WINDOW AND ROOM GARDENING. 



595 



it is advisable to vary the contents as much as possible. A continuous stream of 

 scarlet Geraniums, or even Fuchsias, graceful and pretty as these plants are, becomes 

 wearisome, and a surfeit of yellow Calceolarias is an abomination. Good self colours are 

 delightful ; they impart a restful aspect to the box, and the eye is not irritated by a 

 medley of harsh hues. Always avoid flowers of a purplish crimson colour, or anything 

 approaching magenta, which pales off to an ashy tone peculiarly objectionable at all times, 

 though sometimes "ashy" flowers or a fanciful greyish colour are held up to our admiration. 

 This is, of course, simply "fashion," just as the green Carnation is worn because of its 

 novelty, though a more horrible travesty of a beautiful flower one can hardly imagine. At 

 the sides of the window-box strings may be fastened leading to the nails placed at the 

 top of the window, so that such creepers as the Canary Creeper (Tropaeolum canariense), 

 ordinary climbing Nasturtiums ( Tropasolums), or even the small-leaved Virginian Creeper 

 (Ampelopsis Veitchii) may run up and form a very graceful festoon around the frame, so 

 to speak, of the window. One likes to see a break away from conventional types. The 

 mossy Rockfoil (Saxifraga hypnoides), S. Wallaceii, the common Stonecrop, and similar 

 evergreen mossy plants are very charming in windows, especially the mossy Saxifrage, 

 which, even w hen the position is very hot and exposed, will make a free rich green growth, 

 burdened in the spring months with white flowers. Over the edge of the box let the 

 Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia 

 Nummularia) trail, or even 

 the yellow-leaved aurea, but 

 this must be used with cau- 

 tion, as its yellow colour is 

 too pronounced to use much. 

 The Ivy-leaved Pelargonium 

 is more often used for this 

 purpose than the Lysimachia, 

 and it is certainly a plant of 

 very free growth, and flowers 

 delightfully, with little atten- 

 tion, throughout the summer 

 months. Petunias are excel 

 lent plants for window-boxes 

 much exposed to the sun. 

 They seem to revel in the 

 heat and dry soil. The writer 

 has seen in the very hottest 

 summers beds of them full of 

 flowers on railway stations 

 with no shade near. Musk 

 in rather shady places, 

 Lobelias, and the things 

 alluded to above when refer- 

 ring to window-boxes in sum- 

 mer, are a success under these 

 conditions. 



During the summer 

 window plants require a con- 

 siderable quantity of water, 

 especially if the position is 



at all exposed to the sun. window-boxes and tub plants at king's weston. 



