COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



admiration for this colour and I have come across but one 

 garden writer who boldly put down in print his admiration 

 for it. Indeed nearly every writer upon garden topics 

 pauses in his praise of other flower colours to give the de- 

 spised one a rap in passing. Mr. Bowles writes of "that 

 awful form of floral original sin, magenta" ; Miss Jekyll calls it 

 "malignant magenta"; and Mrs. Earl, usually so sym- 

 pathetic and tender toward all flowers, says that even the 

 word magenta, seen often in the pages of her charming book, 

 "makes the black and white look cheap," and again "if 

 I could turn all magenta flowers pink or purple, I should 

 never think further about garden harmony, all other col- 

 ours would adjust themselves." 



In the thoughtlessness of colour arrangement that pre- 

 vailed in the gardens of our grandmothers, magenta was 

 recklessly handled — so many sweet and willing flowers wore 

 the now despised hue — but no one felt the horror of such 

 great masses of magenta Phlox and Tiger Lilies, of magenta 

 Foxgloves and scarlet Sweet William that I remember in 

 the charming box-bordered garden of my grandparents in 

 Massachusetts. But now, with this new vision of ours for 

 colour harmony, there is no reason why we should, on 

 account of the past sins of our forefathers and the present 

 sinning of our nurserymen in miscalling it, banish this rich 

 and distinctive colour with all the fine plants that it dis- 

 tinguishes, without some effort to provide for it the proper 

 foils to fully develop its beauty. 



I would ask any one possessing Dr. Ridgeway's "Colour 

 Standards and Colour Nomenclature" to open the book at 

 Plate 24 and look at magenta in all its tender gradations of 



224 



