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WINDOW-BOXES FOR FLOWERS. 



N the city, where it is impossible to have a garden, there may still 

 be quite a substitute for it in the form of a window-box, and this 

 substitute may be enjoyed by the occupants of upper stories as 

 well as by those living on the ground floor. A window-box that 

 will grow plants quite as well as the elaborate and expensive 

 boxes used by wealthy people, will cost very little. The box 

 should be as long as the window is wide, or a Httle longer, and about a foot 

 wide and a foot deep. Fasten it level with the window sill, or just below it. 

 f^or support use iron brackets, which can be screwed to the wall just below the 

 box, or by braces of wood running from the outside of the bottom of the box to 

 the wall, set at such an angle that ample support will be provided. A few nails 

 can be put through the box into the sill or side of the house, to give additional 

 security and firmness. Any boy ten 

 years old can put the box in place, if 

 you furnish him with a saw, a hammer 

 and some nails to work with. Packing 

 boxes of about the right size and shape 

 can be bought at many of the dry-goods 

 stores for a small sum. 



When in place, fill it with the best soil 

 you can get — the richer the better ; but 

 if you cannot get such soil, use what- 

 ever is at hand and depend on soap-suds 

 and the like for food for the plants. 

 The best annuals for use in window- 

 boxes are : For flowers — petunias, phlox, 

 calliopsis, sweet alyssum and nastur- 

 tiums ; for fragrance — mignonette ; for 

 training up and about the window — 



morning glories. Among other good plants, not annuals, geraniums, both 

 double and single, are excellent ; also verbenas, heliotropes, and roses of the 

 ever-blooming class. If I wanted a window-box that would be as near perfection 

 as possible in the beauty and fragrance of its bloom, I would have a I*er/e des 

 Jardins rose— rich yellow and very sweet; a few dark purple and a few pale 

 yellow, white, and sky blue pansies, a heliotrope, some mignonette to droop over 

 the sides of the box, a rose geranium, and morning glories at the ends to train 

 up over the window. You would not be likely to get as many flowers from such 

 a selection as you would from annuals, like those named above, but what flowers 

 you did get would be so choice, so exquisite in color, sweetness, and form, that 



( 247 ) 



Fig 675.— a Pretty Wini>ow-Box. 



