GARDENS NEAR THE SEA 



Phlox, which is, in truth, an American plant, appears 

 to have the brilliancy and the harshness of the atmos- 

 phere of the New World. It occasionally makes one 

 recall the theory that magenta, the unloved color, is 

 the one peculiar to her zone. 



The facility with which P. Drummondi can be 

 grown, its extreme hardiness, and the fact that it 

 seldom grows over a foot high, combine to make it 

 valuable in many gardens. In the white form, it is 

 always pleasing, the lack of color apparently modifying 

 the hyperprimness of the flowers. 



The German ten-week stocks are softly tinted 

 annuals, which show sufficient grace to win a permanent 

 place in seaside gardens. Once, before a villa border- 

 ing the Mediterranean, one covered with a bourgain- 

 villia vine, I saw them blooming as nowhere else. 

 They appeared fairly to undulate color. One might 

 fancy them the shore-cast offering of that sparkling 

 sea. In America, I have often wished to see such an 

 effect of stocks. There they were the commanding 

 flower. In the gardens here, they are not planted in 

 such unconquered quantities, and are usually hedged 

 in with other plants that detract from their importance. 

 By the Mediterranean villa, the very thought of the 

 existence of other flowers slipped away. It simply 

 seemed that the earth there was gently colored. 



But the atmosphere and the sky have a wonderful 

 effect on flowers near the sea. Against this same white 

 villa, the bourgainvillia vine poured its flowers in 

 heavy masses until hardly a spot was left untouched 

 by them. Yet they gave no feeling of crude color. 



[160] 



