COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



keep these stirring hues from overpowering the weak and 

 from flaunting too obtrusively in certain places. 



In Nature, broadly speaking, we find that red and scarlet 

 and yellow are rare, given to us as stimulants, as vivid 

 experiences. They are confined to sunset and sunrise skies, 

 to autumn foliage and to flowers; while the "restful and 

 reparative colours" — blue, green, and violet, as revealed in 

 the sky, the sea, the distance, and the great green setting of 

 grass and trees — make up the beautiful commonplace of our 

 daily seeing. Surely there is a lesson here. The constant 

 perception of broad masses of emphatic, exciting colour 

 would prove severely taxing, yet do we most surely need 

 them here and there to bring out the quality of neutral 

 colour, and to arouse the immobile beauty of the garden to 

 glowing life. 



Yellow, orange, and scarlet flowers show to greatest ad- 

 vantage in full sunshine. In shadow they seem to lose 

 much of their flash and vigour; while the reverse is true of 

 lavender, violet, and blue flowers. These in shadow assume a 

 piercing distinctness, while in sunshine much of their colour 

 seems to be scattered among the sunbeams and their outlines 

 blurred. One of the most striking flower colours for shaded 

 places is that worn by the " old purple " Phlox — a rather weak 

 magenta. I have seen great masses of this despised flower 

 growing along the shady roadside in the neighbourhood of 

 some old garden, the mellow soil of which it has shaken 

 from its straying roots, that glowed and shone with a soft 

 radiance almost startling to behold. White flowers are al- 

 ways more pure and beautiful in shadow, and it is one of 

 Nature's beneficent dispositions that there should be many 



