leaved 

 things is certainly the Purple-leaved Peach. It keeps 

 its colour to the end, and constantly sends out young 

 crimson growths through the whole summer. Its flowers 

 are as rosy and large as those of the Almond, and in 

 1911 it bore a crop of hard, purple Peaches. 



We sowed some of their stones and got a purple-leaved 

 plant from each of them. A good specimen occupies the 

 post of honour in the foreground here where the shaded 

 lines of Tulips end, and the newer form of purple Plum (I 

 cannot write its long but correct Latin name again) which 

 I bought as Pissardii nigra is certainly very deep in colour. 

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