first rank. They have their uses, but the family has a morbid tendency
to run to sad, half-mourning hues, and I have put a black mark against
it as far as my own garden is concerned.

Drummond phlox deserves especial mention, for so wide a colour range
has it, and so easy is its growth (if only you give it plenty of water
and elbow room, and remember that a crowded Drummond phlox is an unhappy
plant of short life), that a very tasteful group of beds could be made
of this flower alone by a careful selection of colours, while by
constant cutting for the house the length of the blooming season is
prolonged.

The dwarf salvias, too, grow readily from seed, and balsams, if one has
room, line up finely along straight walks, the firm blossoms of the
camelia-flowered variety, with their delicate rosettes of pink, salmon,
and lavender, also serving to make novel table decorations when arranged
in many ways with leaves of the laurel, English ivy, or fern fronds.

Portulaca, though cousin to the objectionable "pusley," is most useful
where mere colour is wanted to cover the ground in beds that have held
early tulips or other spring bulbs, as well as for covering dry, sandy
spots where little else will grow. It should not be planted until really
warm weather, and therefore may be scattered between the rows of
narcissi and late tulips when their tops are cut off, and by the time
they are quite withered and done away with, the cheerful portulaca,
feeding upon the hottest sunbeams, will begin to cover the ground, a
pleasure to the eye as well as a decorative screen to the bulbs
beneath, sucking the fiercest sun rays before they penetrate.

Chief among the low-growing worthies comes the verbena, good for