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USES OF THE IVY. 37 



much of the character of the inmates of the dwelling by the ivy. Sometimes its 

 leaves are dusty, and its growth is ungraceful, and its sprays untastefully trained ; 

 sometimes it grows in a gaudy flower-pot, or swings from the centre of a window 

 in a hideously-shaped Blumen-lamp flower-lamp, as it is called a kind of 

 swinging -vessel for plants, very much in vogue here ; but, as a rule, the ivy is 

 gracefully, nay, most poetically trained ; its Blumen-lamp, if it be planted in one, 

 is often of a graceful rustic character, perhaps of red terra-cotta, with delicately 

 moulded foliage of yellowish-white clay meandering over it. 



" But it is not alone in windows that you see the ivy trained. Ivy often 

 forms a green and fresh screen across a room, being planted in boxes, and its sprays 

 trained over rustic framework. Ivy often casts its pleasant shadows over a piano, 

 so that the musician may sit before his instrument as within a little bower. Ivy 

 may be seen adorning the shrine which hangs upon the wall, or dropping its 

 sprays above the lady's work-table. 



" The staircase in the house of a great painter here is a complete little bit of 

 fairy-land, thanks to his love of ivy, which festoons the balustrade of the polished 

 oak stairs, and strews forth its kindly leaves among the rarer beauties of palms 

 and myrtles, which rise grove-like upon the landings ! I know an apothecary's 

 shop which is rather like a bit of wild wood, from its growth of ivy, than a shop 

 of physic. I was told the other day of a studio here equally sylvan ; and I know 

 an old cobbler who could not mend his shoes without seeing his ivy-bush daily 

 before him as he works." J 



In Paris the ivy is frequently grown in the same manner. 



Another very important use for the ivy in the garden is that of furnishing, 

 during winter, the beds that have been occupied with flowers during the summer. 

 For this purpose the plants must be grown in pots and plunged where required for 

 the winter, and during the summer must be taken care of in the reserve garden. 

 As the green- leaved kinds thrive in smoky localities, they might be largely em- 

 ployed to dress town gardens, whether in the form of bold marginal lines, as on 

 Islington Green and the (Victoria) Thames Embankment in London, or as a 

 carpeting for open spaces instead of grass, or to cover knolls, or to be trained over 

 posts of wood or stone as independent shrubs, or to coax along divisional fences 

 and chains, wreath-like, as might be advisable in cathedral closes and churchyards 

 generally. There are four plants at our command for clothing the ground beneath 

 large trees the holly, the privet, the periwinkle, and the ivy. Not the least 



1 Anne Pratt's " Flowering Plants of Great Britain," II. p. 60. 



