The perfect harmony of arrangement was what pleased.  We made many friends happy with armfuls of them to take home.  That is the pleasure of your garden, the enjoyment one gets from making others happy.  We especially notice how pleased the children were, the girls more so than the boys, perhaps, as they wandered along the paths fondling this or that bloom with loving fingers.  With such an amount of bloom it is easy to send bouquets to the childrens’ hospitals and to sick friends.  We plant the peonies with the crown just under the earth, two feet apart.  In the fall we cut off the old stalks and replace them over the plants after putting a good dressing of rotted manure on the beds.

Another flower, which is very attractive, is the larkspur Belladonna, turquoise blue.  It shows from a great distance as its heavenly blue meets the eye.  When arranged in a vase with white flowers it makes the most beautiful, choice and refined bouquet we know of.  The Formosum is a lovely dark blue and very striking.  Give them plenty of water and some wood ashes to keep off the slugs.  Cut off the stalks after blooming, about August first, and they will bloom again in autumn.  We had this year a large clump of Madonna lilies and next to them a large bunch of larkspur.  The effect was stunning.  Just before the larkspur came the whole north end of the garden was aflame with Oriental poppies, hundreds of them.  No other flower produces the effect upon one that this great proud, wonderful flower does.  It is the queen of the show.  We transplant this in September in ordinary soil.  Or we sow the seeds in August and transplant the seedlings as soon as up.  They need no protection, but we protect everything with straw and branches.  The branches to keep the straw from packing too hard and keeping the air out.  Protection of roses is necessary, of course.  We had a great collection this season.  Our plan is to cut them back to within a foot of the ground then fill a box with leaves and turn over them.  We never lose a rose thus protected.  Neither sun nor mice injure them.

Another grand flower is Digitalis, or foxglove.  These gladden your heart as the medicine made from them strengthens it.  Get the mixed plants or seed, Gloxinia flora.  When in bloom, look into their little gloves and note the wonder of nature’s coloring.  With us they grow six feet tall in black, heavy soil.  They self-sow, and the plants of the present year bloom the next.  A bed of these make a most gorgeous, dignified group in your garden.  They are hardy with a very slight covering.  Many with us self-sow and live through the winter without any protection.  We made up a bed of these self-sowed in fall of 1915.  They were a glory this summer.  A few years ago every one said, don’t waste your time on Japanese Iris.  They thrive with us and bear blooms fully as large as a tea plate and of most exquisite beauty.  We divide them every third year and in the spring cover them with old fertilizer and water them well.  They grow in a heavy soil with some sand worked in.  Our best varieties are Oriole, Distinction, Alice Kiernga, Beauty of Japan and Blue Flag.