COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



regarded as the garden. It is what John Sedding calls 

 "the betweenity," neither house nor garden, but relating to 

 both; a seemly setting for the house and a little breathing 

 space of preparedness before we descend the steps or round 

 the corner into the gay special atmosphere of the garden. 



Again, when an owner has not the time or perhaps the 

 taste for gardening, the constant bedders will rescue his 

 plot from the stolid dominance of the Hydrangea and the 

 meagre forlornity of the pining Roses one sees in such 

 impersonally conducted places, and keep it bright and 

 personable from frost to frost. 



Of course while there are so many happily grubbing 

 gardeners in the world, bedding will never again gain any 

 real foothold upon the land, and yet there are situations 

 where its fresh and persistent colour and precise outlines 

 would be a relief to the eye; not arranged in the intricacies 

 of the parterres de broderie of old, but with what grace and 

 prettiness we may command. 



The very phrase, "Spring Bedding," is delightfully 

 suggestive to me. The world is so fresh and tidy in the 

 spring; one sees the strict young greensward with its 

 cleanly interrupting beds of moist brown mould and one's 

 imagination sets to work washing in the colours upon its 

 expectant surface. Of course we paint in Tulips— not as of 

 old — Due van Tholl, scarlet; Chrysolora, yellow; and some 

 white sort in stars and circles — but having recourse to all the 

 exquisite tints and shades to be suggested by the most 

 extravagant mind, used in graceful if formal association 

 with plants of quite other forms. The only bedding out 1 

 ever did was in two beds in my flower garden that were 



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