Questions of color relations in a garden are most opinion-making and controversy-provoking. Shall we plant by chance, or by a flower-loving instinct for sheltered and suited locations, as was done in all old-time gardens, and with most happy and most unaffected results? or shall we plant severely by colors—all yellow flowers in a border together? all red flowers side by side? all pink flowers near each other? This might be satisfactory in small gardens, but I am uncertain whether any profound gratification or full flower succession would come from such rigid planting in long flower borders.
William Morris warns us that flowers in masses are "mighty strong color," and must be used with caution. A still greater cause for hesitation would be the ugly jarring of juxtaposing tints of the same color. Yellows do little injury to each other; but I cannot believe that a mixed border of red flowers would ever be satisfactory or scarcely endurable; and few persons would care for beds of all white flowers. But when I reach the Blue Border, then I can speak with decision; I know whereof I write, I know the variety and beauty of a garden bed of blue flowers. In blue you may have much difference in tint and quality without losing color effect. The Persian art workers have accomplished the combining of varying blues most wonderfully and successfully: purplish blues next to green-blues, and sapphire-blues alongside; and blues seldom clash in the flower beds.
Blue is my best beloved color; I love it as the bees love it. Every blue flower is mine; and I am as pleased as with a tribute of praise to a friend to learn that scientists have proved that blue flowers represent the most highly developed lines of descent. These learned men believe that all flowers were at first yellow, being perhaps only developed stamens; then some became white, others red; while the purple and blue were the latest and highest forms. The simplest shaped flowers, open to be visited by every insect, are still yellow or white, running into red or pink. Thus the Rose family have simple open symmetrical flowers; and there are no blue Roses—the flower has never risen to the blue stage. In the Pea family the simpler flowers are yellow or red; while the highly evolved members, such as Lupines, Wistaria, Everlasting Pea, are purple or blue, varying to white. Bees are among the highest forms of insect life, and the labiate flowers are adapted to their visits; these nearly all have purple or blue petals—Thyme, Sage, Mint, Marjoram, Basil, Prunella, etc.
Of course the Blue Border runs into tints of pale lilac and purple and is thereby the gainer; but I would remove from it the purple Clematis, Wistaria, and Passion-flower, all of which a friend has planted to cover the wall behind her blue flower bed. Sometimes the line between blue and purple is hard to define. Keats invented a word, purplue, which he used for this indeterminate color.
I would not, in my Blue Border, exclude an occasional group of flowers of other colors; I love a border of all colors far too well to do that. Here, as everywhere in my garden, should be white flowers, especially tall white flowers: white Foxgloves, white Delphinium, white Lupine, white Hollyhock, white Bell-flower, nor should I object to a few spires at one end of the bed of sulphur-yellow Lupines, or yellow Hollyhocks, or a group of Paris Daisies. I have seen a great Oriental Poppy growing in wonderful beauty near a mass of pale blue Larkspur, and Shirley Poppies are a delight with blues; and any one could arrange the pompadour tints of pink and blue in a garden who could in a gown.
Scilla.
Let me name some of the favorites of the Blue Border. The earliest but not the eldest is the pretty spicy Scilla in several varieties, and most satisfactory it is in perfection of tint, length of bloom, and great hardiness. It would be welcomed as we eagerly greet all the early spring blooms, even if it were not the perfect little blossom that is pictured on [page 254], the very little Scilla that grew in my mother's garden.