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The Window-Sill and the Area . 
127 
from the seedsman every year. If that sacrifice alarms you, place them aslant 
upon a shady border, and cover with earth until their leaves have quite perished, 
and then store them away. Then plant summer flowering plants, such as 
pelargoniums, calceolarias, lobelias, fuchsias, and other compact-growing 
subjects that are gaily coloured; but avoid, as a rule, the golden and silver¬ 
leaved plants that are used for edging flower-beds, for they rarely look well 
in window boxes. When these begin to fail in autumn, take them out, and 
again, if you can afford to throw them away, do, and save all the trouble of 
keeping them through the winter. Now you may fill the boxes with asters 
of all colours mixed; or with pompone chrysanthemums, which, however, are 
usually too tall to make a pretty display. Then the evergreens come on the 
scene again, and it may be agreeable to vary the furniture by means of plants 
which bear red berries, such as skimmias, and until frost actually kill them 
(as it will), the large-berried varieties of Solanum pseudo-capsicum. Potted 
plants may be plunged in these boxes, and as there may be in your possession 
suitable plants which it would not be worth while to turn out of pots, plunge 
them and wait for the next turn of fortune's wheel. An inexpensive and very 
pretty arrangement may be ensured by the use of hardy annuals alone. 
Prepare the box in the ordinary way, filling it with good mould, the best you 
can obtain; then sow a few seeds of the common nasturtium, canary creeper, 
sweet peas, or convolvulus major at each end, and seeds of the following 
annuals along the remainder of the surface:—eschscholtzias, candytuft, 
mignonette, Virginian stock, kaulfussias, nemophilas, dwarf nasturtiums, 
godetias, and saponaria calabrica. These may be sown together or singly, 
but according to our experience by far the prettiest effect is to be obtained 
by adopting the former plan. The climbers and sweet peas, when they appear 
above the surface, can be trained up strands of twine or wire up each side of 
the windows. Boxes sown with canary creeper and common nasturtium mixed 
make a charming arrangement, the brilliant yellow and scarlet blossoms 
nestling on the thick bed of green foliage which drapes the box and sill being 
exceedingly showy. Mignonette, too, may be grown by itself in boxes. Grown 
thus it is specially suitable for bedroom windows, owing to its pleasing fragrance. 
Some sifted old mortar or a little builder's lime should be mixed with the 
soil before sowing the seeds. All the foregoing seeds to be sown in April or 
May. 
Enough of prose so far; now let a poet, Jacques de Lille, suggest the 
rule of action : — 
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