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RUSTIC VASES. 
Some of your readers may like to know how to 
make pretty rustic vases for their yards, with mate¬ 
rials at hand. Let me tell them. Take 
a peach-basket, the usual kind will do if 
lined with straw wrapping paper to 
prevent the earth from washing through. 
There is a kind more closely woven, 
with a hoard on the bottom, which may 
he used without lining. I put a little 
powdered charcoal with the earth I put 
in the basket, as, I think, it keeps it 
from souring and moulding. 
For the vase, cut a circular hoard the 
size of the top of the basket; fasten into 
the board a branch of tree, or a sapling 
with the bark on, strong enough to sup¬ 
port it, and long enough to set firmly 
into the ground, and leave the board 
about two feet above. Now, take a 
barrel hoop and fasten it a little larger 
than the top of the basket, and by two 
strips tack it just the height of the 
basket, above the board. Now, fasten 
from hoop to board, in any way your 
fancy may dictate, twigs or hazel brush 
to make it rustic; line with moss; crowd 
the green through the spaces between 
the twigs and set your basket into it. 
If prettily planted, with a tall plant in 
the centre, three or four smaller and 
variegated leaf Geraniums, with Coli¬ 
seum, Ivy. and Lobelia around the edge, 
one will soon be quite satisfied with their 
labor. The Lobelia and Ivy, if raised 
from seed, must be sown where they are 
to grow, as it is difficult to transplant, though both 
will root easily by cuttings placed in water. 
A crotched stick, with twigs woven around, and 
moss put in to make a nest for a flower-pot, will 
not dry so rapidly, and, with vines at the edge, is very 
pretty. I have found that lining the crocks with last 
year’s leaves kept the roots 
from being injured in pots 
that I kept on the railing 
of a south porch. The 
leaves do not dry readily 
when next the earth, and 
the roots cannot touch the 
sides of the crock, if care is 
taken in lining. 
I have lived several years 
in Iowa, and know the dis¬ 
appointment of a flower¬ 
bed in a hot, dry time, 
with a scarcity of water 
which you at the east 
knownothing about. These 
vases and crocks can be 
kept beautiful with less 
labor and less water than 
a bed containing the same 
number of plants. 
For fertilizer I have 
used, one part cow manure, 
one part horse manure, and one of pounded charcoal, 
to prevent the disagreeable odor, kept in some old 
pail, and once a week used about the color of weak 
tea. A Friend. 
water, five gallons; stir well and let stand a few days. 
Coloring matter of any shade may be added, dissolved 
in whiskey. Spanish brown makes a red pink ; pot¬ 
ters’ clay and Spanish brown gives a reddish stone 
color; yellow ochre, a yellow; chrome, bright canary 
color; blue vitrol gives a lovely blue—each shade 
made more or less dark by the quantity. Put on with 
a paint brush. Another pretty edge is 
made by boring auger holes in heavy 
hut narrow boards, such as the studding 
to which laths are nailed in plastering; 
put these holes about half a yard apart, 
and drive sticks of desired height into 
them; on these nail laths, and then 
ornament with mossy sticks from the 
wood-pile or forest, in same manner as 
rustic baskets, and you have a very 
ornamental miniature rustic fence. 
Carrol. 
THE EXOCHORDIA GEANDI- 
FLORA. 
This pretty shrub is still but little 
known in this country, only one or two 
nurseries keeping it as a specialty. It 
reaches the height of about six feet, and 
has a peculiarly graceful habit; when 
covered in spring with its large, pure 
white flowers, it is described as an ob¬ 
ject of deserved admiration. It is also 
hardy and well adapted to this climate. 
It was introduced into England by 
Robert Fortune, about fifteen years since, 
from China, and at first was supposed 
by English botanists to he a remarkable 
species of the Spiraea, but afterwards it 
exhibited marked characteristics, which 
entitled it to a separate name; hence 
christened Exochordia grandifiora. 
The engraving is taken from a shrub 
now eight years old, in the possession of Andrew S. 
Fuller, Woodside, near New York. It was described 
recently in the Rural New Yorker as being difficult to 
propagate by the ordinary method, yet layers will 
strike root the second, if not the first season, after 
being buried. Plants have also been grown from 
green wood cuttings taken 
from plants grown under 
glass; this will probably 
be the only rapid and suc¬ 
cessful method of multi¬ 
plying it. This difficulty 
in propagation has pre¬ 
vented it from becoming 
as popular as it should be. 
Rustic Baskets.—I will 
tell you how I made my 
rustic baskets to grow my 
out-door basket plants in. 
I procured some grape¬ 
vine and some small sticks, 
that would bend easily. I 
made four, just as any one 
would make a common 
basket, using the grape¬ 
vines for filling. When 
finished I placed them on 
wooden pedestals. Have 
quite a variety of plants in each of them. W e have also 
an oval basket, made of sticks driven into the ground, 
with grapevine filling. The grapevine should be about 
half an inch in diameter. Mrs. C. J. Agard. 
BORDERS EOR FLOWER BEDS. 
In answer to the invitation to furnish a good and 
pretty border for beds, I will state what I have done 
in this way. Hazel brush being plenty hereabout, 
take sticks of uniform lengths and, bending them into 
arches, place each one to overlap its neighbor one 
Flowering Shrub, Exochordia Grandiflora. 
half; that is, having fixed one arch, commencing at 
the left, put the next one with the left arm to the 
centre of the first, and so on; then give a coat of wash 
as follows: Good unslaked lime, half bushel; slake 
with boiling water, the vessel being covered; strain 
through a fine sieve, and add one peck salt, dissolved 
An English Greenhouse and Flower Garden. 
in water; rice, three pounds, boiled to a paste, and 
stirred in boiling hot, when of consistence of thin 
starch; Spanish whiting, half pound; white, or nice 
bright common glue, one pound, dissolved; add hot 
