TOWN-GARDENING 3 



Canary Creeper, but never have I beheld them in the 

 shop : bunches of Cornflow^ers and even Roses, will be 

 laid against a trail of Smilax, or something else that does 

 not belong to either of them, such as the ever-present 

 " French Fern " or New Zealand grass. Flower-artists 

 of Japan, who willingly spend hours in coaxing each 

 separate twig and flower to show its natural grace and 

 habit, would not much care to arrange the cut flowers we 

 buy in towns, that have been divorced completely from 

 the stems and branches where they grow ; and to say 

 this is not to grumble at the florists, who cannot do im- 

 possibilities, but to accentuate the fact that cut flowers 

 cannot take the place of growing ones. 



Happily for the town gardener, many plants and 

 flowers do well among the chimney-pots. Annuals less 

 so than some, perhaps, but many of these flower satis- 

 factorily if thinly sowed. Nasturtiums, Virginia Stock, 

 Coreopsis, Marigold, Scabious, Sunflower, Lupin, Love- 

 in-a-mist, Candytuft and Larkspur never fail us, nor 

 Sweet Pea, if we can keep the sparrows from eating the 

 seeds. Some town-folk tell me they think Carnations 

 really like smoke, so well they thrive in it. Pyrethrums, 

 both single and double, are among our best town flowers, 

 and will grow almost anywhere and in any ordinary 

 garden soil. The one drawback to their well-being is 

 slugs, who find the young growths too enticing ; but we 

 can circumvent this enemy if in autumn we sprinkle 

 ashes, soot, or lime around the crowns. In London it is 

 never diflficult to get soot, though, oddly enough, every 

 chimney-sweeper considers our own home-made soot his 

 perquisite, and makes us pay for it. The really best way 

 to get rid of slugs is to catch them in orange-peel traps, 

 made of empty half-oranges, under which they crawl, 

 and can then be killed. Sliced potatoe is another good 

 bait, or beet-root. The drawback of using traps is the 

 danger of attracting the enemy. On the other hand, 



