JULY PROBLEMS 107 



gether a frivolous and unstable creature to my thinking. 

 There are some good little Ipine Yarrows with gray 

 foliage quite charming for creeping among the stones at 

 the edge of the border. A. umbellata has pure- white 

 flower heads. A. tomentosa has dark prostrate foliage 

 and yellow flowers ; argentea has silvery foliage and white 

 flowers. This little plant grows four inches high and 

 the other two about six. 



There is no more important plant in the mid-summer 

 garden than Gypsophila paniculata, variously known as 

 Chalk Plant, or Baby's Breath, and called by the chil- 

 drenhere "LaceShawls." Seemingly oblivious to scorch- 

 ing sun and prolonged drought, it coolly carries out its 

 delicate plan of existence from silver haze to cool white 

 mist to fragile brown oblivion. No plant is so ex- 

 quisite an accompaniment to so many others; indeed, 

 any spot where it grows will soon become a lovely 

 picture without our agency. Poppies sow their seed 

 about it and rest their great blossoms upon its cloudlike 

 bloom, and Nigellas and Snapdragons are particularly 

 fine in association with it. One very pretty group here 

 has Stachys lanata as a foreground with its gray velvet 

 foliage and stalks of bloom now colouring to a pinky 

 mauve. Behind is the cloudlike mound of Gypsophila, 

 and resting upon it, its large flowers partly obscured by 

 the mist, is a pinkish-mauve Clematis kermesina. The 

 vine is supported upon pea-brush which does not show 

 behind the Gypsophila. 



