the picture, and how kindly and gracefully the Greengage Plum-tree 

 bends over and plays its appointed part. 



Such a flower border makes many a picture in the hands of a garden- 

 artist. His knowledge of the plants, their colours, seasons, habits and 

 stature, enables him to use them as he uses the colours on his palette. 



How grandly the tall Delphiniums grow in this strong soil. A 

 little of the colour has been lost owing to technical difficulties of 

 reproduction, for the blue is purer and stronger in effect both in the 

 original picture and in nature than is here shown. They are grouped, as 

 blue flowers need, with contrasts of yellow and orange ; with yellow 

 Daisies and the feathery Meadow-rue {Thalktruni) ^ and the tall yellow 

 Aconite and nearly white Campanulas, woolly Stachys and purple Bell- 

 flowers beyond. Only one small patch of brighter colour, the scarlet of 

 Lychnis chalcedonica, is allowed here. On the other side is the loose- 

 growing and always pictorial white Mallow {Sidalcea Candida), taking 

 some weeks to produce its crop of flowers that, like Foxgloves and most 

 of the flowers of the tall-spiked habit of growth, begin to bloom below, 

 following upward till they finish at the top. 



Some sort of garden knowledge is so generally professed in these days, 

 and so much more gardening of the better kind is being attempted, that 

 people are gradually learning the advantage of planting in good groups 

 of one thing at a time. The older way of putting one each of the same 

 plant at regular intervals along a border — like buttons on a waistcoat — 

 is now no longer tolerated, but a great deal has yet to be learnt. Even 

 planting in bold groups, however good the plants, will be ineffective if 

 not absolutely unfortunate, if relationships of colouring are not understood. 

 The safest plan is to plant in harmonies more or less graduated as to the 

 warm colours, such as full yellow with orange and scarlet, and to plant 

 blues with contrasts of yellows and any white flowers. Then delightful 

 effects may be obtained with masses of grey foliage, such as Lavender, 

 Lavender-cotton, and Stachys, and white Pink, with flowers that have 

 colourings of tender pink, white, lilac and purple. To acquire a colour 

 eye is an education in itself, founded on the needful natural aptitude, a 

 gift that is denied to some people even if they are not actually colour- 

 blind, Bwt it is a precious possession where it occurs, and £^U the better 



6q 



