VARIETY IN ANNUAL FL0WT:RS 41 



in flowers; doctors and clergj'men, as in England, are gardening 

 and spreading this other therapeutic, this other gospel. And this 

 is no prejudiced view, but known to everyone. One of my friends 

 in a certain January became the garden editor of a monthly 

 publication for women — one which has a large circulation ; by 

 the first of April thereafter six thousand letters had come from 

 women everywhere about their gardens. 



It is likely that perennials form the basis of most of the smaller 

 gardens. They should. Like a good shrub, the perennial is the 

 best investment for the beginner. Unlike the shrub, it may be 

 increased by division, and this is an advantage. Yet I have 

 never yet been able to understand why the owner of one of 

 Lemoine's delicious shrubs, Philadelphus virginale, for instance, 

 does not seciu-e to himself, by striking cuttings, a dozen more 

 where he has space for them. 



Far from calling attention in tliese pages to the older and 

 better known perennials. Coreopsis lanceolata, for instance, or 

 Gaillardia, — both of which sturdy things have their place only 

 in the border of red or yellow flowers and in a few other spots, 

 but not many, — let me suggest the more frequent placing in 

 our gardens of one not very widely distributed as yet. This is 

 the yucca. What a magnificent subject for the border with its 

 full heads of creamy bell-like flowers, its gray-green foliage like 

 bent swords, each leaf with its "terrible needle point"! Yucca 

 filamentosa is the most commonly used, though others are very 

 handsome — gloriosa, perhaps the most striking of the family, 

 recuna, and the freer-blooming filamentosa. In Miss Jekyll's 

 "Gray Garden" those effective cream-white flowers are used 

 thus:". . . a gray-white edging of Cineraria maritima, Stachys 

 and Santolina. There are groups of lavender, with large-flowered 

 clematises, placed so that they may be trained close to them 

 and partly over them. . . . The flower coloring is of purple. 



