April, 19 11 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



16.5 



carried expectantly from one angle to an- 

 other and expectation is fulfilled. 



In the centre of this garden are four 

 rectangular beds, corresponding in pro- 

 portion to the size of the rectangular pool. 

 These, as forming part of the centre of 

 the garden, are always planted exactly 

 alike. Purple of a rich bluish cast is one 

 of the colors which bind instead of sepa- 

 rate, and purple it is which here be- 

 comes an excellent 

 focal color for the 

 garden. In the 

 middle of each bed 

 is a sturdy group 

 of the hardy phlox 

 Lord Rayleigh, sur- 

 rounded on all sides 

 by heliotrope of the 

 darkest purple ob- 

 tainable. This year, 

 however, I expect 

 to replace the helio- 

 trope with even bet- 

 ter effect by tall blue 

 ageratum which I 

 saw in one or two 

 Connecticut gar- 

 dens, as the paler 

 color is more telling 

 and quite as neutral 

 for such a position. 

 Speaking of this 

 ageratum I may 

 perhaps digress for 

 a moment to men- 

 tion a charming ef- 

 fect I saw on an 

 out-of-door dining- 

 table last summer, 

 obtained by the use 

 of this flower. The 

 color of the table 

 was a pale cool 

 green and most of 

 its top was exposed; 

 in the centre stood 

 a bowl of French or 



Italian pottery, bearing a careless gay 

 decoration and at the four corners smaller 

 bowls. These were filled, to quote the 

 words of the knowing lady whose happy 

 arrangement this was, "with zinnias which 

 had yellows and copper reds with the 

 variety which resulted from an order of 

 salmon pinks and whites. We really had 

 almost everything but salmon pink." 



The zinnias, I who saw them can affirm, 

 made a most brilliant mass of color not 

 altogether harmonious; but all was set 

 right by the introduction, sparingly man- 

 aged, of the lovely ageratum, Dwarf 

 Imperial Blue. The eye of her who ar- 

 ranged these flowers saw that a balm was 

 needed in Gilead; the ageratum certainly 

 brought the zinnia colors into harmony 

 as nothing else could have done, and a 

 charmingly gay and original decoration 

 was the result. What a suggestion here, 

 too, for the planting of a little garden of 

 annuals ! 



We are apt to think of balance in the 

 formal garden as obtained for the most 



part by the use of accents in the shape of 

 formal trees, or by some architectural 

 adjunct. I believe that color masses and 

 plant forms should correspond as absolutely 

 as the more severe features of such a garden. 

 For example, in practically the same spot 

 in all four quarters of my garden there 

 are, from perhaps four to six weeks, similar 

 masses of tall white hardy phloxes, the 

 blooming period beginning with Von 



Repetition by twos of the main factors of the composition largely discounts the incongruous house 



roofs which unfortunately intrude 



Lassberg and closing with Jeanne d'Arc, 

 the white repeated in the dwarf phlox 

 Tapis Blanc in four places nearer the centre 

 of the garden. 



For accents in flowers, the mind flies 

 naturally, to the use first of the taller and 

 more formal types of flowers. Delphin- 

 iums with their fine uprightness and glor- 

 ious blues; hollyhocks where space is 

 abundant and rust doth not corrupt; the 

 magnificent mulleins, notably Verbascum 

 Olympicum, might surely emphasize points 

 in design ; and I read but now of a new pink 

 one of fine color, which, though mentioned 

 as a novelty in Miss Ellen Willmott's 

 famous garden at Warley, England, will 

 be sure to cross the water soon if invited 

 by our enterprising nurserymen. Lilies 

 of the cup-upholding kinds, standard roses, 

 standard wistarias, standard heliotropes 

 are all to be had. The use of the dwarf 

 or pyramidal fruit tree in the formal garden 

 is very beautiful to me, recalling some of 

 the earliest of the fine gardens of England, 

 and (where the little tree is kept well 



trimmed) offering a rarely interesting 

 medium for obtaining balanced effects. 



But the tall plants are not the only 

 available means for producing balanced 

 effects. Lower masses of foliage or flowers 

 have their place. They must be masses, 

 however, unmistakable masses. Thus, in 

 the illustration on the preceding page, 

 each of the large flower masses of baby's 

 breath (Gypsophila elegant) — consisting 

 of the bloom of but 

 a single well-devel- 

 oped plant — is re- 

 peated in every 

 instance in four 

 corresponding posi- 

 tions in this garden. 

 There was too much 

 gypsophila in bloom 

 at once when this 

 picture was made, 

 but because some 

 was double the ef- 

 fect was not as 

 monotonous as the 

 photograph would 

 make out. In a 

 fine garden in Sag- 

 inaw, Michigan, de- 

 signed and planted 

 by Mr. Charles A. 

 Piatt, balance is 

 preserved and em- 

 phasized in striking 

 fashion by the use 

 of the plantain 

 lily {Funkia Siebol- 

 dii or grandiflora) , 

 with its shining yel- 

 low-green leaves. 

 Masses of this for- 

 mal plant are here 

 used as an effective 

 foreground for a 

 single fine specimen 

 bush, not very tall, 

 of Japan snowball 

 ( Viburnum plicatum) 

 The poker flower (Tritoma Pfitzeri) is 

 also used in this garden to carry the eye 

 from point to corresponding point; and 

 speaking of tritoma, which Mr. Piatt in 

 this garden associates with iris, let me 

 mention again that delightful ageratum, 

 as I lately saw it, used below tritoma. The 

 tritoma must have been one of the newer 

 varieties, of an unusual tone of intense 

 salmony-orange, and while the ageratum 

 would seem too insignificant in height to 

 neighbor the tall spike above it, the use of 

 the lavender-blue in large masses added 

 enormously to the effect of the torches. 

 In the second illustration, the rather thin 

 looking elms seem to flank the garden 

 entrance rather fortunately. A certain 

 pleasurable sensation is felt in the balance 

 afforded by the doubly bordered walk with 

 its blue and lavender Michaelmas daisies 

 or hardy asters. It is surely the repeti- 

 tion of the twos which has something to 

 do with this; two borders, two posts, two 

 trees, the eye carried twice upward by 

 higher and yet higher objects. 



