April, 19 10 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



157 



two or three years by 

 the Dutch growers, is 

 bad news indeed for 

 the gardener. A tulip 

 of surprising beauty, 

 this, with distinction 

 of form, creamy 

 petals, with a soft 

 daffodil - yellow tone 

 toward the centre, the 

 outside of the petals 

 nearly covered with a 

 very nice tone of rich 

 reddish pink. Its ap- 

 pearance when closed 

 is unusually good, 

 and its color really 

 excellent with the 

 blue of the scillas. 



BLUE AND PURPLE — 

 APRIL 



A very daring ex- 

 periment this was, but 

 one which proved so 

 interesting in rich 

 color that it will be 

 always repeated. It 

 consisted of sheets of 

 St ilia Sibirica planted 



near and really running into thick colonies 

 of Crocus purpureas, var. grandiflorus. The 

 two strong tones of color are almost those 

 of certain modern stained glass. The 

 brilliancy of April grass provides a fine 

 setting for this bold planting in a shrubbery 

 border. The little bulbs should be set very 

 close, and the patches of color, in the main, 

 should be well defined. In fact, I prefer 

 a large sheet of each color, to several smaller 

 groups with a resultant spotty effect. To 

 my thinking, it is impossible to imagine 

 a finer early spring effect in either a small 

 or a large place than these two bulbs in these 

 two varieties to the exclusion of all else. 



The dwarf Iris reticulata- — which should 

 be better known as no early bulb is hardier, 

 richer in color and in scent — with its deep 

 violet purple flowers, planted closely in large 

 masses, with spreading groups of scilla near 

 by, would produce an effect of blue and 

 purple nearly like that above described. 



PINK, LAVENDER, AND CREAM- WHITE — MAY 



A fine effect for late May, that has been 

 rejoicing my eye for some years, is shown in 

 Fig. 2. The flowers form the front of a 

 shrubbery border composed entirely of 

 Lemoine's lilacs in such varieties -as Marie 

 Le Graye (white), Charles X (deep, pur- 

 plish-red), Mme. Abel Chatenay (double 

 white), President Grevy (double blue), 

 Emile Le Moine (double, pinkish), and 

 Azurea (light blue). While these are at 

 their best drooping sprays of bleeding heart 

 (Dicentra) show their rather bluish pink in 

 groups below, with irregular clumps of a 

 pearly lavender — a very light-grayish laven- 

 der — lent by Iris Germanica. A little 

 back of the irises, their tall stems being con- 

 sidered, stand groups now of the fine Darwin 

 tulip Clara Butt, now of Reverend H. 

 Ewbank, contralto and clergyman, who, 



Fig. 3. Rose pink phlox against the blue of the sea holly 



though they may or may not be friends in 

 England, are not only friends here but peace- 

 makers for the entire border. The slightly 

 bluish cast of Clara Butt's pink, binds the 

 dicentra and the lavender lilac and iris to 

 each other, and the whole effect is deepened 

 and almost focussed by the strong lavender 

 of Reverend H. Ewbank tulip, in whose 

 petals it is quite easy to see a pinkish tone. 

 The contrast in form and habit of growth in 

 such a border is worth noticing. The 

 lilacs topping every thing with their candle- 

 like trusses of flowers; the dicentra, the next 

 tallest, horizontal lines against the lilacs' 

 perpendicular, as well as a foliage of extreme 

 delicacy, contrasting with the bold dark 

 green of the lilac leaf; the tulips again, their 

 conventional cups of rich color clear cut 

 against the taller growth, and grayish clouds 

 of iris bloom, with their spears of leaves 

 below, these last broken here and there by 

 touches of a loose-flung rather tall for- 

 get-me-not {Myosotis dissitifiora) — all this 

 creates an ensemble truly satisfying from 

 many points of view. 



Speaking of tulips, why is not the May- 

 flowering tulip Brimstone, more grown? 

 And what is there more lovely to behold 

 than masses of this pale lemon colored 

 double tulip, slightly tinged with pink, with 

 soft mounds and sprays of the earliest forget- 

 me-not, gently lifting its sprays of turquoise 

 blue against the delicately tinted but vigor- 

 ous heads of this wonderful tulip? 



CARMLNE, LAVENDER, CREAM-WHITE, AND 

 ORANGE LATE MAY 



On a slope toward the north a few open 

 spaces of poor soil between small white 

 pines are covered by the trailing stems of 

 Rosa Wichuraiana. Up through these 

 thorny stems, along which tiny points of 

 green only are showing, rise in mid-May 



glowing blooms of 

 the May-flowering 

 tulip Couleur Cardi- 

 nal, with its deep 

 carmine petals on the 

 outside of which is the 

 most glorious plum- 

 like bloom that can 

 exist in a flower. The 

 exquisite true laven- 

 der of the single 

 hyacinth Holbein, a 

 " drift " of which 

 starts in the midst of 

 the carmine -purple 

 tulip, and broadens 

 as it seems to move 

 down the slope, be- 

 comes itself merged 

 in a large planting 

 of Narcissus Orange 

 Phoenix. This nar- 

 cissus with its soft, 

 creamy petals (both 

 perianth and trumpet, 

 interspersed with a 

 soft orange) does not, 

 as the heading of this 

 paragraph might sug- 

 gest, fight with the 

 color of the tulip which is far above it on the 

 slope and whose purple exterior is beautifully 

 echoed in softer tones of lavender by the 

 hyacinth. 



CREAM- WHITE AND REDDISH-ORANGE — JULY 



In early July a wealth of bloom is in every 

 garden, and the decision in favor of any 

 special combination of color is a matter of 

 some difficulty. A very good planting in 

 a border, however, is so readily obtained, 

 and proves so effective that it shall be noticed 

 here. Some dozen or fifteen large bushes 

 of the common elder stand in an irregular 

 rather oblong group; below the cream white 

 cluster of its charming bloom are seventy- 

 five to a hundred glowing cups of Lilium 

 elegans, one of the most common flowers of 

 our gardens, and one of those rare lilies which 

 renders its grower absolutely care-free! 

 Eighteen varieties of this fine lily appear 

 in one English bulb list — many of these 

 are rather lower in height than the one I 

 grow, which is L. elegans, var. fidgens. 



Below these lilies again, that the stems 

 may be well hid, clear tones of orange and 

 yellow blanket flower (Gaillardia) appear 

 later in the month carrying on the duration 

 of color and in no way interfering with the 

 truly glorious effect produced by the elder 

 and lilies. While the lilies are tall, the 

 elder rises so well above them, that a beau- 

 tiful proportion of height is obtained. 



An improvement on this grouping would 

 be the planting of masses of L. elegans, var. 

 Wallacei, among the gaillardia below the 

 taller lilies. The nearer view of the great 

 mass of July would then be perfect. 



BRIGHT ROSE, GREY-BLUE, PALE LAVEN- 

 DER AND WHITE — AUGUST 



In figures 3 and 4 an arrangement of color 

 for August bloom is set forth. The first 



