The Garden Magazine, February, 1922 



301 



Many of these latter pictures have we all seen, devoid of 

 skill, thought, or study and they are often pronounced to be 

 "extraordinary," "clever," "wonderful!" Extraordinary they 

 may be, clever they certainly are not, and wonderful they cer- 

 tainly are, but to my thinking the wonder is that any one has the 

 effrontery to paint them. However, as I said before, it's a 

 harmless occupation and nobody need looks at a thing not 

 liked. 



PRESUMING the desire is sufficiently great, the study 

 earnest, and the admiration of flower-beauty sincere and 

 deep, 1 think there should be no curb to the imagination in 

 creating pictures drawn from nature and arranged in harmonious 

 color and form. The mixture of flowers in contrasting tints or in 

 .harmonies — brilliant contrast or delicate harmony — is endless, so 

 that each of us can select what the mood or the subject to be 

 ■depicted inspires. 



Moreover, I maintain that all colors are beautiful — even the 

 much maligned magenta for which I personally have a great 

 admiration. 1 have heard folks say that they think it "hide- 

 ous" or that they wish it "could be abolished from the face of 

 the earth." Everybody to his taste — but there are degrees of 

 taste, and I have known many who disliking this color at first 

 have after a little demonstration and observation not only ad- 

 mitted that it is "not so bad" but actually have come to like 

 and admire it. 



Frequently will a person express a dislike to a color in a cer- 

 tain place and admire exactly the same tint when seen elsewhere. 

 Put a real, bright magenta flower with two or three shades of 

 purple and it is at once at home and harmonious. Put it with 

 vermilion and orange, some contrasting bright blue, and some 

 ■dark violet or bronze as a firm note — surely no one should say it 

 is out of place or ugly in such an environment. 



If only there is sufficient boldness in mixing colors together 

 without stint, it is surprising how effective and satisfactory an 

 arrangement of flowers can be, and how interesting! 



A bowl of pink roses in the centre of a table is a bowl of pink 

 roses and little else, but a good arrangement of different colored 

 roses or of many different colored flowers may be and generally 

 is a source of perpetual interest and beauty from the moment it 

 is set out until the flowers are dead. 



When I say there need be no curb to the imagination, I say it 

 rather in self defence as well as for the consideration of those 

 interested in these ideas — self defence because it has been mildly 

 suggested to me that certain flower pictures I have painted are 

 "impossible." This is because I have depicted together a 

 number of flowers which could not possibly be in bloom at the 

 same time. Botanists do not like this, it worries them a bit! 

 With confidence I say this is a narrow point of view. A picture 

 containing every kind of flower that comes to the mind during 

 its making is an imaginative work, a vision of past loveliness, a 

 record and mirror of beauty that dwells in the memory. When 

 autumn flowers are flourishing gaily we do not forget the early 

 Primroses or the sweetness of summer's joys! My botanical 

 friends might as well take exception to pictures of sacred figures 

 sitting on clouds — an obvious impossibility — and surrounded 

 by little angel heads having no bodies nor limbs. The greatest 

 masters have painted such and they are decorative pictures 

 born of the imagination and in no way representative of real 

 life. Why, therefore, should this not be permissible when 

 painting flowers? Why not conceive beautiful impossibilities? 



Three things are needed — continuous and patient study, 

 bold experiment, an unrestricted fancy. These will surely lead 

 to the creation of flower pictures that at once decorate and 

 beautify, that resemble nature and appeal to all who interpret 

 her in the right spirit. 



SPEAKING OF GARDENS 



FLORENCE BOYCE DAVIS 



SPEAKING of gardens, I heard a man say yesterday: 

 " I never plant a garden: what's the need? My neighbor 

 Has more than he can use, and always tells me, 

 'Help yourself; the stuff is going to waste; 

 You're welcome to it while it lasts.' And so 

 I fare as well as he; better, in fact, 

 Since he does all the work and I do none." 



THUS he talked about it, braggart wise. 

 I wondered would he ever learn to read 

 The secret message of the spade and hoe, 

 Or come to know 



How like an open sesame they lead 

 To hidden treasure that no man may hold 

 Save he who delves for it beneath the mould. 



AND so I said: "Friend, never till you sit 

 l Beside your winter fire and plan your garden out, 

 Seed catalog in hand, and in your mind 

 A blue print of each bed and hill and row — 



Until in spring you take your trusty hoe 

 And level off the earth, and mark it out, 

 And sort the little envelopes that hold 



Seeds, big and little, pointed, flat and round, 

 And tap them so, and hold them to the light 

 And reckon if one packet is enough — 



Never till you see the first green tint 

 Of round leaves in the radish row, or mark 

 The crooked necks of peas come pushing up, 

 The red leaves of the beets, and all the rest — 



Never till at early dawn you bend 

 Culling out weeds that spring up after showers, 

 While a song sparrow sings upon the fence, 

 And bobolinks are heralding the day — 



Never, I say, till then can you esteem 

 A garden at its proper worth, or reap 

 One half the harvest that it yields; for ripened fruit 

 A flavor gives to him who grows the vine 

 Which he who trains it not can never know." 



