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THE VILLA GARDENER. 



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leading to the garden ; c is a large camellia in the centre ; and d d are 

 shelves for pots. Very commonly a plant cabinet is formed on the flat roofs 

 of some attached out-buildings, such as a back kitchen, washhouse, or rubbish 

 place. In short, there is no situation where there is a door or a window in 

 the house, and where perpendicular light is obtainable outside, in which a 

 plant cabinet may not be formed. However irregular the plan may be in 

 point of outline, and however uneven the roof or roofs which are to form the 

 floor, the situation is still eligible for a plant cabinet, or a small greenhouse ; 

 on the same principle as an irregular piece of ground is for laying out a flower- 

 garden in the picturesque manner. In the plant cabinet, as in the flower- 

 garden, the whole depends on the contrivances for displaying the flowers. 

 The great art in arranging an irregular plant cabinet consists in the disposi- 

 tion of wires and rods, in the form of trelliswork, arches, and arcades, for 

 climbers ; and of imitations of rockwork, banks, or benches of stones, for 

 receiving bushy or creeping plants in pots, such as pelargoniums, mesembry- 

 anthemums, &c. The rockwork, banks, benches, &c., may be made of bricks 

 and cement, stained or dashed with paint in such a manner as to represent 

 different kinds of stone or spars ; or natural crystallisations of different kinds 

 may be procured. The smallest, the most irregular, and apparently the most 

 unfitting situation for a plant cabinet may be rendered, interesting by means 

 of climbers on perpendicular props, no matter how irregularly placed, plants 

 rising from groups of rockwork on the floor, and trailing plants suspended in 

 pots or baskets from the ceiling. In some cases, the effect of a picturesque 

 grove of climbers of this kind may be heightened by the introduction of a 

 little stained glass in the roof; but this ought to be used most sparingly, and 

 not in a larger portion in one place than a star a couple of inches in diameter, 

 half a dozen of which will suffice for the roof of a plant cabinet containing 

 upwards of 100 square feet of glass. In the evenings, on particular occasions, 

 two or three coloured lamps may be introduced ; but these, also, should be 

 used very sparingly. Whatever attracts more attention than the plants should 

 be avoided, as interfering with the main object of the structure. 



520. Wherever the plant cabinet is placed, and in whatever manner it may 

 communicate with the house, one point only in its construction is absolute ; 

 which is, that it should be at least as lofty, from the floor to the glass of the 

 roof, as the living-rooms of the house. When this is not the case, it has an 

 appearance of meanness, which, instead of an elegant ornament, renders it 

 rather a disagreeable excrescence. The form of the ground plan must, of 

 course, be in a great measure determined by the situation ; but, in general, a 

 parallelogram, placed with its narrow end to the house, will have the best 



