HOUSE AND GARDEN 
April, 
1914 
287 
is luminous spectrum blue, but the paler varieties, and especially 
belladonna and coelestinum, are lovely and a very clear color, 
though a trifle grayer than the pale spectrum tone—a sort of Vene¬ 
tian blue. Salira azurea rejoices in a color name all to itself— 
"salira blue”—a tint paler than the spectrum blue, and with a 
silvery effect. Chicory has much the same hue. Then come the 
charming gray-blues of polemonium and caryopteris—awful 
names, but delightful blossoms, both ! The polemonium is an early 
border plant, graceful and delicate, of the soft, gray blue known as 
"Chapman’s,” while the caryopteris, or blue spirea, much the same 
in tone, but with a silvery quality, is an exquisite September¬ 
blooming plant. By some dealers it is listed as a shrub. 
Most of the lobelias—both perennial and annual—are tones of 
ultramarine, and so is the interesting little red-stemmed Plumbago 
sarpentce, which makes a good edging plant, as its foliage is almost 
evergreen. The lighter-toned annual larkspurs and the quaint 
love-in-a-mist are good, clear pale blues ; browallia I have not seen, 
but have heard it vouched for; and the "thoroughly satisfactory” 
blue of the cornflower everyone knows—although, by the way, it 
is not the color called "cornflower blue,” which is much redder 
than the flower, and paler. 
Blue violets and violet blues, usually listed as blue, include such 
attractive and useful flowers as iris, “blue” viola cormita, monks¬ 
hood and a number of others which are charming in the border, 
but which combine very badly with the true blues. Two of the 
most commonly used so-called “blue” iris are I. pallida Dalmatica, 
which is a lovely soft blue-violet; and I. Gennanica “Mine. Che- 
reau," white, frilled with a deeper and somewhat harsher blue- 
violet. Aqueligia ccerulea, listed as sky—or azure—blue, is a light- 
grayish violet-blue which harmonizes well with “Mine. Chereau.” 
An attractive flower which I have seen listed as "bright blue” is 
Stokesia cyanea, the “cornflower aster;” it is really a campanula 
blue, which is slightly tinged with grayish lavender. This is prac¬ 
tically the color of most the paler “blue” campanulae, although per¬ 
haps a little pinker than the pretty, low-growing C. carpatica, 
which makes such a charming edging or rock-garden plant. Closer 
to a true blue, but still a little redder than the pure hue, are the 
blue Viola cormita, which is of the delicate lavender hue called 
flax-flower blue, and the blue Supine, which is deeper in tone, 
being nearer the color known as ultramarine ash. The platy- 
codon, or Chinese bellflower, is still deeper, a violaceous, or gray¬ 
ish-violet blue. Aconitum autumnale, or monkshood and veronica, 
are a hyacinth blue, almost violet, and the so-called blues among 
In a garden of formal arrangement a bed all of one color may form part of a 
composition with its neighbors, each of a single different shade 
Here are exceedingly good phloxes of the paler tones of violet and purple; here 
they have followed an iris of complementary hue 
the lovely race of Michaelmas daisies range from the palest gray¬ 
ish-violet blue to a bright, clear violet. 
Among the annuals, the useful ageratum is a little inclined to 
the lavender side of the scale; in fact, one variety has a decidedly 
pink hue. The so-called “azure” China asters are a pale grayish 
violet-blue, and I have even seen heliotrope, the bluest of which is 
a royal purple, advised as part of a "blue border.” Suggested 
uses for the pure blues in combination are as follows: 
1st. Spectrum and ultramarine blues, with clear or soft yel¬ 
low, and creamy white. 
2d. Clear pale blues with clear rose pinks, cream or blue-white, 
or pale yellows. 
3rd. Gray-blues with pale, creamy yellow, pale rose pink, or, 
if very soft and gray, as the blue spirea, with bright flame pink or 
pure, clear orange. 
4th. No clear blue near a violet blue, even if so advised by a 
“blue borderer”! 
Leaving the borderland to revel among the true violets and 
purples, let us first note that the violet of the spectrum is the hue 
which most of us call purple, and that purple is much redder and 
more nearly approaching what we usually consider as magenta, 
which, in its turn, is grayer and duller than we are in the habit of 
regarding it. 
The crocus “Royal Purple” is a fine clear violet, and probably 
the earliest. Next in point of season comes the deeper and slightly 
redder violet velvet of Viola cormita “Purple Queen,” and the 
hyacinths of depest and palest clear violet. 
In describing tulips it is exceedingly difficult to name the color 
accurately, because they are nearly all “overlaid,” or “flushed" 
with different tones, but one must consider the effect in mass. 
There are but few early purple and violet ones, but there are 
some lovely Darwins, both pale and deep. “Dal Ongarno” is de¬ 
scribed by the dealer as “pale lavender violet — almost a blue — in 
certain lights;” this is darker in mass than one might suppose. 
“Purple Perfection” is a very deep violet; “Velvet King” is red¬ 
der and a good color; “The Sultan” (synonym “Josef Israels”) 
is described as “rich maroon black” of fine form; “Phillipe de 
Commines” is a “velvety dark purple,” and “Zulu” is “a rich vel¬ 
vety purple-black,” the best and most expensive here given. 
There are two very dark columbines of the vulgaris type, one a 
dark bluish violet, and one a redder prune-purple. 
An exquisite early pale blue-violet is the delicate Phlox divari- 
cata; this has a faint pink flush which softens the color wonder- 
(Continued on page 309) 
