THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET AND PICTORIAL HOME COMPANION, 
B&miHQ BASKETS ASHOITBEHOID OBKAMEHTS. 
Now-a-days, a window without flowers, or 
hanging baskets, means that the owner is behind 
the fashion, for flowers are now considered every¬ 
where the most beautiful and inexpensive means 
of room decoration. In our large cities, one of 
the most fashionable diversions of the ladies is 
to fill their windows with pretty plants, either 
planted in jardinieres of costly tile, or else in 
hanging baskets of most rustic make. After a 
little time, when they have grown to appropriate 
height, and the drooping plants have attained 
sufficient length, the real beauty of the window 
garden is apparent. Every visitor on the very 
moment of entrance into the parlor or drawing 
room, is full of exclamations of delight at the 
simp^ yet wondrous beauty of the flowers and 
. plants, and even the passer by on the sidewalk 
, will stop for a moment in his hurry and look 
lovingly upon the cozy bower of bloom just 
inside the glazed window pane. 
Flowers are our best educators of taste and 
healthy sentiment—always suggestive of purity 
and refinement. A celebrated modern writer has 
said, “if parents will surround their dwellings 
with more flowers and objects of rural ornament, 
their girls will have more beaux, and their bogs 
will not get the mitten,” a saying assuredly true, 
for boys and girls, men and women, love beauti¬ 
ful homes, and flowers are by far the cheapest 
and handsomest form of adornment—a home 
thus beautified is always attractive. 
The hanging basket is notv constructed of so 
•many curious materials, .and in so many forms, 
that it is impossible to enumerate them. Wo 
have seen in some of the rustic log oiibins of the 
Rocky mountains, a large peacli-can filled full of 
earth, and suspended by two strings from the 
upper ceiling of the window, while the lady had 
filled it with some native drooping fern and sown 
a few seeds of Portulacca, just blazing with its 
brilliant colors of scarlet or yellow. Such a 
basinet did not cost ten cents in money, nor half 
an hour in time, yet it was beautiful to every 
one. Our horticultural stores afford us an end- 
s supply of wire baskets, rustic baskets, with 
^io den ced ar bowls a nd twi sted ^ots below, or 
pr< 
aning up the arms at each side. One of the 
jtticst styles is to choose the open wire frame 
basket, fill it with moss, then plant in the center 
anything you choose; a Primula would be very 
pretty, for it’ loves an abundance of moistm-e. 
Some very pretty cLay bowls are now seen 
quite frequently. They are ahnost too shallow, 
but are intended specially for delicate drooping 
plants, there being not sufficient space for a large 
variety of erect plants. 
Fig. 1 is a design for a hanging basket of more 
than usual elegance. The box is made of hand¬ 
somely carved wood, the inside lined with zinc 
or clay; the basin is filled with earth, and in it 
are planted begonias, caladiums, coleus, gera¬ 
niums, ivy, ornamental grasses, Calla Lily, and 
quite a variety of otlier fiowors. The size is 
Fig- 
about 2 by 3i to 3i. Worsted cords .and tas¬ 
sels help out the richness of the frames and the 
brilliant colorings of the plants within. Few or 
no hiinging baskets we h.ave ever seen c.an equal 
this design in richness and taste. 
Fig. 2 is a picture of the Convolvulus droop¬ 
ing over the sides of a rustic carved bowl in a 
hanging basket. The Convolvulus family affords 
some very desirable plants for hanging baskets, 
t.-.axe fre e hlor>nn-iprg . ve ry .-ghowy.-and h.ave 
exceedingly handsome fiowers with rich colors. 
Among best v.ai'ieties is the Tricolor minor, a 
trailer, with rich violet purple color, .and white 
center. The Cantabricus stellatus, has flowers 
of a delicate pink, and pure white double st.ar in 
the center, flowers produced in great profusion, 
.and forms not onh’- a fine plant for rock work,, 
but also very desirable for hanging baskets. 
Fig. 3 is an illustration of a large, deep 
basket filled with a dense growth of the Con¬ 
volvulus Mauritanicus. This is a highly 
ornamental plant of drooping, half shrubby 
chiiracter, slender habit, with a profusion of 
elegant light blue blossoms, upward of an inch 
in width, forming an admirable plant for sus¬ 
pended vases or baskets. It continues long in 
blossom, and when permitted to grow .and cover 
some mound upon the lawn, its pic¬ 
turesque porcelain blue blossoms are 
conspicuously be.autrful. 
Among other pretty devices, is 
that of the cocoa-nut shell. The 
upper part should be sawed off, s.ay 
one-fifth down, then attach scarlet 
cords to the sides, and plant the 
inside with Moneyworth. Its trail¬ 
ing stems will hang downward bright 
with golden blossoms of exquisite 
coloring. 
Another- form of basket, veiy 
cheap, is to take the dried burrs of 
the Sweet .Gum Tree, string them 
together into the desired sh.ape on 
strong wire, just as beads are in the 
fancy baskets of our stores. The 
burrs have a pleasant rustic appear- 
iince in the room, and will be afipre- 
ciated, particularly in city residen¬ 
ces, as they carry so genial a memory 
of the country and rural scenery. 
If the bm-rs should drop, they .are 
not easily broken or injured in any 
way, and can be strung on again. 
Much the simplest, most orna¬ 
mental and popular of all styles of 
hanging baskets, is the rustic wooden 
bowl filled with ivy. It rarely or 
never needs attention, is const.antly 
growing and twining its delicate 
arms .around and .around the b.a.sket, .above and 
below, until it becomes a mass of living gi¬ 
lt needs no attention, save occasional watering, 
and is always fi-eo from insects or disease, 
simple and yet prett 3 f rustic basket may be made 
of three forked branches of any old tree, the 
more thicklj^ bestudded with little br.anchlets, 
and the more gnarled and moss 3 '- the better. 
Get those with drooping gr.a 3 r-beard moss, if 
Dossib lc ^ The sticks sh o uld be l ess th.an an 
inch in diameter and si.\ or eight inches in 
length. Unite the three forks by their heads, 
winding them with very strong twine or pliable 
wire, and then, with the same material, fasten 
the branchlets hero and there, to form a sort of 
latticc-w'ork, and wind the gray moss over all 
fastenings. Then, in tlie same wa 3 ', attach 
stout cord for handles; set in this a common 
clay pot with its saucer, crowding around it all 
sorts of moss, and you have a “ thing of beauty.” 
Good garden soil is the best for all hanging 
baskets. Some plants need this slightly modi¬ 
fied by mixing common sand with it, others 
require leaf mould or bog earth, or the soil 
from the margins of ponds and woodland streams, 
in small proportions; but when these cannot be 
obtained, garden soil, enriched with liquid 
manure, leached from stable manure, will give 
very satisfactory results. 
To grow the Chinese Primrose most success¬ 
fully, select for soiPtwo parts garden mould and 
one part sand; water often, but slightly. Raise 
from seed or division of the root, in sandy soil. 
Take offsets from old roots in May; re.set them 
in fresh soil and keep the pots in the shade till 
September. 
Gloxinias are exceedingly beautiful, bc.aring 
fiowers of a ro.se or crim.son color; they, too, 
make a fine display, either in pots or in small 
hanging baskets. 
The Cyclamen pcrsicum, tvith flowers pink, 
white or purplish, is very pretty, and W'ill 
.accommodate itself to the same size pots as the 
others. When fresh soil is given them, old 
bulbs will start off new ones, in September; 
after the summer, rest in the shade. 
Two or three Verbenas are prett 3 ', in sets of 
white, scarlet and maroon colors, or white, pink 
and purple, spreading and drooping, creeping or 
climbing, just as they choose; they flourish 
much better thus than when trained and trimmed. 
New plants should be started from seed or small 
branches every .June; keep them rather dry and 
shaded till September, then give them plenty of 
sunshine, and increase the water, but never 
water them ver 3 '^ freely. Petunias should be 
treated like Verbenas. Baskets, a foot in 
diameter, may be filled as follows: Select a 
Zonale Geranium, either Tom Thumb, Fire 
King or JIrs. Pollock, or Jlountain of Snow, 
with its white bordered le.aves, and an ivy¬ 
leaved geranium to climb up the handles; then 
a Maurandia, a Solanum, or two or three Vincas 
to trail around the brim and about the basket. 
Raise these all from branches rooted in sand, 
sp.ai-ingly, till Tii^^i^^li^^v^hein liquid 
manure and plent 3 ' of water. 
The air of the room for hanging baskets should 
be moist with the ev.aporation of water from the 
stove or furnace (a dry, heated atmosphere is in¬ 
jurious). The best temperatm-e is 55 deg. to 05 
deg. Care in little particul.ars like this will soon 
make every hanging basket a pi-ide and a delight. 
