The family living in an apartment with no cold place to start the bulbs that take so long, could easily fix a box or egg-crate under the coldest window and darken it with a small rug, hiding there for a few weeks the Roman hyacinths and narcissi.
BOOKS FOR THE INDOOR GARDENER
However successful you are with your window gardening, you are sure to enjoy knowing what other people have learned and written on the subject, and a number of simple, interesting books are available. Your librarian will be glad to point out the best she has to offer, and there are several you may want to own. "Manual of Gardening," by L. H. Bailey, formerly Dean of the Agricultural College at Cornell University, is one of the most comprehensive, covering every phase of gardening, summer and winter, indoors and out; "The Flower Garden," by Ida D. Bennett, devotes considerable s.p.a.ce to house plants, window gardens, hot beds, etc.; "Green House and Window Plants," by Chas. Collins, is a little book by an English authority, and goes quite fully into soils, methods of propagating, management of green houses, and also the growing of house plants; "Practical Horticulture," by our own Peter Henderson, while especially valuable to the large commercial grower, contains much interesting information for the amateur; "House Plants and How to Grow Them," by P. T. Barnes, however, is one of the simplest and best, and sure to suit the busy school-girl, in a hurry to find out the proper way to make her particular pet plant do its very best.
And just as surely as she would not attempt to make a new kind of cake without a reliable recipe, just so surely ought she not to expect to grow flowers successfully without finding out first how it should be done. Flowers, like friends, have to be cultivated, and consideration of their needs produces similar delightful results.
CHAPTER XV
Gifts that will Please a Flower Lover
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
--_Moore._
CHRISTMAS giving to the flower lover is a matter of delight, for if you stop to think you will know what the recipient will be sure to appreciate. Cut flowers always afford joy, from an inexpensive bunch of carnations to the choicest American Beauties. The Christmas blooming plants, however, last much longer, and the rich scarlet berries of the ardesia will survive the holiday season by several months. Poinsettia has been steadily increasing in popularity, and can be surrounded by ferns that will live on indefinitely. All the decorative foliage plants are sure to be welcomed, for with care they will last for years, and improve in size and beauty.
The growing fad for winter-blooming bulbs affords another opportunity for pleasing. If you did not start in time to grow to flower yourself, give your friend one of the new flat lily bowls, procurable from fifty cents up, and with it a collection of bulbs for succession of bloom.
These may be started in any kind of dishes with pebbles and water, set in a cool, dark place until the roots start, and then brought out to the light as desired. With narcissi at three cents each, Chinese lilies at ten cents, and fine hyacinths up to twenty cents, for named varieties, a dollar"s worth will keep her in flowers for the rest of the winter.
Pretty little stem holders, made in pottery leaves, mushrooms, frogs, etc., cost only from forty cents to fifty cents, and will be nice to use in the bowl afterward, for holding any kind of cut flowers. We are adopting more and more the j.a.panese method of displaying a few choice specimens artistically, and a.s.suredly this way they do show up to better advantage. Many new vases are displayed for the purpose. A charming j.a.panese yellow glaze, ten in. high, with a brown wicker cover, I saw for only a dollar and a quarter, while the graceful j.a.panese yellow plum blossom shown with it at thirty-five cents a spray, was a delight to the eye. A slender ground gla.s.s vase in a plated cut silver holder was only twenty-five cents, while the Sheffield plate bud vase was but fifty cents. These could be duplicated in cut gla.s.s and sterling silver at almost any price one wished to pay.
Venetian gla.s.s is quite fashionable, and can be had in all colors--red, blue, green, yellow and black, and while expensive, has been imitated in domestic ware at reasonable prices. Some of the new pottery bowls come in unusual shapes, in white, gray, green, blue, and many are small enough for a single bulb. A lover of the narcissus myself, I am delighted with the idea of bringing out my paper whites one at a time, so as to keep a lovely gray-green piece in use all winter. One of my friends, on the other hand, is growing hers in groups of half-a-dozen, the warm brown of the bulbs harmonizing most artistically with her delicately colored stones in a brown wicker-covered j.a.panese glazed dish.
This brown j.a.panese wicker, by the way, is most decorative, and can be found in various kinds of baskets, metal-lined, for cut flowers or plants of that grow in water,--some as low as ten cents apiece. A tall-handled basket of this kind is now standing on my buffet, beautiful with the varigated trailing sprays of the Wandering Jew. One could not ask for a more satisfying arrangement.
Enamelled tinware, hand-painted, is new, too, and comes in many pottery shapes, though strange to say, often at higher prices. Hand-painted china b.u.t.terflies, bees and birds, at from twenty-five cents to fifty cents, are among this year"s novelties, and look very realistic when applied invisibly with a bit of putty to the edge of bowl or vase. Some of the birds are painted on wood, life-sized, and mounted on long sticks, to be stuck in among growing plants or on the tiny trellises used for indoor climbers.
Many novelties in growing things can be found at the florist"s--from the cheapest up to all you feel like paying. A dainty new silver fern, big enough for a small table, comes in a thumb pot at only ten cents.
Haworthia is cheap, too, and has the advantage of being uncommon. More and more do we see of the dwarf j.a.panese plants, many quite inexpensive.
The j.a.panese cut leaf maple, for example, can be bought for seventy-five cents. All are hardy, and suitable for small table decorations.
The new "air plant," or "Wonder of the Orient" (really an autumn crocus), surprises every one not acquainted with it, as it flowers during the late fall and early winter, without either soil or water, as soon as put in the sunlight for a few days. Better still, when through blooming, it will live through the year if put in soil, and store up enough energy to repeat the performance when taken out next season.
Costing a dollar each when first introduced here, it can now be bought as low as ten cents a bulb.
j.a.panese fern b.a.l.l.s, black and unpromising as they look when purchased, respond to plenty of light, heat and water by sending out the daintiest kind of feathery ferns in a few weeks, and will last for several years.
They cost only thirty-five cents, too. Quaint, square pottery jars, suspended in pairs by a cord over a little wheel, like buckets on a well rope, make unusual hanging baskets and can be filled with your favorite vines and flowers.
Garden tools are always acceptable as the old ones wear out or get lost, and you can choose from the three-p.r.o.ng pot claw at a nickel up to the fully equipped basket at several dollars. Handwoven cutting baskets, mounted on sharp sticks for sticking in the ground when you are cutting your posies, cost two dollars and a half, but will last for years. Small hand-painted, long-spouted watering cans, for window sprinkling, cost less than a dollar and look pretty when not in use. And for the person with only a window garden, the self-watering, metal-lined window boxes, that preclude dripping on the floor, will be a boon indeed.
Goldfish are pretty sure to please, for your flower lover is also the nature lover. Even the tiniest bowl is attractive, and one I saw recently had been in the house over two winters. The globe, however, does not meet our modern ideas for the reason that the curved gla.s.s reduces the area of water exposed to the air, so is bad for the fish.
The new all-gla.s.s aquariums can be bought in either the square or cylindrical shapes, from a dollar and a quarter up, according to size and quality, while the golden inmates can be found from five cents, for the child"s pet up to the fancier"s j.a.panese prize-winner at one thousand dollars. Your aquarium will require no change of water, either, if properly balanced. Put in for the fishes" needs such oxygen-producing plants as milfoil, (Millefolium,) fish gra.s.s, (Cabomba,) common arrow head, (Sagittaria natans,) and mud plant, plantain, (Heteranthera Reniformis,) the first and third being especially good together. These in turn will thrive on the carbonic acid gas the fish exhale, so that one supports the other. A snail or two (the j.a.panese red, at twenty-five cents, preferred for looks,) and a newt will act as scavengers, and keep the water clear as crystal. For food, put in a small quant.i.ty of meat once a week, as the commercial "fish food" eventually causes tuberculosis.
Birds, too, are generally popular with flower lovers. Canaries probably are the stand-bys, though in the cities the uncommon little beauties often are preferred. Polly, however, holds her own, and with many people is the favorite.
Books,--always a safe and inexpensive gift,--are obtainable for the flower lover, in the most fascinating editions. They cover all phases of the subject, indoors and out, from the window garden to the vast estate, the amateur to the professional grower. And no true gardener could sit down by a blazing log on a blizzardy night, with Helena Rutherford Ely"s "The Practical Flower Garden," or L. B. Holland"s "The Garden Blue Book," filled with wonderful photographs and colored plates, without quickly becoming lost to the storm outside, and conscious only of sun-kissed lawns with blossoms nodding in the breeze. Heaven? Your friend will already be in imagination"s Paradise, with an increasing sense of grat.i.tude over your thoughtful selection.
CHAPTER XVI
The Gentlewoman"s Art--Arranging Flowers
In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, And they tell in a garland their loves and cares; Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers, On its leaves a mystic language bears.
--_Percival._
THE above is almost literally true! You may be surprised to know that the arranging of flowers has not only long been considered an art, but that for centuries it has been closely connected with the whole life of a nation.
Away back in 1400, a certain ruler of j.a.pan became so interested in this fascinating subject that he resigned his throne in order to study that and the other fine arts! One of his friends,--a great painter,--worked out the scientific rules which are still generally accepted, and the study became the pastime of cultured people. Moreover, j.a.pan"s greatest military men have always practised the art, claiming that it calmed their minds so that they could make clearer decisions on going into battle!
[Ill.u.s.tration: BLOSSOMS IN j.a.pANESE ARRANGEMENT]
Briefly put, the j.a.panese ideas are as follows: First, to use very few flowers (preferably three, five, or seven, with their foliage), and but one kind together. Then to arrange these so that the three main blossoms form a triangle,--the highest point of which they usually call Heaven, the middle point Man, and the lowest point Earth. If five or seven flowers are used, the others are the unimportant ones, and used as "attributes," placed near the important points. And as many of their favorite flowers, like the iris and the chrysanthemum, have quite straight stems, people have to learn how to bend them without breaking.
Each flower is studied, selected for its place in this triangle, and then, oh! so very delicately, shaped to the desired line.
And then as so few flowers would be apt to slip around, they skilfully hold them in place by means of slender sticks, cut the exact size, split at one end, and then sprung into place across the vase or bowl.
If the stems curve to one side, it is called the male style, if to the other, the female style; the arrangement must look not like cut flowers, but like the living plant, and suggest the growth by the use of buds, open flowers and withered leaves. Good and evil luck are connected with the placing, as well as with the colors and the numbers chosen,--even numbers and red being ill-omened. Certain arrangements also suggest the seasons, one style, for instance, representing spring and another autumn. While we today are not interested in j.a.panese symbolism, we, many of us, are quite interested in j.a.panese methods on account of their artistic effects.
Many books have been written by the j.a.panese on their favorite subject,--some as far back as the Thirteenth Century! Of course you never could read them even if you could find them here; but a Western woman spent a long time over there, studying under the guidance of their priests, and recently wrote a book ("j.a.panese Flower Arrangement," by Mary Averill,) which explains everything and is full of ill.u.s.trations, so that you can see for yourself the results of following the j.a.panese way.
Her most interesting message for you may be one method they have of making their flowers last. During moderate weather it can be done in this country by simply holding the stems of the flowers in a gas or candle flame until black and charred, and then putting the flowers in very cold water for seven or eight hours.
Another book, with a lot of beautiful pictures showing us how to arrange flowers to please better, perhaps, our American taste, is "The Flower Beautiful," by Clarence Moores Weed. It ill.u.s.trates most of our own familiar flowers, in all kinds of artistic holders, and is sure to give us new ideas about arranging them so as to enable us to bring out their full loveliness. Both of these books should be found in any good Public Library, and in looking them over, you will have a treat.
A prominent New York florist, in showing our Garden Club his methods of arranging flowers, advised (for one thing) filling a low bowl with broken twigs or branches, to hold the stems and keep the flowers in position without crowding. Breaking up a few ferns to ill.u.s.trate; he dropped them in a cut gla.s.s dish, and then stuck in a dozen stalks of pale pink primroses. The result was an inexpensive table decoration as beautiful as any costly display of roses. Personally, I did not approve of his ferns, as they would very quickly decay in the water: but as a child I had learned from my grandmother his better idea of half-filling the dish with clean sand. It holds the stems exactly as placed, and can be entirely hidden by the foliage.
Roses, the gentleman also told us, draw up water above the surface only one-half the length of the stem in the water, and consequently should not extend more than that height above the water,--else the "forcing power" (as it is called) will not carry it far enough to sustain the flowers at the end of the stems. (This may account for my own success in keeping roses often for a week, for I usually take them out of the water, lay them in a wet box or paper, and place them flat in the ice-box over night so the water in the stems can flow to the extreme end.) He also said they should never be crowded together, but rather be separated as the primroses were. Both the leaves and the thorns under water should be removed, as the leaves quickly foul the water, and the breaking off of the thorns opens new channels for nourishment to reach the flowers.
The flat j.a.panese bowls so popular the past few years, are not only artistic, but good for the flowers, which in them are not crowded, and so can get their needed oxygen. They can be held in place by the transparent gla.s.s holders if one objects (as the florist did,) to the perforated frogs, turtles, mushrooms, etc., now to be bought wherever vases and other flower holders are sold. Any one who has tried to arrange even half a dozen blooms in this simple way will never go back to the crude, old-fashioned mixed bouquet! On the tables of the fine restaurants in New York City one most often sees only a simple, clear gla.s.s vase, with perhaps only two or three flowers; but they can be enjoyed for their full beauty.
The secret of the whole subject is _simplicity_!--and you never know what you can do until you try. At our last Garden Show I had expected to make a well-studied arrangement of wild flowers for that cla.s.s of table decorations, but did not have the time. At the last moment I took an odd little gla.s.s basket, filled it with damp sand, and stuck it full of cornflowers, (what you might call ragged robins or bachelor b.u.t.tons, and which I grow to go with my blue china,) so that the holder was nearly hidden. On seeing it in place, on the show table, I frankly confess I was quite ashamed of my effort, it looked so very modest: and you can imagine my great surprise when I discovered later that it was decorated with a coveted ribbon!
There is one way, however, in which the mixed bouquet can be put together so as to look its best, and our florist-guest demonstrated it.
On coming to the close of his remarks he began picking up the flowers he had been using in his various arrangements with his right hand and placing in his left,--paying no attention whatever to what he took, nor even looking at what he was already holding. Rose, daisy, jonquil, primrose, everything, just as he chanced to find it at hand, went together. _But_,--and here was the secret of the successful result--he grasped them all at the extreme lower end of their stems, whether long or short, so that the bouquet on being completed had that beautiful irregular outline as well as the mixed color that Mother Nature herself offers us in the garden! So if you ever have to put a quant.i.ty of mixed flowers together, remember to do it this way.
And now a last word about flower growing. Don"t you know that old adage, ending "try, try again?" When you think of the great Burbank, growing thousands upon thousands of a single kind of plant or flower in order to develop one to perfection, you can have patience in spite of pests and weather. I hope you will have quant.i.ties of the loveliest blossoms, and for the happiest occasions of life.
May you realize all your fondest expectations.