House and Garden 
SIMPLE PLAN OF USING RUSTIC HANGING BASKETS AND POTS 
with admirable patience. They will 
thrive in heat, and bravely withstand 
many a frost, and though they may 
look a little sick and weary sometimes, 
their dominant characteristic is grit. 
They eventually overcome all obstacles 
and resume their smiling individuality. 
I'hey are popular with all classes, and 
can be found trailing their bright gar¬ 
ments over fastidious lawns, or, with 
bonnets gay with blossoms, cuddling 
lovingly against poverty-stricken 
homes, which are made better because 
of their presence. 
A row of upright geraniums should 
be planted in the back of a box for a 
banking, while drooping plants should 
border the edges. The Jean de Arc, a 
double white bloomer and an effect¬ 
ive drooping geranium, is charming 
against a background of crimson blos¬ 
soms. The Galilee is a double pink 
climber and is friendly with the red 
General Grant. There should be harmony in 
these color combinations, as well as in music. 
If several window boxes are placed on a house 
the color scheme must he without discord. Mis¬ 
cellaneous colors are as distressing as bad odors. 
One of the most pleasing sights imaginable is 
that of a mission style home ornamented with 
well-filled boxes of scarlet geraniums which corre¬ 
spond with crimson flower bankings that surround 
and conceal the foundations of the building. Ferns 
LOOKING OUT FROM A PORCH 
are always beautiful, as are innumerable other 
varieties of plants, but nothing is hardier or more 
pleasing than the unpretentious geranium. 
A style of window decoration little used, though 
immensely effective, is that of placing three small 
semicircular window boxes at intervals of two 
feet on either side of the casing, and a large box 
along the lower sill. When these are all glowing 
and fragrant with blossoms, the most insignificant 
window becomes a thing of beauty. People who 
have ugly houses need not despair. Architectural 
detail or design is not essential in the creation 
of charming exteriors. Wonders can be wrought 
by tacking a few floral frills to your forbidding 
walls. 
A mustache will make handsome a man with a 
hair lip, and a bewitching gauzy veil will make you 
ignore a woman’s freckles. 
In localities where winter weather is too rig¬ 
orous for promoting plant life out of doors, detach¬ 
able window boxes are essential, so that when 
frosts come, they can be carried into the houses, 
where with their fragrant, happy loads of bloom, 
they will enliven the hearts and hours of their 
keepers, and laugh to scorn the elements that rage 
outside. 
Hanging baskets, flower pots and jardinieres 
are of innumerable design and material, and their 
selection is a matter of fancy and pocketbook. 
Small wooden butter tubs painted green, do very 
well for porch railings. Ordinary clay flower 
pots can be easily decorated to represent Indian 
pottery, by putting on a few dashes of paint in 
grotesque design. These are extremely effective 
as well as Inexpensive. 
