90 
The Garden Magazine, October, 1920 
in masses along the front of the border, where, on a hot August 
day, it comes nearer suggesting a snowdrift than anything else 
I know! Frau Anton Buchner, unquestionably the best tall 
white Phlox, soon follows Tapis Blanc; then the other more 
brilliant colors gradually spread over the border and soon form a 
pattern as rich as any church window that ever was. They 
last into September too, and by pinching back can be induced 
to prolong the season till the glory of Autumn bursts on the 
garden. 
1 had for some years grown the English improvements of our 
own New England Aster, which in England they call the Mich- 
aelmas Daisy, as it blooms at Michaelmas. Only recently, 
however, have I become acquainted with those very large 
flowered sorts, bearing rich pink and intense blue and crimson 
blossoms. So it was only 
last November that I planted 
a dozen named varieties of 
these in the border, where 
with a few clumps of Gold- 
enrod they will, 1 trust, help 
me to carry on until snow 
flies. Of them 1 cannot 
write yet, however. 
FOURTH SCENE, ACT ONE 
With the Peony family in the star parts 
this extends over a period of three full 
weeks since they are a generous lot 
and never grudging with encores 
A BIT OF SKY COME DOWN 
Lofty spires of Larkspur give the deep 
blue of the ether, with the early Phlox 
Miss Lingard to furnish a proper effect 
of dazzling white cumuli afloat therein 
time — and together set to work 
getting things ready for the 
hundreds of Madonna Lilies 
about to open. 
This beautiful Lily, either 
the glory or despair of a gar- 
den, is well worth trying be- 
cause, if it thrives, it is a most 
perfect companion for the Phlox 
and Larkspur. But for all that 
a gardener may do, it is my 
experience that it still insists 
on deciding for itself in the 
most arbitrary and apparently unreasonable manner, whether 
to thrive or not. (In this well-drained border 1 have counted 
twenty-seven buds and flowers on a single stalk, the topmost 
one being well over four feet from the ground, while in the 
other parts of the garden which are but slightly lower, it refuses 
to do anything beyond barely existing — and that in a most 
undecided, half-hearted manner). 1'his blue and white season 
— for the Dorothy Perkins Roses on the fence back of the bor- 
der seem only to emphasize the white and the blue — furnishes 
by far the daintiest and most ethereal effect in the border 
during the whole summer. 
W HEN the Larkspurs, Phloxes, and Lilies just pass their 
prime, the advent of the late Phloxes is announced by the 
blooming of that beautiful sturdy, giant-flowered dwarf Tapis 
Blanc with its full heads made up of individual flowers the size of 
a half-dollar. From a small beginning of this most desirable sort 
1 have accumulated by division a considerable stock, and have it 
M ENTION has been 
made of the bank of 
evergreens started across the 
rear end of the lawns during 
the first summer. The mo- 
tives for starting this were 
considerably mixed. They 
would, in the first place, form 
a natural and graceful ending 
for both lawn and border, a 
thing every lawn and border 
is the better for having; and 
with the Rose-covered fence 
back of the border they 
would form a beautiful and 
effective background for the 
border flowers; but beneath 
these really secondary mo- 
tives was the desire to build 
a sight-proof hiding place for 
a little formal garden 1 had 
then in mind. 
And so gradually, as the 
border was taking definite 
shape and demanding less 
time, attention was given 
more and more to this new 
feature until, by the end of 
the third summer, the formal 
garden had come into existence. By then, too, the evergreens 
had so increased in size and number by growth and addition 
that, with the help of the Grape covered pergola, leading from 
the rear of the house out into the orchard, they cut off entirely 
the view from the lawn. And they do their work so effectively 
that people of the immediate neighborhood who pass every day, 
never dream of the existence of this quiet, secluded second fea- 
ture of my garden plan. 
Coming down along the length of the border and finally 
turning to cross the lawn, one comes quite unexpectedly upon the 
opening through the evergreens; and before one realizes 
it, the lure of a disappearing curve has done its work and 
one stands in the shade of the Grape covered arbor looking 
out upon a scene entirely different from that just left behind. 
The sensation of discovery experienced here never wears out, 
apparently, and in my own case still adds greatly to my pleasure 
as 1 go through the garden. Uniformity of style and treat- 
ment throughout any garden makes for monotony. 
