66 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



September, 1909 



the iig is mimicked by the boconnias, of 

 which there are four hardy species. If 

 gigantic leaves are desired, there are six 

 hardy species of rheum. And if brilliantly 

 colored foliage is needed, why not forget 

 coleus for once in favor of the metallic blue 

 eryngiums and echinops? 



DELICATE, • MISTY, AIRY PICTURES 



I think we are inclined to overdo what 

 might be called the masculine element in 

 our gardens. You can vulgarize a garden 

 by having too many plants with large 

 flowers, such as hollyhocks, sunflowers, 

 rose mallows, Japan irises, peonies, gaillar- 

 dias and oriental poppies. In the same 

 class belong plants with big clusters of 

 bloom, such as phlox and chrysanthemums. 

 A garden dominated by such robust and 

 virile plants is in danger of becoming coarse. 

 It needs the feminine refinement of deli- 

 cately cut foliage and airy sprays of minute 

 flowers, such as gypsophila or baby's breath. 

 We could make our gardens a great deal 

 cooler and restfuller by always having one 

 or two fluffy white masses of bloom which 

 suggest sea foam, billows, fleecy clouds, and 

 the like. For example, note the feathery 

 plumes of the elm-leaved spirea on page 64, 

 the liquid beauty of the Rogersia's tassels, 

 the mistiness of the heuchera on page 65, 

 and the fleecy cloud made by the Crambe 

 on page 67. 



In making such pictures the English have 

 one great advantage over us in being able 

 to carpet their borders with saxifrages, 

 which are as exquisite as lace. They are also 

 very fond of the Californian heucheras, 

 which are practically unknown in the East. 

 But there are many good plants of this same 

 general character, e. g., the feathered colum- 

 bine (Thalictrum aquilegifoliiim), and the 

 flowers known as herbaceous spireas, 



especially the florists' spirea (Astilbe Jap- 

 onica), the fern-leaved and elm-leaved 

 meadowsweets (Ulmaria Filipendida and 

 pentapetala) , the true and false goatsbeard 

 (Aruncus Sylvester and Astilbe decandra) 

 and the lovely plant known as Spircea 

 astilboides. 



The planning of a border is a hard enough 

 job without complicating it with consider- 

 ations of "masculine and feminine," but it 

 might be well to stroll out to the garden now 

 to see whether two elements are well balanced 

 Perhaps your border needs some of the plants 

 just named. 



EVENING AND MOONLIGHT PICTURES 



The finest time for enjoying a garden is 

 at dusk, but our twilight is so much shorter 

 than the English that there is usually nothing 

 left of it after supper. Many Americans 

 can hardly enjoy their gardens except on 

 Sundays or in the evening, therefore our 

 gardens ought to be charming by night as 

 well as by day, and they can easily be made 

 so if we have a fair proportion of white and 

 fragrant flowers. Mr. John Williams has 

 stolen my thunder by giving lists of such 

 flowers in The Garden Magazine for July, 

 1909, pages 332 and 333. I can only add 

 a few notes made in English gardens. 



Pale yellow flowers are visible by night 

 and the snapdragons of this color 'have a 

 spectral effect. The English are also very 

 fond of Lamarck's evening primrose (known 

 to seedsmen as Oenothera Lamarckiana) . 



It is also pleasant to see dimly through 

 the darkness white sheets of flowers carpet- 

 ing the ground and still pleasanter when a 

 rush of fragrance is borne to you by the 

 night wind. Sweet alyssum and sweet 

 woodruff furnish these sensations. And at 

 Surbiton I saw a species of woodruff not 

 described in Bailey's Cyclopedia, viz. Asper- 



The Dropmore Anchusa, one of the best blue flowers in cultivation. It blooms so long that the English 



sometimes use it as a bedding plant 



The largest of all bellflowers (Ostrowskia magnified) 

 against a superb background of Magnolia grandiflora 

 in a collector's garden 



ula hirl a, which was notable for having the 

 fragrance of almonds. 



WILD GARDEN AND WATERSIDE PICTURES 



We have a very provincial idea of wild 

 gardening in America. Most people suppose 

 that it means the cultivation of American 

 wild flowers. If you will examine William 

 Robinson 's delightful book on wild gardening 

 you will see that the main idea is to grow 

 the hardy plants of other countries so that 

 they will look like wild flowers. He invented 

 this idea for the special benefit of plants that 

 are beautiful when in bloom, but otherwise 

 unfit for borders or showy gardens. 



For example, we do not take our perennial 

 asters seriously but the English do. I know 

 one English nurseryman who offers 137 

 kinds of English asters. We give little 

 thought to improving our native wild flowers, 

 but the English cultivate forty-five varieties 

 of the New York aster alone (Aster Novi- 

 Belgii). Some robust kinds multiply too 

 fast for a border, but the finer sorts are 

 often grown in famous show gardens. 

 What American would ever take the trouble 

 to stake asters? If we do we are likely to 

 make them tight and bunchy. The English 

 will sometimes use bunches carefully cut 

 in such a way as to be entirely invisible and 

 yet hold out these great sprays of cloudy 

 bloom in more than native airiness and 

 elegance. I met a lady who had two 

 gardens or borders set apart for "Michael- 

 mas daisies," as the English call them — 

 one for asters of the finest colors and another 

 for the strong purples and other colors that 

 ordinarily clash. The latter she harmonized 

 by using plenty of white asters. 



The English do not despise plants with 

 coarse or weedy foliage provided they have 

 the pictorial quality. With us the mullein 

 is a by-word and a jest. But the English 

 cultivate fully twenty species of them. The 

 great golden candelabra of the Grecian 

 mullein (V. Olympicum), borne on plants 



