Now that there is a really dwarf form of Schizanthus in the 

 pyramidalis Tom Thumb, which grows into a smart little bush and 

 blooms and blooms for ever so long, cut sprays of it to place with 

 Blue Butterfly or Wedgewood Sweet Peas. Torenia is not seen 

 in many gardens and yet it is an ideal border and rock garden plant. 

 Torenia Fournieri both sky-blue and deep blue (both blues in the 

 one flower) is a finer and richer flower than any blue Lobelia, 

 although I must admit, it is not so dependable as a plant, but very 

 worth while growing for its daintiness. 



Start all the Verbenas by the end of March, provide for a 

 great abundance of these unfailing flowers. Plan to grow more 

 of the charming pink shades than ever before ; they are perfect as 

 floating flowers by removing all of the stem and laying the round 

 stemless blooms on the surface of the water in broad shallow bowls, 

 the stem holder is disguised. Cecile Brunner's fairy rose clusters, 

 held in place in the stem holder seem to rise from a pink Verbena 

 surface. Such an arrangement received the first prize over larger 

 and more important exhibits at a flower show because they were 

 so truly lovely. Deep purple and royal scarlet Verbenas and 

 the splendid white, gray blue, flesh, dark blue, deep rose, indeed all 

 the Verbenas are valuable garden-making flowers. When planted 

 inside a dwarf box edge they wreath themselves in and out and 

 over the dark green box and if you cut them regularly late Autumn 

 will find them still aflower, and they will survive a very sharp frost. 



There is a pure white Viola. I'd love to see it in every garden ; 

 it is named Odorata Alba; it is irresistable, so is the Princess of 

 Wales Viola, a fine blue, growing on wavy, long, strong stems. I 

 just recall someone asking me if the Verbenas were not "common." 

 Oh no, they aren't "common" but they are old-fashioned — "old- 

 fashioned" — just as there are beloved old people who are adorably 

 "old-fashioned" and they are adorable, simply because they are 

 "old-fashioned" might that not be the same with Verbenas, Portu- 

 laca, Wall Flowers, Pansies, Violets Stocks or Bleeding Hearts 

 whose pathetically formed flower sprays appealed poignantly to us 

 when we were little children, to our grandmothers and their grand- 

 mothers when they too were little children? 



04 



