208 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



aca, of cerastium, and othonnopsis, and others, 

 according to habit, may serve to great advantage. 



Hardy flowers have an important part to play 

 in the later year as well as in summer, and this 

 has always to be borne in mind at planting time ; 

 but what a wide difference, plan it as we may, 

 between June and September ! The scarlet and 

 purple and orange of autumn are vivid, more 

 dazzling far than most of the summer tints ; never- 

 theless we do well to speak of midsummer glory. 

 For it is of the freshness of youth and beauty at 

 its floodtide, the high hope of manhood in its 

 first flush of strength, that our thoughts are full, 

 though we scarcely know it, as we come upon one 

 lovely flower after another and read its parable. 



That pathway in- the well-remembered kitchen 

 garden can we not all recall some memory of 

 the kind ? where clumps of old-fashioned pinks, 

 none so sweet, ran over the border edge and 

 encroached upon the gravel with their spreading 

 cushions of white and pink; where little beds of 

 gentianella crept close to the front, laying a green 

 carpet between the pinks, and in June bristling 

 with brown seed spikes to show the wealth that 

 had been ; where, in their stead, came shrubby 

 tufts of gromwell, studded thick with its own 

 gentian blue, and opening fair to the sunshine that 

 it loves. Blue was rife in that summer border of 

 the dreamland of long ago, for the tall larkspurs 

 at the back showed many a variety of shade, from 

 deepest Oxford to palest Cambridge colours, in 

 their towering spires. We had not attained then 

 to the iridescent tints of the present day ! Here 



