Rooms, Halls, and Passages. 161 



wickerwork, are used with good effect. Ornamental 

 flower stands should always be furnished with a zinc 

 pan inside, to prevent any excess of water while 

 watering the plants dripping down on the floor. 

 Brown or varnished wicker baskets and pot covers are 

 excellent receptacles for pot plants. They should be 

 high enough to conceal the pot entirely, and the 

 surface of the pots should be covered with Hypnum 

 moss. Pot plants .arranged in zinc pans and flower 

 stands should always be provided with flats to stand 

 in ; the superfluous water collects in them after water- 

 ing, and is easily removed without causing any over- 

 flow or mess of any kind. When arranging pot plants 

 in a flower stand, a very pretty effect is produced by 

 filling all round the pots with damp moss or sand, and 

 placing cut flowers and fern fronds over the surface. 

 This can be carried out in many little ways when 

 abundance of flowers are at hand. For instance, a 

 common small tray or soup plate can be filled with 

 damp sand, and fern fronds and grasses laid round the 

 edge, and cut flowers neatly arranged over them. This 

 makes a pretty table ornament, and is within anybody's 

 reach. 



In arranging plants in rooms a great deal of taste is 

 required; in fact, on this depends to a great extent 

 the beauty and usefulness of plants used for that 

 purpose. It must always be remembered that before 

 we get the plants we use in our rooms they are 

 grown in large, airy, well lighted and ventilated 

 greenhouses, and that it is against the law of nature to 

 consign them from such quarters to a dark, hot, stifling 



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