20 
House & Garden 
PLANTING A PINK GARDEN — £/ izabeth Leonard Strang 
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2- 30 
3- 40 
4- 20 
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JO* Opert 
The garden is a 
rectangle, 30'x40', 
enclosed hg a 
hemlock hedge 
that forms a hack- 
ground for the 
ivhole 
T he oppor- 
t u n i t y to 
create a pink 
garden gave 
promise of 
bringing to real¬ 
ization a long 
cherished dream. 
When it came I 
approached my 
task with a 
thrilling under¬ 
current of joy, 
d r e w out my 
friendly note¬ 
books and meta- 
p h o r i c a 1 1 y 
turned loose my 
imagination. 
In spite of a 
certain fund of 
knowledge and 
the most pains¬ 
taking c a r e in 
working out special combinations, the study 
proved more exacting than I had anticipated, 
and the first season’s results, although alto¬ 
gether encouraging, were far from perfect. 
Tints that blended perfectly when viewed 
through the mist of memory, in actuality 
conflicted harshly; pink that when alone 
showed no cast of blue, when placed beside 
one of a slightly warmer tint proved impos¬ 
sible of harmonious use. 
The predominating tone of the first sea¬ 
son’s experimentation was a soft, warm 
pink. But as this did not furnish sufficient 
variety a deeper accent of old rose, palest 
yellow and clear light blue was introduced 
for contrast. Strong colors of great domi¬ 
nance were used sparingly. 
3ulb3 nor To be TaKco up but 
plonred between perenniols 
and cut down wHcn ripened- 
BULB.5 
deep piok 
Ldtuli^e noire 
btacK more 
51-40 at-loe ...... 
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Minnie Hume 
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30-l00Ciotu/Pcar| 
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qrape 
^p-30 5ollo campooul 
a^uilis 
£4*303ei|lo nvTons i 
sCfeianqe 
A pinkish lavender like Primula denticu- 
lata blended well with the predominating 
tone, as did lavender blues like PJdox divari- 
cata or Polemonium reptans; but a certain 
class of rather pronounced pinks of a hlue- 
ish tone like phlox Pink Beauty, Phlox 
subulata var. rosea and some ■ peonies— 
which were jdeasing when alone or com¬ 
bined with light blue—failed to harmonize 
with the warmer shell pink. Purple or 
magenta were, of course, impossible, and at 
the other end of the scale, a warm salmon 
color was equally undesirable. In fact, so 
subtle were the differences in tone that the 
only way by which I could be really sure of 
harmony was by visiting the garden fre¬ 
quently and pulling out the offending color 
To the left is a. 
plan of the gar¬ 
den above show¬ 
ing how the bulbs 
were arranged. 
The planting key 
flanks it 
on the spot. 
In my travels 
during the sum- 
m e r I m a d e 
careful notes for 
future combina¬ 
tions which were 
planted at the 
proper time. 
Even then it is 
impossible to 
forecast results, 
for certain bien¬ 
nials like Can¬ 
terbury bells and 
snap dragons 
which must be 
planted anew 
each year, can¬ 
not be depended 
upon to come 
true to color 
from seed, and 
offending shades 
must be uprooted as they appear. 
The garden is a rectangle 30' x 40', lying 
below the balustraded grass terrace and im¬ 
posing white portico of a large, formal,white 
house. The whole is shut in by a magnifi¬ 
cent hemlock hedge which softens the hard¬ 
ness of the marble benches, the rectangular 
pool and white copings. When first I saw 
this little garden it was filled with a formal 
planting of pink begonias—pink, to be sure, 
but uninteresting. 
Some people look with disfavor upon the 
softening irregularity of herbaceous plant¬ 
ing. “I like a plain garden best,” cried a 
client of mine, viewing with a frown the 
blending of varieties and colors which she 
designated a “messy” garden. 
