COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



flowers and exhibit also the attractive bell form. The soft 

 gray-blue ones are particularly effective massed in front of 

 groups of such a scarlet Phlox as Coquelicot. The best of the 

 blue Veronicas is spicata, with long spikes of deep blue 

 flowers lasting in good condition for many weeks. It is an 

 invaluable hardy plant; better in most ways than V. sub- 

 sessilis which does not thrive in all gardens. V. spicata may 

 be allowed to go without division for three or four years 

 and is splendid among clumps of late-flowering Lemon 

 Lilies, the July Phloxes Nettie Stuart and Miss Lingard, or 

 creating a soft and lovely effect between hazy breadths of 

 Gypsophila. Veronica incana presents a quaint gray and 

 blue ensemble. It is dwarf in stature and consorts pleas- 

 antly with scarlet Geums or bright elegans Lilies near the 

 front of the border. The pretty trailing Veronicas — repens 

 and prostrata — belong to May. 



There is a modest little blue flower of which I am fond 

 that seems not to be very often grown. This is Cupid's 

 Dart (Catanache coerulea). Unfortunately it is not reliably 

 hardy in the vicinity of New York, but may be safely 

 carried over in a frame and is well worth the slight trouble, 

 for it blooms all summer, sending up from a tidy tuft of 

 leaves many slender stems in quick succession bearing 

 little Cornflower-like blooms of a fine shade of blue. Two 

 Irises that are very blue in feeling are Iris orientalis Blue 

 King and the great Monspur. Miss Jekyll gives Iris 

 Cengialti as the bluest Iris. The old-fashioned Greek 

 Valerian (Polemonium Richardsonii, P. humulus, P. rep- 

 tans, P. caeruleum) is a blue flower of midsummer; also 

 Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginica), with its strange three- 



