BALCONY-GARDENING 23 



Garden of September 21, 189 1. It is well worth study 

 by those who mean to take seriously to tub-gardening ; 

 but most likely the tub-gardeners of the London balcony 

 do not expect their plants to live long. They would do 

 so, however, if properly looked after and given a fair 

 chance. One great advantage about flowering pot and 

 tub plants is that they bear more blossoms grown in this 

 way than if they were in the open border ; the strength 

 of them goes to blossom instead of root, as everybody 

 knows. 



London in June ! How beautiful it is, especially at 

 the West End, the best End ! and who can doubt it owes 

 much of its beauty to plants and flowers ? There they 

 are, in shops and dairies, even among the delicate con- 

 fections of the modiste, pots of green Ferns, even fragrant 

 blossoms. On a summer's day in Bond Street I have 

 sometimes stopped involuntarily to feast my eyes on the 

 artistic arrangement of a shop-front, where blocks of ice 

 and silvery white-bait, the scarlet lobster and the subtle 

 pinks of salmon mingle with trails of grass and seaweed 

 green. This is delightful, but we should like more of it. 

 Why should not our streets be even gayer than they are 

 now, and sweeter ? Over the shop-fronts and on leads, 

 as well as in the window-box or on the balcony, we 

 would see something fresh and growing. Cut flowers 

 are all very well, but they make only for beauty. The 

 growing plant is a health-helper, as well as pleasing to 

 the eye, for the carbonic fumes that kill us are positively 

 good for plants ; they live on and enjoy them. Trees 

 and all green things are good ; but trees, unless a street 

 is very wide indeed, take up too much room, robbing us 

 of light and preventing the air from circulating. 



Balcony-gardening need never do this ; we can keep 

 to low-growing things and creepers. Many a town 

 house has balconies large enough to lounge in. On a 

 July evening, under the delicate thin curve of a new 



