2 THE GARDEN BLUEBOOK 



Sage, or what you will, still you will find it very hard to spoil the picture. 

 And on the other hand, the choicest flower composition that you can de- 

 vise will profit all the more by the space and background of green that you 

 give to it. 



But though the background be one half the garden composition it is 

 by far the easiest half; for all or almost all we have to consider there is 

 size and shape. Color and texture of foliage is of secondary importance, 

 and all these factors are practically constant throughout the year, while 

 blossoming may almost be ignored; whereas in the floral half of our com- 

 position we have constantly to consider factors of color and height, which 

 change with every week from early spring to fall. A spot that is mag- 

 nificent in July may be a desert in August unless the garden is wisely 

 planned. In this I am assuming, of course, that our garden is one of per- 

 ennials or at least is chiefly such, annuals being used only here and there 

 to fill in gaps where, as it were, our plants have played us tricks, for the 

 perennial garden besides being the most enduring and, when once estab- 

 lished, the cheapest and easiest to tend, is also the most symphonic, if I 

 may use the term, in that its harmony is not constant, but resolves con- 

 tinually from one color picture to another in a melody of bloom. 



To compose a symphony one must carry in one's mind the qualities 

 and possibilities of all the instruments in the orchestra, and to compose 

 a garden symphony one should be able to say just what plants will be 

 blooming at each point in the summer's progress and what the height 

 and color of each will be. It may be possible to do this in one's 

 mind, but certainly not without years of intimate experience in garden 

 tending; and for us, laymen, who wish to devise each his own personal 

 symphony, it is hopeless; and so we have recourse to flower Hsts which 

 tell us what there is that is white, which blooms in June, and so on; 

 and mostly we pore over the catalogues of nurserymen, hunting for the 

 note which will complete the particular harmony our imagination pictures. 



As an aid to arranging flower harmonies and flower sequences the 

 accompanying charts (see inserts, front cover) have been prepared. 

 They do not by any means include all the herbaceous perennials that 

 are good, nor should all those here given be used in any one garden. As a 

 matter of fact, it is hard to have too few varieties in a border. So 

 long as the bloom is continuous and the harmonies good, the fewer the 

 kinds and the larger the masses the better. A natural spirit of curiosity 

 and that collector's mania which we all possess is only too apt to make 

 our beds herbaria rather than gardens. But there are a great many 



