We like Mrs. Wilder's idea for blue in the garden: "And while I should most certainly gather all these blue flowers into one garden or even one border, I should plant them with scarlet and buff tulips, yellow and white iris, patches of Span ish poppies, groups of pale mulleins and fig-leaved holly hocks, the delicate yellow of meadowrue (Thalictrum glau cum), geums, a few orange and scarlet lilies, gypsophila, valerian, Orange King snapdragon, pale calendulas, torch lilies (Kniphofia), montbretias, and other plants of brave coloring."

Analogous harmonies based on blue are easy to arrange because dark and light blues provide sufficient contrast. With them use the adjacent hues, violet and turquoise. Blue, con trasted with yellow or orange of the same chroma, is strong and bold, but such combinations must be used sparingly.

Yellow is better with blue-violet, whereas orange is better with greenish peacock blues. Soft yellow, creamy white, rose pink, flame-pink, and soft orange-red are all effective with any blue because they preserve its brilliance and deepen it by contrast. (Plate 17.)

Use deep blue with clear soft yellows or with scarlet. Creamy white in the combination as a rule holds it down and prevents too vivid contrast. Examples: Cornflower, coreopsis, and white Sweet William; Anchusa with Monarda didyma Cambridge Scarlet and Clematis recta mandshurica.

Use gray-blues with pale creamy yellow, pale rose-pink, or flame-pink; cold or creamy white, or clear orange. Example: Salvia azurea with African marigold Prince of Orange, or with snapdragons in the above-mentioned colors. Polemonium rep tans, hardy candytuft, with tulip Picotee or Rosabella. Cary opteris Blue Mist with Phlox Columbia.

Avoid clear blues near violet-blue. Example: Viola Jersey Gem is not good with Chinese delphinium.

The following list includes both true blues and closely related reddish and greenish hues.

BLUE FLOWERS