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woodstea23

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

WoodsTea 6a MO
9 years ago

Do you know the Sargent painting "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose"?

I really love the blues in the foliage, the luxuriant wildness of it. For some time I have wanted to recreate this in my own garden for a party some summer evening in the future.

Originally I thought I would try to use the same plants as much as possible, but recently I've started to think I would do a variation on it including some natives with similar form/coloring. All of this would have to be in bloom at the same time, and be able to survive in a mesic soil (reasonably well-drained silty clay loam) without a lot of supplemental water.

I wonder if any of you would have suggestions for what might work here.

I have thought I would use Rosa setigera (sprawled along a fence) as well as a Schizachyrium scoparium cultivar to add some blue (I can't tell from the painting if there's any grass or if it's just dianthus stems). Might need to use one of those red black dianthus varieties as I can't think of anything native with dark enough flowers.

Lilies? Hard to say -- could potentially have some in containers behind the fence if the soil needs were considerably different.

Here is a link that might be useful: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose at the Tate Gallery

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