228 BALCONY GARDENING. 



or woody- climbers, unless we shade them for several years, 

 until they get well established, and can cover the walls 

 with their leaves. Morning Glories would suffer, and Nas- 

 turtiums be dried up by the heat. We must have a stove 

 climber, or certainly one which will endure great heat, and 

 there is just the plant we need, and very common too, one 

 withal with which the common complaint is it does not 

 flower. We can, however, flower it, and if the season be 

 long, ripen seed, for we have what it needs, heat. 



Let us, then, get two or more plants of the climbing 

 Cobea (C. scandens). It is better to buy plants than raise 

 seedlings ; you thereby gain a month. The plant is a rank 

 grower, with stout, herbaceous stems, and fine thick foliage, 

 and" produces large, purple bell, or rather cupped flowers, all 

 summer. These flowers are very showy, and with plenty 

 of heat color finely. Set the plants in a rich soil, and be 

 sure they have plenty of water ; they are rapid growers, 

 and will, in luxuriance, almost equal the famous bean stalk 

 of the fairy tale. 



A trellis must be provided ; those of small wire are the 

 best. Place it where you will, the cobea will follow, for 

 the plant grows twenty feet in a season. There it will 

 bloom and hang with long festoons of foliage, gay with 



