COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



States: Aquilegia chrysantha, a late-blooming sort with 

 small leafage and light yellow, long-spurred blossoms, 

 that is one of the best of hardy plants; and A. caerulea, 

 the beautiful Rocky Mountain Columbine. This latter 

 plant is so innately a wild thing that it is with difficulty 

 brought to the conditions and conventions of garden life. 

 The best place for it is on the north side of a wall among 

 Ferns and Bloodroot, where these flowers, perhaps by their 

 likeness to the friends of its mountain home, may insure 

 its contentment. Even thus considered it will often pine 

 away and we must be constantly raising it from seed if we 

 desire to enjoy continuously the lovely lavender-blue and 

 white blossoms. But A. caerulea has given us some fine 

 varieties of sturdier habit: White Lady is one that I am 

 hoping will prove more generously persistent than the type; 

 Mrs. Nicholls is said to recall the clean lavender and white 

 colouring of the parent; and Rose Queen gives many charm- 

 ing pink blossoms. This plant is decidedly more dependable 

 than the type, is taller and the blossoms have longer spurs. 



White Columbines are particularly pure and lovely. 

 There is a dwarf one very fine and free in its flowering 

 called flabellata nana and a good semi-double one known as 

 nivea grandiflora. The wild British Columbine (A. vulgaris) 

 has a good white form called grandiflora alba. The short- 

 spurred Columbines, while lacking the peculiar airy grace of 

 the long-spurred sorts, are yet pretty enough, and even the 

 double ones have a quaint appeal like that of a pudgy baby. 



The wild Columbines, Skinneri, glandulosa, the blue Siber- 

 ian Columbine, alpina, and Stewarti are only fit for careful 

 treatment on rock work. They are exquisite but too shy 



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