My Ambition Grows 37 



but it is far more satisfactory. For example my yellow bed is 

 not distinctly yellow until August when the Rudbeckias, 

 Heleniums, Helianthus l&tifolius and Helianthus mollis and 

 golden glow are all in bloom. During the earlier part of the 

 season I can count on these plants being green, and I plant in 

 that bed any color that I intended to emphasize over the gen- 

 eral garden up to August. In early spring that bed shows blue 

 hyacinths, later the rose pink Lychnis dioica rosea; later still 

 the blue Campanula rapunculoides. During the interval be- 

 tween the last named, the creamy yellow day lily (Hemer- 

 occalis flava) shines forth like stars against the north bound- 

 ary wall beyond. In this way certain beds may be committed 

 to definite colors, yet lend themselves to a larger color tone 

 that may pervade the whole garden for a brief season. I mean 

 to work along this line still further; but it must be remem- 

 bered, that, to get a strong general effect, one should have 

 from a dozen to thirty plants of showy bloom of any given 

 variety. Instead of giving a single large space to columbines 

 I distribute them according to color in every bed, and during 

 their reign, the garden seems to be largely columbines. In 

 the same way, I have used the Michaelmas daisy, hollyhock, 

 campanulas, forget-me-not, perennial phlox, flava lily, pol- 

 emonium, foxglove, Chrysanthemum maximum, perennial 

 pea, infant's breath, lupines, iris, lychnis, sweet-william; also 

 meadow rue, garden heliotrope, and clematis, which break 

 into a white foam, the high-water mark 'of the whole summer, 

 and then gently ebb into green obscurity. By choosing your 

 dates with exactness, you may plant what you will in any bed, 

 and still maintain pure color; but, to do it, you must know your 

 plants intimately. For several years I have kept a careful 

 record of the date of bloom of each plant. If conditions are 

 normal, they appear each year promptly to a day; but some- 

 times the season is late, or a cold prolonged rain defers them 



