86 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



Dinner-table decorations, with cut flowers and fruit, require 

 great taste in their arrangement. They should always be fitted up 

 in a light and elegant style ; nothing stiff or clumsy should be 

 allowed. 



Vases of numerous designs and in various styles in Etruscan 

 ware, terra-cotta, porcelain, glass, and metal, can be purchased from 

 the dealers in any size you require, and the trumpet glasses used for 

 table decoration can be obtained in all sizes from nine inches to 

 three feet in height. Zinc pans, neatly enamelled or painted, are 

 used for protecting the carpet in rooms from water drippings and 

 damp, when large plants, or arrangements of plants are used. For 

 smaller plants requiring to be nearer the light, rustic jardinets, or 

 ornamental flower-stands, made of wood, wire, or wickerwork, are 

 used with good effect. Ornamental flower-stands should always be 

 furnished with a zinc pan inside, to prevent any excess of water 

 while watering the plants dripping down on the floor. Brown or 

 varnished wicker baskets and pot covers are excellent receptacles 

 for pot plants. They should be high enough to conceal the pot 

 entirely, and the surface of the pots should be covered with Hypnum 

 moss. Pot plants arranged in zinc pans and flower-stands should 

 always be provided with flats to stand in ; the superfluous water 

 collects in them after watering, and is easily removed without 

 causing any overflow or mess of any kind. When arranging pot 

 plants in a flower-stand, a very pretty effect is produced by filling 

 all round the pots with damp moss or sand, and placing cut 

 flowers and fern fronds over the surface. This can be carried out 

 in many little ways when abundance of flowers are at hand. For 

 instance, a common small tray or soup-plate can be filled with damp 

 sand, and fern fronds and grasses laid round the edge, and cut 

 flowers neatly arranged over them. This makes a pretty table 

 ornament, and is within anybody's reach. 



In arranging plants in rooms, a great deal of taste is required ; 

 in fact, on this depends, to a great extent, the beauty and useful- 

 ness of plants used for that purpose. It must always be remembered 

 that before we get the plants we use in our rooms they are grown 

 in large, airy, well-lighted and ventilated greenhouses, and that it 

 is against the law of nature to consign them from such quarters to 

 a dark, hot, stifling room. Of course the same amount of light 

 cannot be obtained in a room as they enjoyed in the greenhouse. 

 It is this difficulty, therefore, that we must try to overcome as 

 far as we can. Plants, therefore, should be arranged in a room 

 so that they may enjoy the light and air as far as circumstances 

 will allow. Some phmts can stand for a considerable length 

 of time in a darkened corner of a room, with little or no harm 

 being done them, such as Dracoenas, Palms, Agaves, Aloes, Ivy, and 

 the Ficus elastica, or India-rubber plant ; they all have hard jeathery 

 leaves, and are able to stand the dry arid air of a room with 

 impunity, but all soft-wooded, quick-growing plants, such as 

 Fuchsias, Geraniums, or Pelargoniums, Cinerarias, etc., suffer 

 severely if kept from the light. You should therefore have them 

 always as near the light as possible, and change them every other 



