COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



lean toward violet and have sometimes a sort of undertone 

 of gray, and they are particularly cool and suave in effect. 

 Early writers prefix the word "bleak" to such blues as 

 these and I think it finely descriptive as were so many of 

 their terms. Aconites, Veronicas, Platycodons, and the Globe 

 Thistles (Eryngium and Echinops) belong in this class 

 and they are perhaps the most easily harmonized of all 

 flower colours. They seem to have no edges, but a melting 

 colour quality like the blue of the distance. With them 

 scarlet, orange, strong Tyrian pink, or magenta may be 

 placed without fear of discord or too sharp contrast, often 

 with strikingly beautiful effect. The pure red and pure 

 blue of the spectrum used together give a very harsh con- 

 trast, but placed with one of the cool blues spectrum red 

 loses much of its truculence and becomes a softened thing. 



The colour of the wild Chicory is about the coldest 

 blue. E. V. B. has well described it as "colour so cold, so 

 pure, so spirit blue." It is a charming shade and Chicory 

 would be invaluable in the garden, for it continues to 

 expand its pretty round blossoms right up to the frost line 

 were it not for its thin, tatterdemalion foliage that never 

 will look anything but common. I enjoy Chicory in the 

 sensible democracy of the herb garden and in sumptuous 

 breadths in my neighbour's neglected fields and hope that 

 some day a public-spirited hybridist will take this charming 

 vagabond in hand and fit her for the select world within the 

 garden walls. Some Hyacinths display this peculiar cold blue 

 and make very pretty spring beds when edged with Arabis. 



Then we have the rich full blue of the Anchusa type, 

 an exquisite scale, pure and uninfluenced, from the lovely 



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