popularity and former frequency in gardens in these words: “The Red
Martagon of Constantinople is become so common everywhere, and so well
known to all lovers of these delights, that I shal seem unto them to
lose time, to bestow many lines upon it; yet because it is so fair a
flower, and was at the first so highly esteemed, it deserveth his place
and commendations, howsoever increasing the plenty hath not made it
dainty.”
One more of the Lilies, indispensable for loveliness, should be grown
wherever it is found possible. This is the Nankeen Lily (_L.
testaceum_). It is a flower as mysterious as it is beautiful. It is not
found wild, and is considered to be a hybrid between the White Lily and
the Scarlet Martagon. Whether it occurred naturally, or whether it was
the deliberate work of some unknown benefactor to horticulture, will now
never be known; we can only be thankful that by some happy agency we
have this Lily of mixed parentage, one of the most beautiful in
cultivation. The name Nankeen Lily nearly, but not exactly, describes
its colour, for a suspicion of pinkish warmth is added to the tender
buff-colour usually so named.
Many other Lilies may be grown in different gardens, but the tenderer
kinds from Eastern Asia are not for the hardy flower-border, and the
vigorous American species have not yet been with us long enough to be
familiar as flowers of old English gardens.
A July garden would not show its true character without some masses of
the stately blue perennial Larkspurs. No garden plant has been more
widely cultivated within the last fifty years, and our nurserymen have
produced a large range of beautiful varieties. They have, perhaps, gone
a little too far in some directions. The desire to produce something
that can be called a novelty often makes growers forget that what is
wanted is the thing that is most beautiful, rather than something merely
exceptionally abnormal, to be gaped at in wonderment for perhaps one
season, and above all for the purpose of being blazoned forth in the
trade list. The true points to look for in these grand flowers are pure
colour, whether light, medium or dark, fine stature and a well-filled
but not overcrowded spike. There are some pretty double flowers, where
the individual bloom loses its normal shape and becomes flattened, but
the single is the truer form. They are so easily raised from seed that
good varieties may be grown at home, when, if space may be allowed for a
line of seedlings in the trial-ground, it is pleasant to watch what they
will bring forth. Such a good old kind as the one named “Cantab” is a
capital seed-bearer, and will give many handsome plants. They must be
carefully observed at flowering time, and any of poor or weedy habit in
their bloom thrown away. Some will probably have interrupted spikes,
that is to say, the spike will have some flowers below and then a bare
interval, with more flowers above. This is a fault that should not be
tolerated.
The Monkshoods (_Aconitum_) are related to the Larkspurs (_Delphinium_);
indeed, it is a common thing to hear them confused and the name of one
used for the other. It is easy to understand how this may be, for the
leaves are much alike in shape, and both genera bear hooded flowers on
tall spikes, mostly of blue and purple colours. For ordinary garden
knowledge it may be remembered that Monkshood has a smooth leaf and that
the colour is a purplish blue, the bluest of those commonly in
cultivation being the late-flowering _Aconitum japonicum_, and that the
true pure blues are those of the perennial Larkspurs, whose leaves are
downy.
The great Delphiniums love a strong, rich loamy soil, rather damp than
dry, and plenty of nourishment.
There is a handsome Monkshood with pale yellow flowers that is well used
in the garden of the White Lilies, and most happily in their near
companionship. It is _Aconitum Lycoctonum_; a plant of Austria and the
Tyrol. The widely-branched racemes of pale luminous bloom are thrown out
in a graceful manner, in pleasant contrast with the equally graceful but
quite different upright carriage of the White Lily. The handsome dark
green polished leaves of this fine Aconite are also of much value;
persisting after the bloom is over till quite into the late autumn.
Many of the charming members of the Bell-flower family are fine things
in the flower-border. The best of all for general use is perhaps the
well-known _Campanula persicifolia_, with its slender upright stems and
its numbers of pretty bells, both blue and white. There are double
[Illustration: PURPLE CAMPANULA