The Blue Flower Border 
27 1 
on a dark night you can see it showing a distinct 
blue in the garden like a blue lambent flame. 
“ Larkspur lifting turquoise spires 
Bluer than the sorcerer’s fires.” 
Mrs. Milne-Home says her old Scotch gardener 
called the white Delphinium Elijah’s Chariot — a 
resounding, stately title. Helmet-flower is another 
name. I think the Larkspur Border, and the Blue 
Border both gain if a few plants of the pure white 
Delphinium, especially the variety called the Em- 
peror, bloom by the blue flowers. In our garden 
the common blue Larkspur loves to blossom by 
the side of the white Phlox. A bit of the border is 
shown on page 162. In another corner of the gar- 
den the pink and lilac Larkspur should be grown ; 
for their tints, running into blue, are as varied as 
those of an opal. 
I have never seen the wild Larkspur which grows 
so plentifully in our middle Southern states ; but I 
have seen expanses of our common garden Lark- 
spur which has run wild. Nor have I seen the 
glorious fields of Wyoming Larkspur, so poisonous 
to cattle ; nor the magnificent Larkspur, eight feet 
high, described so radiantly to us by John Muir, 
which blues those wonders of nature, the hanging 
meadow gardens of California. 
I am inclined to believe that Lobelia is the least 
pleasing blue flower that blossoms. I never see it 
in any place or juxtaposition that it satisfies me. 
When you take a single flower of it in your hand, 
its single little delicate bloom is really just as pretty 
