COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



I am well aware that this list will simply stand as a 

 warning to most gardeners, but while my aim is not so 

 high as Mr. Eliot's in hoping to inspire a magenta border, 

 yet I do hope to start even a small revulsion of feeling in 

 favour of this tender, hushed colour, to give it in these 

 pages as I have in my garden some of the associations that 

 silence its combativeness that it may raise its erstwhile 

 imperial head, not as of old in the terrible if joyous racket 

 of Tiger Lilies and Sunflowers, but in assured and reposeful 

 harmony. 



The first time I saw magenta flowers used with thoughtful 

 consideration was in the wondrous gardens of Drummond 

 Castle in Scotland. There a double border running on 

 either side of a grass walk for nearly a quarter of a mile, 

 between dark, severely clipped Hollies and Yews, was 

 planted in blocks of about twelve feet in two alternating 

 colours — blue and magenta! I do not now recall all the 

 plants used in the border, but among them were Loose- 

 strife and Monkshood, Spiraea Rutlandi and Veronica, 

 magenta and bluish-violet Phloxes. Standing at one end 

 and looking along the narrowing perspective one's eye was 

 carried from great richness of effect to an indescribable soft- 

 ness that finally seemed to melt away like a trail of smoke. 



The best colours to associate with magenta are deeper and 

 paler tones of itself, the dim blue of such as Monkshood, 

 pale buff, sky blue like that of Salvia azurea, white, the 

 mallow pinks — that is, those pinks that have a bluish cast, 

 lavender, and gray foliage. Indeed, I think it safe to say 

 that all colours are in harmony with it save strong yellow, 

 red, scarlet, orange, cherry, and the salmon pinks. 



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