The Cult of the Larkspur 





Elizabeth Herrick, "t ! 



ssa- 



setts 



THE ATTRACTIONS OF THIS MOST POPULAR OF ALL BLUE 

 FLOWERS OF JUNE — SOME ACCOUNT OF THE IMPROVED VAR- 

 IETIES AND HOW THEY FIT INTO OUR GARDEN ECONOMY 



I 



N THE first place I frankly confess myself to have been 

 a worshipper since, eight years ago, before my garden 

 came into being, from the unease of an 

 invalid's couch I could catch a glimpse 



above a background of 

 shrubbery of tall blue 

 spires wonderfully hued 



Garden designers long ago learned the striking effect of the tall growing perennial larkspurs planted in masses with shrubbery or in the herbaceous border 



as the summer sky. It was the old-fashioned 

 small-flowered delphinium — a single speci- 

 men in a neighbor's garden, but to my then 

 uneducated eye it had the rarity of the 

 choicest of its family. I came, saw, and the 

 larkspur conquered and has been conquer- 

 ing ever since, so that the burning question 

 of my garden now is not how many of these 

 bright celestials I, Greek at heart, could 

 divide my worship among, but how many 

 more of them my too terrestrial Olympus 

 will accommodate. If my garden may be 

 said to run red in late May, when the mass 

 plantings of Oriental poppies burst into 

 scarlet splendor against the shrubbery, or 

 Dink with phloxes in i\.ugust, in June it is 

 hidden under a blue haze of enchantment. 

 Contrary to popular belief, there is no 

 scarcity among hardy plants of good gar- 

 den blues — but preeminent over all is the 

 delphinium, answering, as it does, the four- 

 fold demand of the summer garden for cool 

 and restful color, background, permanence 

 and continuity of bloom. It should be, 

 therefore, the first candidate for admission 

 into the "must have" class of the hardy 

 garden. The landscape architect has long 

 recognized its value and made effective 

 use of it in the herbaceous border and the 

 foreground of shrubberies. It is adapted 

 to all sorts of combinations, but should 

 not be bedded by itself unless the grounds 

 are large enough to permit of mass planting 

 of later blooming perennials near by to 



detract the eye from the shabbiness of the 

 delphinium bed when the plants have been 

 cut back after flowering. 



If, however, the delphinium bed will be 

 had, whatever its environment, alternate 

 planting with some intermediate bloomer, 

 such as phlox, is recommended. The tall 

 white phlox, Mrs. Jenkyns, is desirable 

 for this purpose, or the larger flowered, 

 medium tall, Von Lassburg. Of the two 

 I prefer for the combination Mrs. Jenkyns, 

 as, with me, the habit is better and the 

 foliage somewhat less susceptible to attacks 

 of that inveterate foe of phloxes, the red 

 spider. 



The delphiniums will bloom twice and, 

 given good care, thrice during the season, 

 in June, early September, and mid October. 

 After their first bloom is over the plants 

 should be cut to the ground, given a dress- 

 ing of bone meal and thoroughly watered. 

 The same treatment should be repeated 

 after the second crop of flowers. Phloxes 

 also bloom twice, very obligingly between 

 the delphiniums' periods of bloom, so that 

 the suggested interplanting is entirely 

 satisfactory. 



It is, I suppose, a garden heresy to hint, 

 in these days of color worship, that the 

 varying shades of delphiniums, which run 

 the gamut of all known blues from deep 

 reddish purple and indigo to a porcelain 

 tint so delicate as scarcely to be distinguish- 

 able from white, that each color need not 



293 



be grown separately, if one would have a 

 beautiful picture. However, it is an in- 

 controvertible fact that blue is almost the 

 only garden color whose gradations of 

 shade are invariably harmonious each with 

 the others. In a single bloom of one of the 

 most beautiful larkspurs in my garden I 

 have counted five distinct shades of blue. It 

 is unreasonable to assert that shades com- 

 bined so exquisitely for the eye in the small 

 compass of a single blossom, must jar when 

 associated on a larger scale. My formosum 

 larkspurs, because of their distinct habit 

 of growth, unfortunately rather straggling, 

 have been grouped, but their magnificent 

 blue, while in itself more beautiful, to my 

 thinking, than any other blue in the horti- 

 cultural kingdom, produces, en masse, an 

 effect no more artistic than that of the 

 varied shades of the stately English hy- 

 brids, named but not isolated each with its 

 own in lofty exclusiveness in separate 

 sections of the garden. In this latte? 

 planting I have reddish-violet, purple, in- 

 digo, Oxford, azure, and porcelain blue, 

 rosy-blue, gentian blue, an exquisite com- 

 bination of pink, pale blue, and white in a 

 double variety, blackish-blue, etc., etc., 

 yet not a jarring note. I sometimes find 

 it necessary to call visitors' attention to 

 such varieties as have been planted separ- 

 ately, for these are frequently overlooked 

 in the pleasure given by the wonderful 

 shimmering iridescence of what, to borrow 



