CHAPTER XIX 

 ENGLISH EFFECTS WITH HARDY PERENNIALS 



Making pictures with perennial flowers Bold pictures on 

 lawns Delicate, misty, airy pictures Moonlight pictures, 

 wild garden and water side pictures Pictures contain- 

 ing life. 



THE most striking fact about perennial flowers in England 

 is that the English people know and love a far greater 

 variety of them than we do. One English catalogue offers 

 2,700 kinds of perennials. We once had an American catalogue 

 that listed half as many, but whether more than one fifth of them 

 were really available "I hae' me doots." The average English 

 nurseryman seems to cultivate from five to ten times as many 

 different species as the average American. This means that if you 

 wish to see the latest improvements in irises, phlox, larkspurs, 

 oriental poppies, etc., you will probably have to send to Europe. 

 Only the commoner perennials are available in America. For 

 new and rare plants we must still look to Europe. 



The second difference is that the English have a deeper passion 

 than we for collecting. Everywhere you find some one who grows 

 fifty or more varieties of his favourite flower, e. g., German or 

 Japanese iris, or peony, or the florists' pentstemon. One English 

 catalogue contains 346 varieties of phlox, 224 of border carnations, 

 1 80 of chrysanthemums, etc. fully three times as many as you 

 can get in America. Some amateurs whom I saw have the passion 

 for completeness and stick to one flower throughout their lives; 



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