DELPHINIUM BELLADONNA.
CANTERBURY BELLS.
The other long beds in this region are for special combinations, some of them of July flowers. Orange Lilies are with the beautiful Clematis recta, a plant but little known though it is easy to grow and is one of the best of summer flowers. One bed is for blue colouring with grey foliage. Here is the lovely Delphinium Belladonna, with flowers of a blue purer than that of any others of its beautiful kind. It never grows tall, nor has it the strong, robust aspect of the larger ones, but what it lacks in vigour is more than made up for by the charming refinement of the whole plant. In the same bed are the other pure blues of the rare double Siberian Larkspur, and the single allied kind Delphinium grandiflorum, of Salvia patens and of the Cape Daisy Agathea cœlestis. Between the clumps of Belladonna are bushes of white Lavender, and the whole is carpeted and edged with the white foliage of Artemisia stelleriana, the quite hardy plant that is such a good substitute for the tenderer Cineraria maritima.
Among the best flowers of July that have a place in this garden are the Pentstemons planted last year. We grow them afresh from cuttings every autumn, planting them out in April. They are not quite hardy, and a bad winter may destroy all the last year's plants. But if these can be saved they bloom in July, whereas those planted in the spring of the year do not flower till later. So we protect the older plants with fir-boughs and generally succeed in saving them. Old plants of Snapdragon are also now in flower. They too are a little tender in the open, although they are safe in dry-walling with the roots out of the way of frost and the crowns kept dry among the stones.
Much use is made of a dwarf kind of Lavender, that is also among the best of the July flowers. The whole size of the plant is about one-third that of the ordinary kind; the flowers are darker in colour and the time of blooming a good month earlier. It has a different use in gardening, as the flowers, being more crowded and of a deeper tint, make a distinct colour-effect. Besides its border use it is a plant for dry banks, tops of rock-work and dry-walling.
ROSE THE GARLAND IN A SILVER HOLLY.
ERYNGIUM OLIVERIANUM.