the Dutch, because they bloom at the time of the herring harvest--six
and seven feet high, and with them the Monkshood, with its tall spikes
of hooded bloom. In poorer soils or with worse culture these fine
flowers are of much lower growth, the Monkshood often only half the
height, with its deeply-cut leaves yellowing before their time with the
weakness of too-early maturity. The pleasure with which one sees this
fine old garden flower is, however, always a little lessened by the
knowledge of the dangerously poisonous nature of the whole plant, and
especially of the root. It is the deadly Aconite of pharmacy. Another of
the same family is grouped with it; the yellow Aconite of the Austrian
mountains, with branched heads of sulphur-coloured bloom and singularly
handsome leaves--large, dark green, glistening and persistently
enduring--for, long after the bloom is past, they are beautiful in the
border.
How well an artist knows the value of grey-leaved plants, and their use
in pictorial gardening in the way of giving colour-value by close
companionship, to tender pinks and lilacs, and, above all, to whites! A
patch of white bloom is often too hard and sudden and inharmonious to
satisfy the trained eye, but led up to and softened and sweetened by
masses of neighbouring tender grey it takes its proper place and comes
to its right strength in the well-ordered scheme. Lavender,
Lavender-cotton (_Santolina_), Catmint, Pinks and Carnations, and the
Woolly Woundwort (_Stachys_) with some other plants of hoary foliage, do
this good work. In this garden the Woundwort, there known by its old
Midland name of “Our Saviour’s Blanket,” throws up its grey-pink heads
of bloom from a thick carpet of rather large leaves, silvery soft with
their thick coating of long white down. Here a groundwork of it leads to
the group of white Peach-leaved Bell-flower on the right and to the tall
white Gnaphalium, a plant of kindred woolliness, on the left, while the
precious grey quality runs through the left-hand flower-group by means
of the downy-coated pods of the earlier-blooming Lupins, purposely left
among the later flowers for this and for their handsome form.
How finely the Orange Lilies tell against the background of the holly
hedge, at the path-end cut into an arbour, may well be seen in the
picture, and how kindly and gracefully the Greengage Plum-tree bends
over and plays its appointed part.
Such a flower border makes many a picture in the hands of a
garden-artist. His knowledge of the plants, their colours, seasons,
habits and stature, enables him to use them as he uses the colours on
his palette.
How grandly the tall Delphiniums grow in this strong soil. A little of
the colour has been lost owing to technical difficulties of
reproduction, for the blue is purer and stronger in effect both in the
original picture and in nature than is here shown. They are grouped, as
blue flowers need, with contrasts of yellow and orange; with yellow
Daisies and the feathery Meadow-rue (_Thalictrum_), and the tall yellow
Aconite and nearly white Campanulas, woolly Stachys and purple
Bell-flowers beyond. Only one small patch of brighter colour, the
scarlet of Lychnis chalcedonica, is allowed here. On the other side is
the loose-growing and always pictorial white Mallow (_Sidalcea
candida_), taking some weeks to produce its crop of flowers that, like
Foxgloves and most of the flowers of the tall-spiked habit of growth,
begin to bloom below, following upward till they finish at the top.
Some sort of garden knowledge is so generally professed in these days,
and so much more gardening of the better kind is being attempted, that
people are gradually learning the advantage of planting in good groups
of one thing at a time. The older way of putting one each of the same
plant at regular intervals along a border--like buttons on a
waistcoat--is now no longer tolerated, but a great deal has yet to be
learnt. Even planting in bold groups, however good the plants, will be
ineffective if not absolutely unfortunate, if relationships of colouring
are not understood. The safest plan is to plant in harmonies more or
less graduated as to the warm colours, such as full yellow with orange
and scarlet, and to plant blues with contrasts of yellows and any white
flowers. Then delightful effects may be obtained with masses of grey
foliage, such as Lavender, Lavender-cotton, and Stachys, and white Pink,
with flowers that have colourings of tender pink, white, lilac and
purple. To acquire a colour eye is an education in itself, founded on
the needful natural aptitude, a gift that is denied to some people even
if they are not actually colour-blind. But it is a precious possession
where it occurs, and all the better
[Illustration: RAMSCLIFFE: LARKSPUR