May. 1 9 1 i 



Til E ( 1 A 11 D E N M A C, A Z I N E 



237 



chance to sec the thing well done. You 

 recall what he wrote of English Bower 



gardens: 



"A Bower garden is an ugly thing, even 

 when best managed; it is an assembly of 

 unfortunate beings, pampered and bloated 

 above their natural size; stewed and 

 heated into diseased growth; corrupted 

 by evil communication into speckled and 

 inharmonious colors; torn from the soil 

 which they loved, and of which they were 

 the spirit and the glory, to glare away their 

 term of tormented life among the mixed 

 and incongruous essences of each other, in 

 earth that they know not, and in air that is 

 poison to them." 



I should like to bring Mr. Ruskin back 

 to life again, show him some color achieve- 

 ments in flower gardening in England and 

 America to-day, and hear him say "A 

 new order reigneth." 



But, back to the crocus! Where drifts 

 of Crocus purpurea, var. grandijlora were 

 blooming under leafless Japanese quince, 

 blooming quite by themselves, a fine show 

 of color of the same order was had, really 

 only a transition from one key to another, 

 by flinging along the ground, planting where 

 they fell, heavy bulbs of hyacinth Lord 

 Derby. The full trusses of this superb 

 flower made the most lovely companions 

 for the just-about-to-fade crocus. How 

 can I adequately describe the color of Lord 

 Derby! Never, no never, in the words of 

 one of the Dutch growers who calmly says, 

 ''Porcelain blue, back heavenly blue." 

 May I venture to ask the reader what im- 

 pression these words convey to him? To 

 me they are as sounding brass and tinkling 

 cymbals. They mean nothing. From my 

 own observation of the hyacinth, I should 

 say that its blue in the early stages of devel- 

 opment has a certain iridescent quality 

 which makes it uncommonly interesting, 

 almost dazzling when seen beyond the 

 green of the fresh grass of May; and in full 

 bloom it shines out with a half-deep tone 

 of purplish-blue. Crocus purpurea, var. 

 grandijlora blooms with this hyacinth; the 

 two tones of purple are distinct from each 

 other and extremely interesting together. 



Is, or is not Puschkinia little known? 

 How distinct it is from most of the smaller 

 spring things, and how lovely in itself with 

 its tiny bluish white bells, pencilled with 

 another deeper tone of blue. And so re- 

 warding, coming up valiantly year after 

 year, without encouragement of the com- 

 post or replanting! A little colony of it is 

 here shown (page 238) very badly because 

 rather too tightly planted. Puschkinia 

 could be associated with Iris reticulata 

 most beautifully; or its slender bluish bells 

 would be delightful growing near Tulip 

 Kaufmanniana. The bloom of all these 

 bulbous things may be quite confidently 

 expected at the same time. 



Another illustration shows practically 

 nothing but crowds of the fine white crocus 

 Reine Blanche, grown as naturally as pos- 

 sible below Pyrus Japonica. Here they 

 dwell calmly and seem to sleep year after 

 year, except for the time when they show 



Bulbs make an effective carpet under shrubs. Crocus Reine Blanche (white) growing beneath Japan quince 



their shining faces to the sun of April. 

 The most dreaded enemy of the crocus to 

 my mind is a wet snow. The petals, once 

 soaked and weighted, never recover their 

 beautiful texture and when one fatal April, 

 as my notebook shows, our hectic climate 

 brought in one hour upon these charming 

 but tender flowers rain, hail and snow, the 

 wreckage may be left to the imagination 

 of the tender-hearted. 



Nothing, to my thinking, can exceed for 

 beauty the picture made by the majestic 

 Tulipa vitellina, with its beautifully held 

 cups of palest lemon color when supported 

 by the lavender trusses of Phlox divaricata 

 — and the stems of that in turn, almost 

 hidden by the fine Phlox subulata, var. 

 lilacina. Long reaches of these three 

 flowers happily planted, or a tiny corner 

 against shrubbery — it matters not one 

 whit which — "and then my heart with 

 pleasure fills!" What a wonderful thing 

 to see below the glowing buds and blossoms 

 of the Japanese quince clusters of tulip 



La Merveille or — but not and — tulip 

 Couleur Cardinal. La Merveille, with its 

 tremendously telling orange-red hues puts 

 dash into the picture: Couleur Cardinal, 

 sombreness, richness. No one could think 

 for one moment of allowing these tulips 

 to appear near each other. Crocus and 

 early flowering things below and among the 

 shrubs to bloom when the quince is leafless, 

 tulips toward the grass, to show when tiny 

 points of green and the red quince blossoms 

 make a fiery mist above them. 



The lucky householder or gardener who 

 has sometime placed a group of the 

 glorious shrub, Mahonia, on his ground, 

 may like a planting which has seemed 

 good to me against the shining dark green 

 of its low branches. Narcissus poetaz, var. 

 Elvira, to bloom with the lavender hyacinth 

 Lord Derby or Holbein; with the gay tulip 

 Vermilion Brilliant nearby, and some groups 

 or colonies of tulip Couleur Cardinal asso- 

 ciated with these. The fine Darwin tulip 

 Fanny used with masses of Phlox divaricata 



Tulips aie best planted in large masses of individual varieties. For names of those shown here see text 



