COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



Magenta does not come into conspicuous life in the 

 garden before June, when enter Foxgloves and Sweet 

 Williams. Before this, however, we have little patches of it 

 here and there where creeping Phloxes and Aubrietias, 

 Lychnis alpina and Viscaria splendens wind the border 

 verges with a soft-hued scarf in front of sweeps of nodding, 

 pale-coloured Star Daffodils and hoary-leaved Nepeta gleam- 

 ing the lovelier for the shadow of a full-flowered Cherry- 

 tree. Many Rhododendrons and Azaleas affect the colour. 

 In a friend's garden Azalea amoena is broadly massed 

 against dark evergreens, producing a most striking effect. 



All the gray-foliaged plants are particularly happy with 

 the dear magenta culprits, and gray stone is a perfect back- 

 ground for them. The tall magenta Foxgloves we plant 

 with Southernwood or Wormwood and perhaps a few soft 

 blue Peach-leaved Bellflowers or lavender Canterbury 

 Bells. Mullein Pink (Lychnis Coronaria) is splendid with 

 the gray leafage and lilac flower spikes of Nepeta Mussini, 

 or shining through a haze of Gypsophila with a background 

 of creamy Mulleins. This plant which, as near as I can 

 match its velvet depths, answers on the colour chart to 

 aster-purple, is described in various catalogues as "blood 

 red," "purple or scarlet," "beautiful pink," "bright rose," 

 "rosy crimson," and "red"; no two alike and all keeping 

 well out of the danger zone of truth. It is an old-fashioned 

 plant seldom seen in new-fashioned gardens, but its glowing 

 colour and gray velvet leafage should give it entrance 

 everywhere. I am glad to say that it seldom fails to win 

 admiration from visitors to my garden. The white form 

 is fine but far less beautiful. 



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