184 



The Garden Magazine, December, 1919 



dwarf deen-blue Lobelia — a lovely frame 

 for the sott tones of the filler, and equally 

 lovely as a setting for the pendant drops 

 of color of the Fuchsia blossoms. 



Bed number 3 is a study in reds and 

 yellows, the central note being three 

 Abutilon Thompsonii. This plant is a 

 large annual bush, characterized by its 

 handsome yellow and green maple-shaped 

 leaves and large pendant yellow and red 

 flowers. The filler is a solid mass of 

 yellow Viola (variety Bullier) while im- 

 mersed in this on either side are three 

 Cinerarias with four scarlet Geraniums 

 disposed as shown. The bed is about 20 

 x 5 ft. with incurved ends, and has a 9- 

 inch border of deep blue dwarf Lobelia. 



A very handsome bed in violet and 

 lavender, of which I did not make a 

 sketch, was composed of large bush 

 Heliotropes as central plants with a filler 

 of mauve Violas and a soft green Saxifrage 

 border. 



Number 4 is a curved bed on about 

 a 40-foot radius. It is 21 feet long by 

 5 feet wide, with incurved ends. It is 

 a fine example of how to display the 

 great Lobelia cardinalis, with its deep 

 scarlet spikes of flowers and handsome 

 purplish-copper leaves. They form the 

 flanking plants in this bed, being im- 

 mersed in a solid filler of blue Violas 

 interspersed with small dwarf pink 

 variegated Geraniums. The central 

 plants are five large, pink variegated 

 Geranium bushes set in a curved 

 line, and the border is of white dwarf 

 Lobelias. This is perhaps the hand- 

 somest of all the beds in the Shake- 

 speare New Place gardens. 



Sketch 5 shows what can be done 

 in the soft neutral tones of the vari- 

 ous ornamental colored-leaved plants. 

 It is a circular bed some fifteen feet 

 in diameter and the main inscribed 

 echelon and central turret are built 

 up so that the centre of the bed stands 

 about two feet high. I was curious 

 as to how this bed held its shape 

 against rain wash, and learned that it 

 was built up out of 'dead sod turf, 

 dug and exposed over the winter for 



THE LAYOUT AT THE 

 SHAKESPEARE NEW PLACE 

 This sketch (made from memory) 

 indicates in a general way the re- 

 lationship of the beds to the garden 

 as a whole. There is something 

 reminiscent of this U shaped drive 

 in the basic lines of Washington's 

 design for Mt. Vernon 



•V: nwARpv BLUE : LOBEUA 



root killing. The plants are set in it, 

 perpendicularly from the walls and slopes, 

 and flat on the tables. The almost ver- 

 tical facings of turret and echelon walls 

 are set in Echeveria secunda glauca, a 

 small star-shaped plant about six inches 

 in diameter with pale, silver-green glau- 

 cous leaves, the circlet of them looking 

 like the petals of some silver-gray-green 

 flower. The four sectors of the circle 

 made by the inscribed echelon are filled 

 with Alternanthera, a tiny plant with 

 buff leaves, that are deep red under- 

 neath. Inner borders of the sectors are 

 of bright green Saxifrage, and in the 

 centre of each sector is a dense circle 

 of Anthericum or St. Bernard's Lily 

 on the field of small compact Alter- 



THE DETAIL OF THE FLOWER BEDS 

 Original drawings supplied by the head gar- 

 dener at New Place, giving all the planting 

 detail necessary for study in connection 

 with the descriptions in the accompanying text. 

 The sketches are numbered accordingly 



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nanthera. The four points of the in- 

 scribed echelon are accentuated by a 

 single Aloe plant (var. partridge breast) 

 which has brown and purple spotted 

 leaves; and each Aloe is surrounded by a 

 circlet of Fig Marigold (Mesembryanthe- 

 mum), another compact plant of various 

 colored leaves. The centre of the upper 

 turret of the bed is occupied by the large 

 conspicuous leaves of the Echeveria 

 metallica, surrounded by a circle of deep 

 red Coleus. The outer border of the 

 whole bed is a 9-inch wide ribbon of An- 

 tennaria tomentosa, a dense small plant 

 with glaucous silver-gray leaves. As an 

 example of color work without the aid of a 

 single flowering plant, this bed is a master- 

 piece throughout the entire summer. 

 In such beds it is obvious that too 

 large and simple a figuration should 

 be avoided, as the effect of large fig- 

 ures in colored leaf plants unrelieved 

 by flowers is heavy and monotonous. 

 Finally, in this garden a veritable 

 cascade of flower blooms occupy an 

 ivy-grown corner of the wall, the 

 earth being piled up against the wall 

 nearly to the top and held in place 

 by concealed concrete work. The 

 lower terraces were filled with red 

 Geraniums surrounding four Kochias 

 with a bottom border of Antennaria. 

 Above this came a border of yellow 

 Alyssum and then, in parallel curves 

 clear up to the peak of the corner, 

 French Marigolds, Calceolaria, and 

 variegated Anemones. 



