36 



TIIE IVY. 



and dosing them too much with water), might advantageously give up fern -growing 

 and plant one or two ivies in their stead. About three times in the course of a 



year will be often enough to water 

 them, if the case is kept always 

 closely shut; and a few copper 

 wires, deftly placed, will suffice 

 for training them to form a pretty 

 tracery : the soft lead wire, or 

 " horticultural wire," as it is called, 

 obtainable at any ironmonger's, 

 being the best material for tying 

 in the shoots, as required. The 

 author has a fine Ransome vase 

 with glass lantern (of the kind 

 figured at page 66 of " Rustic 

 Adornments "), filled with a rich 

 growth of ivy, which has occupied 

 its present position more than ten 

 years, and is still vigorous enough 

 and extremely beautiful. This case 

 occupies a comparatively dark corner 

 of the entrance-hall, and the ivy 

 suffers less through lack of light 

 than the ferns that keep it company. 

 The smaller form of Hedera helix, 

 in this work denominated Helix 



minor, is the best for the purpose ; but any of the small green-leaved kinds are 

 appropriate. 



Mary Howitt, in her " Art- Student in Munich," mentions that, from the 

 palace to the cottage, there is scarcely a room to be found which does not possess 

 its ivy tree, and hardly a window to be seen in the street which is not rendered a 

 bower by the festoons of ivy. It trails around the bars of the window, makes a 

 verdant background to bouquets of flowers placed in vases or flower-pots, and 

 often wreaths its picturesque leaves around a small statue of the Madonna. 



"A very pleasant little paper, I have often thought, might be written, 

 descriptive of the windows in a German street; and the mode in which the 

 cherished ivy was trained would play a conspicuous part in it. You may read 



