THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN 



slender ones in the centre. Every tone of the four 

 on page 180 of the French Chart, Violet rougeatre, 

 or Reddish Violet, belongs to this Peony. Peony 

 Walter Faxon in its marvellous beauty has given 

 me great difficulty with regard to its color mark- 

 ing. French Chart 162, No. 1, is the nearest I 

 could get to it. Lilac Rose; but the pink to most 

 of us who do not compare it with a chart makes it 

 perhaps the warmest of all pale Peonies. Tholite 

 pink. Rose pink, Hermosa pink — I seem to find 

 in this glorious long-petalled flower all these hues 

 of Ridgway. It has the most roselike color of any 

 Peony I know; that fresh clearness of hue which 

 one only associates with rose-petals. I can but 

 agree with Mrs. Harding that this is the finest 

 Peony of my acquaintance; it is a dream in flow- 

 ers; the unattainable in Peonies has been reached 

 here. 



To-day the gardener came to me with a bloom 

 of Iris ochroleuca on its tall stalk. It had flowered 

 beside his cottage. Here we had it for several 

 years, but it must have been in an overdry situ- 

 ation, for it refused to bloom. I was sitting at the 

 tea-table on the terrace, with Dykes' s "The Genus 

 Iris" on a wicker chair beside me to the right and 

 Mrs. Harding's ''Book of the Peony" on the 

 SOS 



