No. 83. Price 12 Cents. 
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER, 1878. 
By Henry T. Williams, 
and between these bunches she put the few plants of 
coleus that she had started. 
“It was then in September, and the effect was 
splendid. Not a bit of the board fence could be 
seen. 
“ The cannas had grown tall enough to look over it 
into the neighbor’s yard. The caladiums were won- 
derfully luxuriant, and some of them stood four feet 
high. The gladioli were beginning to blossom, and 
their bright spikes showed off charmingly among the 
There it stood in its hidden ugliness all through the 
first season of their residence in their new home, un¬ 
relieved by bush or vine. 
“ Last spring she determined that she would not 
have that fence asserting itself in its depressing way, 
as it had done the summer before, and she coaxed 
her husband to spade up a strip five or six loot wide 
the whole length of it. Next to the fence she plant¬ 
ed some of the robust, fast-growing cannas. In 
front of them she put caladiums, and among these 
A BEAUTIFUL SUBTROPICAL GAR' 
DEN. 
The following description of a beautiful yet simple 
and inexpensive subtropical garden is given by Eben 
E. Rexford in the Domestic Monthly. 
“ One of the finest specimens of subtropical gar¬ 
dening that I have ever seen I came across at a 
friend’s last summer. On one side of the yard, some 
Window-Garden and Room Decorations. 
profusion of foliage that surrounded them. The 
grass had grown to be large clumps, and the con¬ 
trast between its white and green and the velvety 
crimson and maroon of the coleus was charming. 
“The whole formed a bank or hedge of foliage that 
was remarkably effective, and people would stop and 
admire it a dozen times a day.” 
rods away from the house, and staring at the sitting- 
room window, was an ugly board fence. 
“ This fence was a source of great annoyance to my 
friend. She tried to get it torn down and have an¬ 
other and more attractive one built in its place ; but 
her husband was always too busy to attend to it, and 
hardly felt able to hire the necessary work done. 
she planted gladiolus bulbs. As she had but few 
plants of coleus, these she started in the window by 
making cuttings from a plant she had wintered. She 
wondered what to use for an edging. At one end of 
the garden was a very large clump of the old-fash¬ 
ioned striped grass. She cut this apart, and set out 
bunches of it a foot apart in front of her caladiums, 
