Decorations for the Home. 
37 
verandah ; each of the windows has a setting of Tropeolum Canariensis in full 
bloom, with a box of ivy-leaved pelargonium, blue lobelia, and delicate white 
fuchsias on the sill; and the charming groups of flowering plants on all sides 
of the verandah complete the floral effect. Yet, on inquiry, we find that no 
hot-house has been necessary for any of the flowers mentioned, only the 
ordinary moderate heat of a conservatory, which is the home of the more 
delicate plants used for decoration (to which they are removed at night, and 
which now contains a fine show of tuberous begonias of great beauty) 
with a vinery as a cool house, and frames for early spring work. But 
the house contains a lover of flowers, and the arrangement and care of 
these pets is not left entirely to the hired gardener, useful and indefatigable 
as he is. 
The refined taste of a highly cultivated mind brought to bear more 
especially on the grouping and arrangement of flowers, should surely bring 
about more tasteful arrangements than are commonly to be seen where to the 
gardener is left both the choice and the grouping of the plants, often resulting 
in a stiff row of similar pots, each containing a handsome plant, truly, but so 
like its neighbour, and so wanting in foliage to set off its beauty, that the eye 
turns from it in search of more satisfying charms. 
Another common error in arranging flowers may here be noticed, i.e., the 
great display of stakes and matting which so often destroys the natural 
symmetry of the plant. On entering a chrysanthemum show, for instance, 
who can really admire the form of an unfortunate plant which has every shoot 
tightly tied to a stake, at the end of which appears an enormous bloom, 
certainly, but a bloom deprived of all the grace which it was endowed with 
by Nature, looking now more like a well-made pincushion on a stick than 
the central flower of what should be an exquisite spray ? Foolish rivalry as 
to the number of the inches of the poor thing’s diameter has robbed it of its 
gracious beauty, and it is only fit to be cut and placed as one more rosette 
amongst a dozen in the terrible little tin arrangements in which blooms are 
condemned to exist at flower shows, minus all greenery, and often in juxta¬ 
position to the most conflicting shades. When shall we learn that Nature, 
well supported, knows best, and cease to contravene her laws ? In the 
meantime, a practical piece of advice may be given, namely, to use as few 
stakes as possible, and these of a dark-green colour. Soak the raffia used for 
a short time in a little green dye, so that it may not be noticeable amongst 
the foliage, and keep each plant as far as possible to its natural form, 
