592 



A LITTLE FLORIDA M^ITHIN FOUR WALLS. 



comes from Bermuda, and the auratum and some others 

 are best raised here. From our own southwest, tulips 

 begin to come to us. 



I hear a ringing of little bells, and the lily-of-the-val- 

 ley reproaches me. Beauty, sentiment and odor are 



combined here. It is not an early bloomer, but never to 

 be overlooked when bulbs are the subject. There is no 

 more general favorite and no bulb more hardy nor 

 easily grown. 



Munro. Olive Lusk. 



A LITTLE FLORIDA WITHIN FOUR WALLS. 





L 







HAVE a friend, a young married 

 lady of very moderate means, 

 who is abnormally sensitive to the 

 influences of bright skies and genial 

 summer weather. She does not 

 love snow any more than the birds 

 and squirrels and rabbits do, and her greatest hap- 

 piness is to dwell in an old garden, surrounded by 

 books and flowers and songsters. In the winter, 

 failing in her out-door enjoyments, she takes what 

 compensations fall to her lot as cheerfully as possi- 

 ble and lives in a sitting room, which is a bower of 

 beauty although it contains nothing very costly. 

 My friend, although a semi-invalid, attends to her 

 pets herself, and all her ideas are as practical as 

 they are jesthetic. Her room is 18x20, and the 

 wood-work is black walnut. It has two wide win- 

 dows on the south, and one very large double French 

 window opening on the western piazza. In early 

 October or late September when she pots her plants, 

 she takes down lier pretty airy summer curtains, 

 for several reasons : to preserve them from possi- 

 ble damage when sprinkling her flowers ; to get all 

 light obtainable on dark winter days, and, lastly, 

 because she means to decorate her windows with a 

 more beautiful drapery than the finest lace. Her 

 room is mainly furnished in olive green, and she has 

 pretty rugs upon a dark polished wood floor. This 

 furnishing admits of a little deep red, here and 

 there, to give it tone. A few fine engravings on the 

 cream-tinted wall are wreathed with plentiful gar- 

 lands of grasses and bitter-sweet berries, Celastrns 

 scandens, whose red and orange remains fresh and 

 bright throughout the season. Here and there she 

 has cat- tails, curious seed pods and lichens and 

 many other spoils of the late summer ; yet her 

 windows are after all, the main attraction. She has 

 hanging baskets, and half a dozen brackets on each 

 side of each window. The window seats are occu- 

 pied by pots and boxes, and she has several large 

 tubs on the floor. 



The brackets were made by her husband to fit into 

 sockets, and can be easily removed at need. They are 

 of three lengths, and are made of three-eighths-inch 

 round iron, bent at right angles at one end to fit into two 

 sockets for each bracket tacked on the side of the win- . 



dow-frame. The other end is bent into a circle. They 

 move freely in the sockets and on very cold nights she 

 has nothing to do but to turn her brackets away from 

 the glass. On these brackets she has her flower pots, 

 painted a reddish brown. The small ones fit into the 

 circles, and larger pots stand on cheap tin saucers plac- 

 ed on the circles which her tin man made for her and 

 which are painted to correspond with the pots. 



On a pine table, made by her husband, and painted 

 brown, she has a large tin waiter for top, about three 

 inches deep filled with sand and covered with moss. 

 On this waiter she sets the pots of such of her plants as 

 require a good deal of moisture. This table is in the 

 center of the double window, which opens to the ground. 

 Now for the effect. Her windows are draped with vines. 

 She has two large passion \ ines.in tubs ; one for each 

 southern window. They are trained up the side and 

 across the top and down the other side of each window, 

 and they grow and flourish, and nothing hurts them, as 

 they are nearly hardy and always beautiful. They 

 do not bloom in winter, and hers are never troubled by 

 insects. Her prettiest hanging basket is a rustic log of 

 wood, filled with freesia for the center and graceful 

 Russellia jtincea fringing the rim. 



In another basket she has a lobelia, smilax and ger- 

 man ivy, her only trouble with the latter being that it 

 grows so rampantly that it is difficult to keep in proper 

 bounds. In the double window hangs her best beloved 

 pet, a young mocking-bird who sings, as it were in under 

 tones, the most exquisite quavers and trills and warblings, 

 through the cold months, reserving the full force of his 

 marvellous voice to welcome the coming of the spring. 

 There are a number of vines, and, among other beautiful 

 plants, a fine large orange and a promising lemon tree. 



My friend is not satisfied with the ordinary window 

 plants alone, such as primroses, geraniums and callas, 

 though she does not despise their beauty because it is 

 common ; but she delights in rarities and succeeds 

 with many flowers that are not often seen in window 

 gardens. When I last visited her, she had a large and 

 very flourishing Olea fragrans in bloom, which filled 

 the atmosphere with its delicately delightful odor. 

 Next to this was a DapJme odoraia just opening its 

 clustered faint pink blossoms. She had many bulbs 

 among others a white allium which was new to me, and 

 which she assured me was of the easiest culture. I par- 

 ticularly admired an ardisia, covered with showy red 

 berries. These, she told me, hang on for months, and 

 the plant was very thrifty. 



She liked abutilons because they were always to be 



