November, 1912 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



149 



are almost as enchanting astheopenflowers. 

 Things in bud bring, in the heat of a June 

 noontide, the recollection of the loveliest 

 days of the year — those days of May 

 when all is suggested, nothing yet fulfilled. 

 To-day I have been looking at something 

 one of these photographs feebly tries to 

 show — taU spikes of pale pink Canterbury 

 bells, the flowers unusually large, standing 

 against a softly rounding background of 

 gypsophila in bud; to the left of the cam- 

 panulas leaves of Iris pallida, var. Dal- 

 matica, so tall that their presence is imme- 

 diately felt; a little before, but still to the 

 left of the pink spikes and the iris, perhaps 

 a dozen tall silvery velvet stems of Stachys 

 lanata, whose tiny flowers give but a hint 

 of their pale lavender as yet, and are lost 

 in the whiteness of the young leaflets, and 

 — and this is the thing which really creates 

 the picture — three or four spreading 

 branches, a foot from the ground and 

 directly below the campanulas, of Statice 

 incana Silver Cloud, tiny points of white 

 showing that the whole dense spray will 

 soon be full of flowers. 



Below and among the campanulas (which 

 I keep in bloom a very long time by a care- 

 ful daily taking off of every shrivelling 

 bloom), stand salmon pink balsams, these 

 to replace with their two-foot masses of 

 flowers the campanulas when the latter's 

 day is over and to rise above the gray- 

 white leaves of the stachys when its bloom- 

 ing time is also past. This stachys is a 

 lovely adjunct to the garden. The texture 

 of its leaves is a matter of surprise to every- 

 one who touches them. Most people would 

 call stachys "woolly," but I do not like 

 this word — (is it because I live in the 

 West?) — and why apply an unpoetic 

 word to any one of the lovely inhabitants 

 of our gardens? 



It came about that a space before the 

 bush honeysuckles — the pink flowering 

 variety, Lonicera Tatarica, var. rosea — in 

 a border, needed filling with lower shrubs. 

 The piece of ground to be furnished was 

 perhaps fifteen feet long by three wide, 

 though irregular in both width and outline. 

 Last autumn Rosa nitida had been there 

 set out, planted about three feet apart. 

 Bare ground for this year and next was 

 sure to spoil the look of things while these 

 roses were yet young, and a covering for it 

 was thus managed. Canterbury bell plants 

 were distributed in small groups among the 

 roses, especially toward the back of the 

 border, and English irises, Rossini and Mr. 

 Veen, were tucked in in longish colonies 

 before and among the campanulas. In 

 ordinary seasons these irises might not 

 have bloomed with the campanulas, but 

 this year it was Monte Cristo-like — the 

 flower and the hour! — with a resultant 

 superb effect of color. Mr. Veen, a true 

 violet iris, Rossini a purplish blue, were 

 good together to me who differ from Miss 

 Jekyll in possessing a penchant for blue 

 combined with purple or with lavender. 



To compare a bloom of one of these irises 

 with a spray of the Dropmore anchusa is to 

 get an extremely vivid and interesting idea 



of the effect of colors upon each other. 

 Taken alone, Iris xiphioides var. Mr. Veen is 

 a blue without verymuch purple in its tone; 

 beside the anchusa all the blue vanishes — 

 the iris is a distinct purple; place it beside 

 Rossini, it becomes blue again; and grow 

 masses of Rossini below the anchusa, es- 

 pecially the variety Opal, and there is one 

 of the most beautiful juxtapositions possible 

 in flowers — so far as I know an original 

 combination of color and one to charm an 

 artist, I believe. Anchusa of a year's 

 standing might be best to use in this way, 

 a three foot anchusa. The two foot iris 

 would prove a good companion. 

 There follows soon after the gray and pink 



see something more delicately beautiful 

 than often occurs in gardens. Ten packets 

 of the seed of my poppy have I sent to the 

 editor of The Garden Magazine, as I 

 have a superabundance of the same; and if 

 ten people read these words and if per- 

 adventure there be ten gardeners with 

 vision to see through the veil of these 

 sentences the rose pink beauty of this 

 flower, let them ask for a bit of this seed, 

 for it is theirs for the asking ! 



The love of flowers brings surely with it 

 the love of all the green world. For love 

 of flowers every blooming square in cottage 

 gardens seen from the flying windows of the 

 train, has its true and touching message 



Tulipa Vitellina, lemon yellow with Phlox divaricata var. Canadensis and Laphami 



combination in my garden of which I spoke 

 a few paragraphs back, the combination of 

 pink Campanula Medium and Stachys 

 lanata, a time when one of the loveliest of 

 all double poppies lights up the little place 

 with color. For this poppy — an annual 

 — there is no registered name. It is 

 extremely double perhaps three feet in 

 height and of a delicious rosy-pink, 

 exactly the pink of the best mallows, 

 or of the enchanting half open rose 

 buds of the ever lovely rambler Lady 

 Gay. To see three or four of these poppies 

 in full bloom among the white mist of 

 gypsophila, either single or double, the 

 oat-green of the poppy leaves below, is to 



for the traveller; every bush and tree in 

 nearer field and farther wood becomes an ob- 

 ject of delight and stirs delightful thought. 

 When I see a rhubarb plant in a small rural 

 garden I respect the man, or more generally 

 the woman, who placed it there. If my eye 

 lights upon the carefully tended peony held 

 up by a barrel hoop, the round group of an 

 old dicentra, the fine upstanding single 

 plant of iris, at once I experience the 

 warmest feeling of friendliness for that 

 householder, and wish to know and talk 

 with him or her about their flowers. For 

 at the bottom there is a bond which breaks 

 down every other difference between us. 

 We are "Garden Souls." 



