134 MY GROWING GARDEN 



and it is more blue for a longer time than any other 

 plant I know. Its paint-brushy heads look like 

 the familiar tender annual, the ageratum, and I 

 have had them grow together to advantage. For 

 all of six weeks the taller spikes of the conoclinium 

 make intense the blue corner where they are. 



Another blue satisfaction is blooming along this 

 month — the so-called "blue spirea," which is no 

 more a spirea than it is a potato. Its first proper 

 name of Caryopteris Mastacanthus has held it for a 

 long time from the popularity it deserves. Perhaps 

 the new Bailey name of C incana will help! In 

 my growing garden it fits into a picture from the 

 south porch, and provides for many weeks a blue 

 mist of graceful details, about two-and-a-half feet 

 high. Either fall sun or partial shade suits it. 



I have another catalogue humbug to report 

 upon for August. Because of its mountain asso- 

 ciation and its own beauty of color and pleasant 

 odor, I have long liked the bergamot, or monarda 

 — or horse-mint, as its unfair common name calls 

 it. The fine fringy scarlet flowers come along in 

 early summer, and at once remind me of the 

 mountain climb to Eagles Mere, with the narrow- 

 gauge railroad winding through great clumps of this 

 brilliant bloomer. When I read in several cata- 

 logues that the select variety "Cambridge Scarlet" 



