COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



In whatever direction we choose to turn our steps, this 

 fifth day of June, beauty awaits. Down this long, straight 

 path to the left Oriental Poppies are creating a high- 

 pitched fanfare of colour. We may not allow them in 

 all parts of the garden, on account of their emphatic colour. 

 But there, among the cool lavender Irises (pallida dalmatica, 

 Celeste, Albert Victor, Blue Jay), with an interplanting of 

 lacelike Garden Heliotrope (Valeriana officinalis), they may 

 trumpet unrebuked. I love them in great masses so that 

 one may revel in their thrilling colour, but thus planted 

 we must have a thought for the great blank spaces that 

 follow when the Poppies are spent, and place intelligently 

 the clumps of Gypsophila and Michaelmas Daisies that will 

 later rehabilitate the border. 



Some of the finest of the strong-coloured Oriental Poppies 

 are bracteatum and beauty of Livermore, red; and Prince of 

 Orange and Royal Scarlet, orange-scarlet. These are too 

 strong in colour to be scattered broadcast over the garden. 

 It is best to give up to them certain portions, furnishing 

 them the milder companionship of lavender Irises and Can- 

 terbury Bells, blue and white Peach-leaved Campanulas, 

 patches of soft-toned Nepeta and fluffy white Pinks, tall creamy 

 Foxgloves, with now and then a yellow Lemon Lily or a group 

 of scarlet Geums to rival their own brilliance. Nothing so 

 softens the outlines of these intense colour masses as do the 

 little spreads of gray-pink Valerian or Garden Heliotrope 

 carried well above the Poppies. I am not fond of the 

 mahogany-coloured Poppies like Mahony, but the salmon 

 and shrimp-pink and flesh-coloured sorts are extremely 

 beautiful. Planted in groups with Lyme Grass and Nepeta, 



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