IV 

 VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS 



On one thing I am decided in the way of color improvement 

 for next year in our garden, and it is not my o\\ti suggestion: 

 this is the getting of some roots of Hydrangea arhorescens, the 

 starting of them in pots, and the plmiging of them — when 

 they are in bloom — into spaces in the garden where cream- 

 white is needed. This seems to me a capital idea and will, I 

 know, give beauty in an instant where dullness reigned before. 

 Such expedients are legitimate and useful. Geraniums, managed 

 in the same way, have often been suggested; and could there be 

 a more amusing manner of gardening than flying to a retired 

 spot and retiu-ning equipped to set in the beds or borders the 

 very hues and tones of color, the very textures and forms of 

 flowers, to change and improve the aspect of a group? Too 

 much of this sort of thing would of course not be gardening; 

 but a touch of it now and then is surely proper and carries 

 with it a bit of humor too. For the garden must be managed: 

 it is always getting out of hand. It must be humbled by shears, 

 supported by stakes, cheered and refreshed by water, trained 

 and quieted by tying, encouraged by bone-meal and other 

 wholesome foods. 



Four very beautiful members of the Hemerocallis tribe stand 

 on my desk to-day — the delicate Hemerocallis ciirina with its 

 slender flowers some four inches long, of pale clear yellow, the 

 outer side of the petals suflFused with green, and with the fra- 

 grance of a lemon blossom; Hemerocallis Florham, a magnificent 

 single orange bloom, with frilled edges; and last and most con- 

 spicuous of all in size, color, and form, Hemerocallis flore pleno 

 Kwanso; with the tawny orange hues of fidva, the commonest 



