March, 1914 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
187 
son Gladioli, but they are nearly all marked with white. Mrs. 
Beecher is a good color ; so is Harvard, which has a little less 
white on it. There are some crimson phlox — but, Oh ! the ma¬ 
genta hovers so painfully near! Sir Edwin Landseer is listed as 
bright crimson, and Count Von Hochberg really is crimson. It 
has a very slight tendency towards blue, but is an exceedingly 
good color. 
The crimson chrysanthemums are nearly all backed with yellow, 
but Champagne is listed as a fiery crimson, and the grower assures 
me it is a pure color, and with no yellow reflex. 
The crimson annuals are not so very numerous. In 
this color, as in pink, white and pale yellow, the Phlox 
Drummond reigns. It is a lovely velvety crimson, 
deep and true. There is a really fine crimson celosia 
(cockscomb), but this is so coarse a plant, and so 
ugly in form, that its real beauty of color is over¬ 
looked. It is not good in a garden, even a large one; 
but the plumed varieties, crimson, scarlet, yellow and 
orange, are all good, with a dark background in a 
shrubbery border used as you would use golden-rod, 
or other wild flowers of a coarser type. 
There are pansies listed as mahogany which are 
such a velvety deep maroon as to go very accept¬ 
ably among the crimson flowers, perhaps to follow the 
Polyanthi in the edging. There are splendid crimson 
nasturtiums in both 
forms. The dark crim¬ 
son mourning bride 
( scabiosa ) is a fine color, 
almost black. There are 
several good, bright, light 
crimson sweet peas, King 
Edward VII, and its im¬ 
proved types being per¬ 
haps the most popular. 
There are some fine dark 
crimson cannas, and the 
crimson zinnias are very 
good, though not quite as 
good as the scarlet and 
orange. As for the last 
For late blossoming choose one of the brilliant red 
cactus dahlias. Firebrand is a good one 
The cardinal flower is 
like a bright flicker of 
flame in its shady 
crimson annual of 
the season, the 
crimson cosmos; it 
is too ugly for 
words. 
In treating of the 
scarlet tones, we 
return to spring, 
with the tulips. 
The earliest are 
Cramoisie B r i 1 - 
liant, syn. Car¬ 
mine Brilliant 
(not to be con¬ 
fused with the 
crimson Parrot 
Cramoisie B r i 1 - 
liant), and Ver¬ 
million Brilliant. 
These are both 
Both among the Darwins and the 
Parrot tulips are reds that comple¬ 
ment the color scheme 
One of the best annuals for scarlet colors 
is zinnia—it comes true from seed 
good. Of the May-flowering, 
one of the finest is Inglescombe 
Scarlet, which is an intense Ver¬ 
million scarlet, with a black 
base. The shape is also lovely, 
very graceful and not so solid 
looking as some of the sturdy 
Netherlanders. In the Darwin 
class, Flambeau is a brilliant, 
rosy scarlet, and Isis is a fine, fiery crimson-scarlet. It is a de¬ 
light to use this dealer’s descriptions, for they are not only accu¬ 
rate, but poetic, and can scarcely be improved upon. Mr. Earm- 
combe Saunders is one of the very best with a rosy bloom, inside 
cerise scarlet, the effect of this in mass is a wonderful clear 
scarlet, like stained glass. Prince of the Netherlands is another 
beauty, glowing cereise scarlet, flushed salmon rose. There are 
some orange scarlets in the breeder class, but they are really over 
the borderline. 
The wild columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis) is scarlet and yel¬ 
low, but the scarlet so predominates as to place it among the reds. 
It is not so large a plant as the garden types, but is none the less 
charming for its delicacy. 
Heuchera sanguinea deserves its name of “Coral Bells." There 
are many varieties of salmon, crimson, white, etc. (don’t get the 
white unless you can have acres of it; it is pinkish), but the type 
is a gorgeous light coral scarlet, and the form is very delicate 
and pretty. One does need a mass, even of this variety, because 
of the small flowers, but not necessarily a large mass; a dozen 
plants set close would make a fine splash of bright color. Strange 
to say, it is an easy color to combine, on the principle that one can 
put a dash of brilliant red or orange on a gown of almost any 
color; only a dash, but it adds to the beauty of the other tones. 
A joyful, shrieking scarlet which will not combine with any 
color on earth save other scarlets, green or white is the Oriental 
poppy of the “common or garden” variety. There are hybrids in 
all shades, from pale rose to mahogany color, but the good old- 
fashioned kind is what Miss Jekyll calls “red-lead color.” Well, 
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