VARIETY IN PERENNIAL FLOWERS 47 



as rich a rose-pink as the lovely little flowers on the boughs 

 of thorn. Is there a more delicious pink than that? 



And is there any tree more difficult to secure than an actual 

 pink hawthorn? As many as four times, in years long gone, I 

 have sent in orders for pink thorns, and waited anxiously for 

 two or three years in each case for the pink bloom only to find, 

 to my dismay and disgust, that the pink was — white ! At last, 

 seeing two beautiful young specimens in bloom in pots at Easter 

 at a florist's and realizing that there, at last, was a chance to 

 possess the coveted color, I brought those home and nursed 

 them along till they could be set in the groimd. In seven years, 

 what with spraying, feeding and care, we have this spring two 

 beautiful twelve-foot trees, whose horizontal branches are masses 

 of vivid pink and green. 



The hawthorn or "may" turns one's thoughts to England 

 and her poets; and her poets lead always to her gardens. A 

 picture of an herbaceous border in England is before me, a 

 vision of such beauty as is seldom seen in gardens. It is almost 

 the ideal border. One may be very sure that the eye and hand 

 that planned and made such plant-groupings as these, so varied 

 yet so balanced, so boldly beautiful in form, would make no 

 color-mistakes in flowers beside each other. There seems to be 

 a generous admixture of whites and blues and much gray foliage. 

 The border pinks or carnations help with this last and many 

 are seen to the left. Also to the left is a bold-flowering group 

 of Anchusa; while far beyond delphiniums hold their blue pillars 

 firmly in air, and on either side the great verbascums or mulleins 

 stand like the seven-branched candlesticks of old. Hollyhocks 

 are seen to the right, very sparingly set; they are superb sub- 

 jects to rise above a low wall, as whatever grows and blooms 

 there must stand out in lovely relief against the tiuf below. 

 To the left a rose flings its boughs against and above the wall; 



