294 
W/iVDUW GARDENING. 
drops woven in, present a most attractive appearance. The flowers are often 
arranged in tiny bottles, which keep them fresh a great while if a little salt and 
saltpetre are added to the water. These baskets are often suspended by wires, 
and long ivy wreaths can be twined about them 
Other baskecs are arranged with a cross-bar of green, dividing them into four 
quarters, with a double row of white edging the green. Scarlet Geraniums 
and Blue Hyacinths fill up the interstices, but usually if one color is kept 
as a ground work, and another as a filling, the better will be the effect. Baskets 
can be arranged with branches of Ivy growing in bottles of water, mingled with 
pressed fern and autumn leaves 
that have all the effect of growing 
plants, and can be suspended in a 
cool bay window where plants 
would never grow. The Ivy can 
be trained to creep up the cords 
and the ferns arranged in clusters 
by themselves. Pressed mosses 
can fill up all crevices, and the 
water with charcoal to keep it 
fresh, will not require any changci 
but only to be filled up once in three 
weeks. There will be no danger 
of its dripping upon the carpet, nor 
being chilled unless the tempera- 
ture falls below freezing. 
Long pieces of Ivy can be pur- 
chased at the florists, and they will 
soon strike root and grow finely. 
In arranging vases that will stand 
far from close inspection, very 
arge, bright flowers are the most 
desirable. Dahlias for the centre 
piece, surrounded with full blown 
Fig. 44. Stand oforuameutai liiasses. Toses, Chrysanthemums, etc.; little 
delicate flowers are thrown away in such decorations. 
For wreathing picture frames and looking glasses, nothing is more beautiful 
than evergreen, box, or myrtle boughs, thickly intermixed with Holly, Snow- 
berries or Bitter-sweet, and the whole crowned by a bouquet of feathery Ferns 
with evergreens and berries. 
For large green wreaths tied on the springs of hoop skirts firmly fastened 
together, the low growing evergreens of the pine woods are decidedly the best, 
and branches of spreading boughs of fir or hemlock can surmount each crown. 
The gray woollj' wreaths of the Clematis, when it has gone to seed, mingle 
well with the bright berries and the dark hued evergreens. There is no dec«,r- 
