COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



descanti). Since then many other wild Asters of the United 

 States have crossed the water and occupy proud places in the 

 finest gardens; while here, though their charm challenges us 

 from every roadside and woodland tangle, our autumn 

 gardens are still largely held in the harsh grip of Cannas and 

 Salvias whose strident clamour is silenced by the first 

 onslaught of the frost king. The Michaelmas Daisy, on 

 the contrary, blooms in its different species and varieties, 

 from August until November finds it still softly gleaming 

 unharmed by fierce frosts and little dismayed by the signs 

 of hasty departure all about. It seems most extraordinary 

 that these flowers have been so slow to win the appre- 

 ciation that they most certainly merit. Few are so easy 

 to grow and to increase, few have so sturdy a constitution 

 and none, known to me, fill the garden with such a tide of 

 gracious and harmonious colour. How often are we blind 

 to the things "beneath our shoon," looking abroad for 

 novelties and rarities that more often than not give a 

 meagre showing for all our pains, while all about us are 

 native flowers fit to grace the finest gardens. 



Our nurserymen are now offering us long lists of Michael- 

 mas Daisies. Most of these are native wild species or have 

 been developed from them. For those of the acris, amellus 

 and alpinus sections, however, we must credit Europe, and 

 Aster Thomsoni, a distinct species, comes from the Him- 

 alayas. In many cases the wild species has been superseded 

 by a garden variety of greater merit. The weediness in- 

 herent in all the composites is being gradually eliminated, 

 but the peculiar grace that is the birthright of the Michaelmas 

 Daisy remains to fit them for almost any position. In wild 



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