Book of Gardens 
9 
combination with the white, forms a beauti¬ 
ful group. The lupin is a fair sized plant, 
with perhaps a dozen stalks 2' to 3' tall. 
By the time the lupins begin to fade the 
iris will come into flower. Only the so-called 
self-colored sorts seem sufficiently assertive to 
be suitable for a planting of this nature. 
Mrs. H. Darwin is a most satisfactory white, 
of rather dwarf habit. Madame Chereau is 
the tall and stately variety with somewhat 
elongated white flowers with blue laced edges. 
Pallida Dalmatica is a large, luxuriantly grow¬ 
ing kind, whose extra sized flowers at a little 
distance give the effect of a clear, delicate 
blue. Her Majesty, with flowers almost as 
large but borne on shorter stems, is soft pink 
with crimson markings. 
We have to be especially careful in placing 
our irises unless we are willing to cut them 
off before their time, because the oriental pop¬ 
pies never wait for the iris season to be quite 
over. These with their brilliant black and 
scarlet coloring and great size are likely to 
prove rather upsetting to one’s preconceived 
ideas of 'balance and harmony, unless they are 
carefully curbed. A good showing can be had 
from Rose Queen, Perry’s White, Nancy, Go¬ 
liath, Royal Scarlet, Beauty of Livermore. 
By the first of June—in many localities, 
somewhat earlier—the peony plants will have 
altogether lost the mahogany color of their 
earliest stage and will have developed into pic¬ 
turesque mounds of deep, glossy green. Twelve 
standard sorts of moderate price, which give 
great variety in type and color of bloom and 
will furnish the longest possible season—from 
three to four weeks—are Umbellata Rosea, 
Rubens, Festiva Maxima, Mons. Jules Llie, 
Courrone d’Or, Faust, Delicatissima, Marie 
Jacquin, Felix Grousse, Mons. Hyppolyte 
Dellille, Henri Murger, Marie Lemoine. 
By the third week of June, when the later 
peonies are in flower, the delphiniums will 
be reaching a considerable height, and the 
long, graceful spires of buds will begin to 
While the late peonies show the last of 
their glory, the delphiniums raise their 
heads ready to bloom 
show color. These with the Madonna lilies 
and the early white phloxes always follow 
hard on the peonies. The delphinium, or 
perennial larkspur, ranges in color from white 
through countless enchanting combinations of 
blue and lavender to deep blue and purple. 
The scarlet and so-called yellow sorts need 
not be considered here. For a variety of de¬ 
pendable blues, plant—Bleu Tendre, Rev. E. 
Lascelles, Hermosa, The Alake, Porcelaine 
Sceptre, Dusky Monarch, Mr. K. T. Caron, 
Progression, Perfection, King of Delphiniums, 
Lorenzo de Medici, Mrs. Brunton, Andrew 
Carnegie, Francis F. Fox, Corry, Moerheimi. 
As the larkspur and lily time passes, the 
gorgeous phlox era comes—the former per¬ 
haps the most ethereal, the latter certainly the 
most brilliant phase of the garden year. Visu¬ 
alize these in bloom—Miss Lingard, Tapis 
Blanc, Frau Anton Buchner, Comte von Hoch- 
berg, Europa, Fernand Cortez, Inspector El- 
pel, G. A. Strohlein. 
The beautiful, big, creamy white flowered 
dwarf, Tapis Blanc, is without a rival for 
the very front of the border. It grows from 
1' to 1 Yz tall and bears large heads of large 
flowers. It blooms earlier than the other 
phloxes in this later group, usually beginning 
to flower just as the early white, Miss Lingard, 
is by its best. Tapis Blanc forms a bridge 
between the two seasons. Frau Anton Buch¬ 
ner, universally acknowledged the very best 
white phlox, bears equally large flowers in 
larger but somewhat looser heads, and grows 
very tall, often over 3'. This white is used 
for its own sake and to separate the more 
brilliant sorts. These brilliant colors are 
most effective used in considerable quantities, 
each by itself. Of the colored varieties, one 
might start with six plants each of the fol¬ 
lowing : 
Cortez—a rich crimson, early; G. A. Stroh¬ 
lein—a wonderful salmon with a red eye; 
Europa—white with a clear red eye; Comte 
Von Hochberg—a deep crimson, one of the 
darkest colored sorts; Inspector Elpel—a rosy 
pink with a reddish eye, very late. 
The phloxes, with their wealth of color and 
bloom, carry us well into September, when the 
various fall asters begin to flower. 
The number of these Michaelmas daisies 
is a revelation to most people, who still sup¬ 
pose the lavenders of our own New England 
asters the only colors to be found among them. 
There are, however, not only these lavenders 
and many more, but pinks in almost pure 
tones, white, light and deep blue, crimson, 
and purple. Many of the newer varieties 
grow to be larger plants and bear larger flowers 
than those most of us know. For a good 
autumn showing, try St. Egwin, Beaute par- 
faite, Glory of Colwall, Ryecroft Purple, Rye- 
croft Pink, Fairfield, Mrs. S. T. Wright, Wm. 
Marshall, Bertha Cubitt, Mrs. Rayner, Hilda 
Morris, Feltham Blue. 
In building a new border, start out with 
these rules firmly in mind: 
1. Select a location, if possible, in full view 
from the summer living room. 
2. Carefully measure the space to be planted, 
and make, to a convenient scale, a detailed 
plan showing the location of every plant to 
be set. This not only makes the actual plant¬ 
ing much easier, but makes it possible to get 
along without the unsightly and perishable 
labels, for if in doubt as to a name one merely 
has to consult the plan. 
3. In arranging the colors try to get beauti¬ 
ful combinations, remembering always that 
simplicity is a chief aid to that end. A half- 
dozen plants each of three or four colors are 
far better than the same number of plants, 
each in a different color. 
4. Whenever practicable, obtain the best 
quality of plants, in named varieties. 
5. Give a reasonable amount of labor and 
fertilizer in preparing the ground. 
