COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



are seldom truly harmonious, and fail to give the pleas- 

 ure generally derived from gardens where all colours 

 are blended and contrasted finely and where no lovely 

 flower is shut out because it fails to offer a blue or a 

 pink variety. 



It is true that in the natural progress of the seasons we 

 have certain colours predominating at certain periods. The 

 earliest colour scheme of the garden, as of the world beyond 

 its walls, is yellow and white; this is followed by the rose 

 colour of late spring and early summer when fruit blossoms 

 and then Roses adorn the world. Next come the blue and 

 yellow of midsummer which deepen to scarlet, gold, and 

 purple as autumn lavishly spreads the colours. This 

 natural scheme of colour we may modify or accentuate as 

 much as we like, but to choose it as a sort of underlying 

 theme much simplifies our work, since there are always 

 plenty of good and willing flowers decked in the prevailing 

 colours of the season. 



No occupation known to me is so absorbing as the 

 distributing and arranging of flowers in the garden with 

 a view to creating beautiful pictures, but each gardener 

 will have his own way of going about it. The enjoyment of 

 colour is, in the garden as elsewhere, entirely a matter of 

 individual feeling and, whatever the result, it is mete that 

 every garden should be a personal manifestation. Whether 

 our desire be toward a whole garden full of vibrant, stirring 

 hues, or whether we turn from all save wistful violets and 

 tender blues, is not nearly so important as that each of us 

 should feel free to express himself — his most extravagant, 

 whimsical, ardent, honest self; to work out his own theories 



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