66. THE SOUTH BORDER
From the Water-colour in the possession of the Artist.
Painted 1902.
This is one of the borders designed on the graduated doctrine as practised by Miss Jekyll in her garden at Munstead near Godalming. Here we have the colours starting at the far end in grey leaves, whites, blues, pinks, and pale yellows, towards a gorgeous centre of reds, oranges, and scarlets, the whites being formed of yuccas, the pinks of hollyhocks, the reds and yellows of gladioli, nasturtiums, African marigolds, herbaceous sunflowers, dahlias, and geraniums. Another part of the scheme is seen in the drawing which follows.
67. THE SOUTH BORDER
From the Water-colour in the possession of W. Edwards, Jun.
Painted 1900.
A further illustration of the same border in Miss Jekyll’s garden, but painted a year or two earlier, and representing it at its farther end, where cool colours are coming into the scheme. The orange-red flowers hanging over the wall are those of the Bignonia grandiflora; the bushes on either side of the archway with white flowers are choisyas, and the adjoining ones are red and yellow dahlias, flanked by tritonias (red-hot pokers); the oranges in front are African marigolds (hardly reproduced sufficiently brightly), with white marguerites; the grey-leaved plant to the left is the Cineraria maritima. Miss Jekyll does not entirely keep to her arrangement of masses of colour; whilst, as an artist, she affects rich masses of colour, she is not above experimenting by breaking in varieties.
68. STUDY OF LEEKS
From the Water-colour in the possession of the Artist.
Painted 1902.
I like the leeke above all herbes and flowers,
When first we wore the same the field was ours.
The Leeke is White and Greene, whereby is ment
That Britaines are both stout and eminent;
Next to the Lion and the Unicorn,
The Leeke’s the fairest emblym that is worne.
When Mrs. Allingham in wandering round a garden came upon this bed of flowering leeks, and, “singularly moved to love the lovely that are not beloved,” at once sat down to paint it in preference to a more ambitious display in the front garden that was at her service, her friends probably considered her artistic perception to be peculiar, and some there may be who will deem the honour given to it by introduction into these pages to be more than its worth. But it has more than one claim to recognition here, for it is unusual in subject, delicate in its violet tints, not unbecoming in form, and is here disassociated from the disagreeable odour which usually accompanies the reality.
