CATMINT IN JUNE IN THE GREY AUGUST BORDER.
June is also the time of some of the best of the climbing plants and slightly tender shrubs that we have against walls and treat as climbers, such as Solamum crispum and Abutilon vitifolium and the hardy Clematis montana; but some notes on these will be offered in a further chapter.
One is always watching and trying for good combinations of colour that occur or that may be composed. Besides such as are shown in the plans, the following have been noted for June:
In rock-work the tiny China Rose Pompon de Paris, also the tender pink Fairy Rose, with pale lilac tufted Pansy and Achillea umbellata.
The pretty pale pink dwarf Rose Mignonette, with the lilac of Catmint (Nepeta Mussini) and the grey-white foliage of Stachys and Cineraria maritima.
In a cool, retired place in a shrubbery margin, away from other flowers, the misty red-grey-purple of Thalictrum purpureum with the warm white foam-colour of Spiræa Aruncus.
On bold rock-work, a mass of a fine-coloured strain of Valerian (Centranthus) with a deep scarlet-crimson Snapdragon. This is a success of reciprocally becoming texture as well as colour; the texture having that satisfying quality that one recognises in the relation of the cut and uncut portions of the fine old Italian cut-velvets.
SCOTCH BRIARS.