Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set ForthEarle, Alice Morse
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Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth
Earle, Alice Morse
Gardens; Landscape gardening
There is a curious influence of flower-color which I can only explain by
giving an example. We think of Iris, Gladiolus, Lupine, and even
Foxglove and Poppy as flowers of a warm and vivid color; so where we see
them a pure white, they have a distinct and compelling effect on us,
pleasing, but a little eerie; not a surprise, for we have always known
the white varieties, yet not exactly what we are wonted to. This has
nothing of the grotesque, as is produced by the albino element in the
animal world; it is simply a trifle mysterious. White Pansies and White
Violets possess this quality to a marked degree. I always look and look
again at growing White Violets. A friend says: "Do you think they will
speak to you?" for I turn to them with such an expectancy of something.
The "everlasting" white Pea is a most satisfactory plant by day or
night. Hedges covered with it are a pure delight. Do not fear to plant
it with liberal hand. Be very liberal, too, in your garden of white
Foxgloves. Even if the garden be small, there is room for many graceful
spires of the lovely bells to shine out everywhere, piercing up through
green foliage and colored blooms of other plants. They are not only
beautiful, but they are flowers of sentiment and association, endeared
to childhood, visited of bees, among the best beloved of old-time
favorites. They consort well with nearly every other flower, and
certainly with every other color, and they seem to clarify many a
crudely or dingily tinted flower; they are as admirable foils as they
are principals in the garden scheme. In England, where they readily grow
wild, they are often planted at the edge of a wood, or to form vistas in
a copse. I doubt whether they would thrive here thus planted, but they
are admirable when set in occasional groups to show in pure whiteness
against a hedge. I say in occasional groups, for the Foxglove should
never be planted in exact rows. The White Iris, the Iris of the
Florentine Orris-root, is one of the noblest plants of the whole world;
its pure petals are truly hyaline like snow-ice, like translucent white
glass; and the indescribably beautiful drooping lines of the flowers are
such a contrast with the defiant erectness of the fresh green leaves.
Small wonder that it was a sacred flower of the Greeks. It was called
by the French _la flambe blanche_, a beautiful poetic title--the White
Torch of the Garden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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