270 Old Time Gardens 



in every one's garden, and deservedly grow in 

 favor yearly. The season of their flowering can 

 be prolonged, renewed in fact, by cutting away 

 the withered flower stems. They respond well 

 to all caretaking, to liberal fertilizing and water- 

 ing, just as they dwindle miserably with neglect. 

 There are a hundred varieties in all ; among 

 them the " Rocket-flowered " and " Ranunculus 

 flowered " Larkspurs or Delphiniums are ever 

 favorites. A friend burst forth in railing at being 

 asked to admire a bed of Delphinium. "Why can't 

 she call them the good old-time name of Larkspur, 

 and not a stiff" name cooked up by the botanists." I 

 answered naught, but I remembered that Parkinson 

 in his Garden of Pleasant Flowers gives a chapter to 

 Delphinium, with Lark's-heel as a second thought. 

 " Their most usual name with us," he states, " is 

 Delphinium." There is meaning in the name : the 

 flower is dolphin-like in shape. Of the perennial 

 varieties the Delphinium brunonianum has lovely clear 

 blue, musk-scented flowers ; the Chinese or Branch- 

 ing Larkspur is of varied blue tints and tall growth, 

 and blooms from midsummer until frost. And love- 

 liest of all, an old garden favorite, the purely blue 

 Bee Larkspur, with a bee in the heart of each 

 blossom. In an ancient garden in Deerfield I saw 

 this year a splendid group of plants of the old Del- 

 phinium Belladonna : it is a weak-kneed, weak-backed 

 thing ; but give it unobtrusive crutches and busks 

 and backboards (in their garden equivalents), and its 

 incomparable blue will reward your care. There is 

 something singular in the blue of Larkspur. Even 



