THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN 



for one who has worked with flowers long enough 

 to have mastered the complications of his soil 

 and climate. 



Miss Jekyll's remarks on the varying concep- 

 tions of color I must here repeat, in order to make 

 the descriptions below as well understood as pos- 

 sible. "I notice," she writes, on page 227 of 

 "Wood and Garden," "in plant lists, the most 

 reckless and indiscriminate use of the words purple, 

 violet, mauve, lilac, and lavender; and, as they 

 are all related, I think they should be used with 

 greater caution. I should say that mauve and 

 lilac cover the same ground. The word mauve 

 came into use within my recollection. It is French 

 for mallow, and the flower of the wild plant may 

 stand as the type of what the word means. Lav- 

 ender stands for a colder or bluer range of pale 

 purples, with an inclination to gray; it is a useful 

 word, because the whole color of the flower spike 

 varies so little. Violet stands for the dark gar- 

 den violet, and I always think of the grand color 

 of Iris reticulata as an example of a rich violet- 

 purple. But purple equally stands for this, and 

 for many shades redder." 



In an earlier paragraph the same writer refers 

 to the common color nomenclature of the average 



14 



