In these borders of Michaelmas Daisies one other flowering plant is
MICHAELMAS DAISIES, MUNSTEAD WOOD
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF
Mr. T. Norton Longman
admitted, and well deserves its place, namely, that fine white Daisy Pyrethrum uliginosum, otherwise Chrysanthemum serotinum. There can be no doubt that it is a daisy flower and that it blooms at Michaelmas; facts that alone would give it a right to a place among the Michaelmas Daisies. But it has all the more claim to its place among them in that it is the handsomest of the large white Daisies, and, though there are white kinds and varieties of the perennial Asters, not one of them can approach it for size or pictorial effect. There is also the still taller Chrysanthemum leucanthemum or Leucanthemum lacustre, but this is a plant that has an element of coarseness, and unless the spaces are large, and the Asters are thrown up to an unusual size by a strong and rich soil, it looks heavy and out of proportion.
Towards the front of the main portions of the Aster borders are rather bold, but quite informal edgings of grey-leaved plants such as white Pink, Stachys and Lavender-cotton; in places only a few inches wide, as where the rich purple, gold-eyed Aster Amellus comes to within a few inches of the path, in the white Pink’s region, or again, where the grey, bushy masses of Lavender-cotton run in a yard deep among the Daisies.
About fifteen sorts are used in this double border; very early and very late ones are excluded, so as to have a good display from the third week of September for a month onward. They are mostly in rather large groups of one kind together.
There is a more than usual pleasure in such a Daisy garden, kept apart and by itself; because the time of its best beauty is just the time when the rest of the garden is looking tired and overworn—evidently dying for the year. Some trees are already becoming bare of leaves; the tall sunflowers look bedraggled; Dahlias have been pinched by frost and battered by autumn gales, and it is impossible to keep up any pretence of well-being in the borders of other hardy flowers.