Part 7
To form a pyramid of flowers, take three, four, or five wooden bowls, according to the size you wish for your pyramid; let them be a regular gradation in size; procure some round pieces of wood, like ribbon blocks, graded in size, glue the tallest into the centre of the largest bowl so that it will stand upright, and up on top of that glue the bowl next in size, and so on to the smallest bowl. Varnish the inside several coats; paint the outsides green, and cover with moss; some have a stand made, and glued to the bottom of the largest bowl. When filled with flowers it is a lovely sight. Baskets made of tin and painted green, then covered with moss, make the prettiest hanging baskets possible. Tin rings, large enough to surround vases placed inside, and made to hold water, with little wires across the top and painted green, when filled with flowers, form the prettiest mats in the world; the wires keep the flowers in place. I saw one filled with only rosebuds, blue forget-me-nots, and geranium leaves. It is an improvement to cover the outside with moss. Crosses made in the same way are very beautiful, and are appropriate to place on the grave of any beloved friend. In that way flowers can be preserved a long time, if there is a sufficient supply of water to preserve them.
There are innumerable ways of arranging flowers. The poorest person can afford to purchase a tin basin, and with a little common paste and moss, which can be found in all country places, a pretty dish for flowers is soon made. Shells make lovely vases. The large shells sailors polish so exquisitely to resemble mother of pearl, make elegant hanging vases; bore holes on each side and hang them with strong cords.
The month of September is not too late to make a fine collection of mosses from mountains and valleys. Mosses will have attained by this time a luxurious growth. There are but few mosses that look well after being pressed. The best way to preserve a collection of mosses is to arrange them in some suitable box, as they grow, and in the order you desire to keep them, and let them dry slowly. If you wish to cover any box, basket, or vase, it is better to paste them on, before they are entirely dry, with common paste. The dry white and gray mosses form very beautiful receptacles for flowers, by covering the outside of any rustic basket with the moss. Thread wire will fasten it firmly to any basket, or rustic work. Paste or wire can be used to fasten it on to boxes or bowls.
We have seen a lovely rustic stand for flowers, formed from a common wooden box (a large bowl is the more desirable). The handle was formed from a barrel hoop. The legs of the stand were made of gnarled branches of trees. Then fine annealed wire was wound over the whole. This served to hold the moss firmly to the box. The beautiful curled white, gray, and green dry mosses were then arranged all over the box, legs, and handle, so as to give grace and beauty to this inexpensive stand. This box was then filled with rich loam, and planted with purple, white, and pink Maurandia, and variegated Myrtle. These vines twined over the handle, and festooned the sides of the box. Lobelias, Fuchsias, Nierembergias, white and scarlet monthly Pinks, silver-leaved Geranium, and King of the Scarlets, also one white monthly Rose in the centre, filled the box with bright flowers all summer. This inexpensive flower-stand was constructed by a boy during his school vacation, and it formed a beautiful centre ornament to his mother’s front yard. In the winter the good mother had her boy’s work carefully removed and placed in her bay window. There it blossomed, and spoke cheering words to her of her absent darling, as she sat day by day, during the cold winter months, sewing by its side.
14.--HANGING BASKETS.
Hanging baskets are now in such universal use, that the taste for them has extended to every town or village in our land. All florists keep a supply of baskets, with flowers planted and growing, ready for sale. These baskets are quite expensive. We will give directions for some equally pretty, but inexpensive, which any ingenious boy or girl can make.
Take a small wooden bowl, bore holes in the sides to fasten in a cord, or screw in rings. Cover this with cones, acorns, black beans, &c., in fact, any pretty seed can be used to good effect; arrange them in different forms, like flowers. Varnish with asphaltum varnish. A cocoanut shell makes a pretty small basket. Either of the above are pretty with the white and green dry moss glued over the outside. Baskets can be made of sticks of the oak or maple tree, choosing those of the size of a man’s thumb, and cutting them of equal lengths, eight, ten, or twelve inches, according to the size of the basket desired. Then build your basket like a log hut; interlace your fingers, and you will see the design. Nail these sticks firmly in place, fasten in a wooden bottom. Heat a wire and thrust it through the end of each stick, and bend it into a loop; suspend it by cords fastened to these loops. This makes a durable basket to hang out of doors; any boy of twelve could make it.
Rustic baskets can be made with or without a wooden frame, but a wooden bowl is a good foundation; procure from the woods a quantity of blasted branches, or other crooked, rough, or knotty twigs. Soak them in hot water or steam them, so as to make them pliable. Stain the bowl with asphaltum or black varnish, then screw in rings for the hanging cords to pass through. When the varnish is dry, bend around the outside of the bowl one of the twigs or blasted branches, and nail it securely at the top edges on either side. Twine several pieces around in this way, according to your taste, until the whole surface is covered; finish by nailing one around the rim of the basket for a border. Varnish the branches like the bowl. The entire basket is then ready for use. All kinds of shaped baskets can be made out of wire, painting them green, and filling in moss in all the crevices; a painted tin dish, placed in for the dirt, will surely prevent any drip; thick moss is ordinarily sufficient. All kinds of these baskets should be filled up with light, sandy loam; a few bits of charcoal, and a piece of sponge in the bottom, assist in keeping the soil moist. Light, trailing vines should be trained to fall over the sides, and loop in and out of rustic work. We will give a short list of vines suitable for baskets.
Lobelia Erinus Paxtoni, an exquisite blue. White and pink Gypsophila. Panicum Variegatum. Tropæolum, ball of fire. Convolvulus Mauritanicus. Variegated Myrtle. Geranium Peltatum Elegans. Nierembergia. Linaria Cymbalaria. All varieties of Maurandia Barclayana. German Ivy. Alyssum Variegatum. Vinea Elegantissima Aurea. Moneywort.
PLANTS FOR THE CENTRE.
Centaurea Gymnocarpa. Alternanthera. Sedum Sieboldii. Bijou Zonale. Achyronthes Gilsoni. Mrs. Pollock, &c.
These baskets should be exposed to the sun at least two or three hours daily, and in dry weather watered freely. If the surface of the basket between the plants is covered with moss, it will prevent the earth from drying as soon, and the basket will look neater.
Baskets of moss and wire can be every week dipped into a pail of water.
15.--ARTIFICIAL ROCKERIES.
A well-formed and flourishing rockery is an ornament to every lawn.
Petrified wood forms very beautiful rockeries, but as our purpose is to assist our young friends to make their own rockeries, we will leave the more elaborate to the gardener.
Save all the clinkers from your furnace coal, dip them in a hot lime wash to color them pure white, their fantastic shapes are thus more conspicuous; arrange them in a mound according to your fancy; leave at suitable distances cavities of six or eight inches deep, to be filled with soil; in this plant your creeping plants; bright colors should be selected for a white rockery. Dwarf Scarlet Tropæolum, Scarlet Verbenas, Petunias, Golden Moneywort, Lobelias, Scarlet Geraniums, Myrtles, Coleus, German Ivy, &c., are used to good effect on this rock work. Hydraulic cement instead of lime will make a pretty drab color. If the rockery is protected by some shade, it looks well to plant it with Ferns and Lycopodiums.
16.--FERNERIES.
Is it not, friends, very pleasant to have a bit of the summer woods in our parlors in midwinter? Such a pleasure is within the reach of us all, with but little trouble and expense. Those who live in cities, and cannot go into the country, surely must have some friend who can supply them, or the materials can be obtained at any public green-house. First you require a glass dome, or what is still better, take five panes of glass, any size you please, four to form the sides, one for the top; fasten the glass together with a light wooden frame, then take any tin dish, like a baking pan, or if round, a tin plate or jelly cake pan, or a tin dish can be made to fit it for a trifling sum of money; paint the tin green on the outside. Then collect some pieces of broken flower pots, or still better, bits of marble, granite, or any stone, and scatter them around the tin dish, placing in the centre some moss-grown stump or stick, and pile the stones around it; then collect from the woods ferns, mosses, partridge vines, with its bright red berries (indeed any plant will grow in these ferneries which can be found in moist places in the woods); take up a little of the leaf mould in which they grow (they need but little soil), arrange your plants, spreading the roots carefully over the stones, scattering a little leaf mould on them, and place your mosses around the whole. The tallest plants should form the centre, but in arranging even ferneries, it is more agreeable to exercise your own taste. Before placing your globe or glass frame over your fernery, sprinkle the plants thoroughly, then cover with the glass, and let it remain a few days in the shade. You can keep them where you please, but they grow better near a window; be very careful not to water them too often; once a month is generally sufficient; if too wet, they will mould and die; when there is but little moisture on the glass, it is well to raise the glass to ascertain if it is dry. Our fernery has been made four years; it has required but little care; now and then we add a new fern, some moss, or any suitable plant gathered from the woods, and remove any dried ferns or leaves. It often renews itself. Trailing Arbutus and partridge vines will blossom in ferneries. It is always pleasant to the eye, and no care after the first expense and trouble. Ivy and Lycopodium grow well in ferneries, but the rare ferns, &c., from green-houses do not flourish as well as those plants taken from our native woods.
17.--IVIES.
English Ivies are a great ornament to our rooms, and are hardy, and require very little care. After the first two years they grow quite rapidly, therefore it is well to procure two-year old plants; train them on your curtains, over your windows and pictures. Many make a mistake by changing the pots very often, thinking they require a very large pot, which is not so, for they do not require as much earth as many plants, only keep them moist, and have rich loam for the soil; it is well to water them every month with guano water, prepared according to the same rule given for flowers. The Poet’s Ivy is very pretty, the leaf being quite small. The most beautiful ivy we ever saw was one that never was removed from its place, summer or winter; it filled a large bay window, encircled the whole room, and wound around many pictures; now and then a gardener came and changed the soil, and the leaves were occasionally washed.
18.--PRESSED FLOWERS.
To press flowers, to be arranged on paper like a painting, you must take some plain white wrapping paper (in Paris you can obtain paper prepared by a chemical process to preserve the colors), and place your flowers or leaves carefully between two sheets of the paper. Then press them by placing a heavy weight over them (letter presses are excellent), and leave them a day or two, then change the paper; thus the juices of the flowers are absorbed. It takes a week or two to press perfectly, and in summer often longer. When dry, place them in a book or some air-tight box, ready for use. A year is required to make a varied and handsome collection, as each flower has its own season for blossoming. Wild flowers retain their colors better than cultivated; but experience alone will teach you what flowers will retain their color best. Many pretend to be able to preserve all kinds of flowers, but it is impossible. I will give a list of flowers which are known to retain their color by this mode of pressing.
All Geraniums (except the horse-shoe and sweet-scented) preserve their color. They are very essential, as their colors are brilliant and keep for years. All yellow flowers, both wild and cultivated, retain their color. The Violet and Pansy, Dwarf Blue Convolvulus, Blue Larkspur, Blue Myrtle, Blue Lobelia, Heaths, the small original Red Fuchsia, Wild Housatonia, and many tiny blue, and even white flowers press perfectly.
For green, Ivy, Maiden Hair, Ferns or Brake, Mosses, &c., retain their color best. Rarely a cultivated green leaf presses well. Autumn leaves, if small, and the youngest oak leaves, mix in well. Certain kinds of stems, such as Pansy, and others of similar character, are best adapted for pressing.
After your collection is made, take some card-board, without a polish if possible, and arrange your flowers as you design to have them. Gum them to the paper with tragacanth, using a camel’s hair brush, then press on the paper and flower with a cloth, carefully absorbing all moisture, as well as firmly pressing the flower on the paper. Geraniums and some large flowers look better if each leaf is glued on separately.
In forming your bouquet, it is better to arrange the stems first and work upwards. Baskets and vases of moss with flowers are pretty. To form these you must trace out with a pencil your vase or basket, and glue on the moss. Then arrange your flowers.
We have heard amusing criticisms on the coloring of such bouquets from persons who mistook them for paintings. Framed and covered with a glass, they make ornamental pictures.
It is a pleasant way of preserving mementos of friends, places, or events. Flower albums or journals are very beautiful. Wreaths arranged of different varieties of Pelargoniums, mixed in with any pretty green, and other little flowers, such as Lobelias, are very handsome, and the colors are durable. Pansies of different shades look well, and brilliant wreaths may be made of all the varieties of flowers that hold their color. The oval shape looks the best for wreaths.
There are innumerable varieties of Ferns, Lycopodiums, and Maiden Hair, both native and foreign, suitable for pressing. By pasting each specimen on a separate sheet, and interspersing specimens of our beautiful autumn leaves, also on separate sheets, and fastening them together, either bound as a book, or in a portfolio, you will possess a beautiful and attractive book with but little expense.
Crosses can be arranged with Ferns, and shaded to appear as if painted in perspective, and look like a cross standing on a mossy bank, with flowers, &c., growing around and over it. First draw and shade your cross, as a guide, then take the small leaflets of the darkest colored ferns you can procure, and glue them on carefully where the cross should be in shadow darkest, then take the brighter green Ferns (such as are gathered in spring), and end with the white Ferns (which can only be obtained in the fall), using them for the lightest shade; be careful to cover every part, and shade it with Nature’s colors as you would with paint. In a cross six inches high, and suitably proportioned, full two hundred of the tiny leaflets of the Fern may be used to good advantage before it is completed. Then take wild Lycopodium, if you can obtain it, if not, the finest of the cultivated, and arrange it on your cross to look like a vine growing over and hanging from it; also paste on to it tiny little pressed Lobelias, and arrange small Ferns, mosses, and any little flowers (wild ones are preferable) around the base of the cross, to look like a mossy bank. Different designs can be arranged in the same way.
Be very careful in pasting on flowers and leaves, that every part, however small, is firmly fixed to the paper; press them on after pasting with a dry cloth.
September is the time to collect the beautiful white ferns; the first slight frost turns the green fern white. They should then be gathered at once, and carefully pressed; when dry they resemble the skeleton leaves. A vase of these forms a beautiful winter ornament. If you defer gathering them till the heavy frosts come, they turn brown.
19.--STRAWBERRIES.
A few hints as regards the cultivation of strawberries may be useful to both boys and girls; for fine berries can be raised even on a small plot of ground, if the soil be rich. Plants for a new bed should be set out early in the spring; the roots will then grow strong, and the plants will be better able to bear the cold of winter. Some gardeners prefer to plant their strawberry roots in August, or even late in the autumn, and if the winter is mild, or deep snows cover the ground, the vines will live and bear fruit the next summer. Some prefer to raise strawberries in hills, but the most prolific vines are those planted in beds about three feet wide, with a path between, filled with straw, to keep the fruit from the ground; it is well to cut off most of the runners. Of course the beds should be kept free from weeds. There are many new varieties, but the old Hovey’s Seedling is as reliable as any, and very prolific. The Russell is easily propagated; vines planted in April will often yield fine strawberries in June. The Wilson is a profitable strawberry for the market because of its large yield, but it is hardly equal in flavor to the Hovey.
The Hovey will soon run out if planted by itself; it requires some other kind to be planted with it. The Pine is usually the variety selected for that purpose. It is useless to enumerate the several varieties, for nearly every locality has its favorite strawberry. Some kinds will scarcely bear a perfect berry in some locations, while in a different locality the same plant will be loaded with perfect fruit. Sometimes a healthy and vigorous-looking bed of strawberry plants will produce but few berries; then you must examine the blossoms, those which bear fruit will have the berry formed in the flower, while others will blossom freely, but do not bear fruit; these are the male plants, and it is better to leave but few of them in your strawberry beds. When you plant the new roots, dig a hole with a trowel and fill it with water, then spread out the roots and pack the earth close around them; but when they are fully rooted, and commence to grow, the earth should be kept loose around them.
Strawberry plants should be replanted every third year; it is best to change the location of the bed if possible, or at least to renew the soil. Boys or girls who raise and gather from their own little garden a dish of strawberries, will find great pleasure in presenting it to their friends as fruits of their own labor.
20.--GRAPES.
The care of the grape vine is a pleasant occupation. To gather the rich, ripe bunches of its delicious fruit is a grand enjoyment. Almost every one can command a spot of ground sufficient for the liberal support of a grape vine. It may be planted in any unappropriated corner about the house--a sunny spot is to be preferred; but a vine may do well with but little direct sunshine, if it is well sheltered and properly cared for. It may be planted at the foot of a tree, the branches of which are not near the ground, and it will find its way high up the tree, and will yield large crops of fine fruit, hidden among its own thick foliage and that of the tree, provided the ground immediately about its roots can be reached and kept warm by the sun’s rays.
As it grows, it will endeavor to adapt itself to the circumstances that surround it, and will take the direction your taste or convenience require it to follow. Its flexible branches are obedient to the gentle hand of the careful cultivator. You may train it upon stakes six or eight feet high, or upon a low trellis where the fruit will be within easy reach of your hand. You may have the fruit within a few inches of the ground, or by removing all the lower branches of the vine, you can cause the ripe bunches to hang in graceful festoons around and over the window of your chamber, high above the reach of accident and pilferers. The grape vine will do as it is bid, which is much more than can be said of some young people, whose eyes sparkle at the sight of its fruit.
In preparing the ground in which to plant the vine, reference must be had to the character of the soil. If the soil is clayey and cold, or if the neighboring surface is such as to turn an undue proportion of the rains upon the place where you propose to plant your vine, care must be taken to secure for the roots of the vine a sufficient drainage. If the roots of the vine are surrounded by wet and cold earth, the fruit will mature slowly, and will be endangered by the early frosts. You will secure a sufficient drainage by digging a hole three feet deep and five or six feet in diameter, and throwing into it small stones, fragments of bricks, or other like rubbish, to the depth of about eighteen inches, and filling to the surface with the soil. If the soil in which you propose to plant your vine is light, no artificial drainage will be necessary.
Dig over the ground, and mix with it some well-rotted manure or bone dust to the depth of your spade. The plan of trenching and deep manuring is of questionable advantage. The roots of the vine prefer to run near the surface, but they will seek the rich soil wherever it may be; and if they are drawn away from the surface of the ground and out of their natural direction to the colder soil below, the effect upon the fruit may be unfavorable, both as to quality and quantity.
In the ground thus prepared, set your young vine from the nursery. First, drive down a stake to which you can tie the young vine, then place the roots of the vine three inches below the surface of the ground, carefully spreading the roots so that they will be as nearly as possible in the position in which they grew in the nursery.
The beautiful operations of nature will then commence. The roots of the vine will at once begin to adapt themselves to their new home, and their delicate fibres will firmly clasp the particles of the well-prepared soil; the warm days of the early spring will draw the sap up through the whole length of the vine; the buds will open and exhibit their delicate tints, new shoots and broad green leaves will follow, and you can soon eat the fruit of your own labor, sitting beneath the shadow of your own vine.
21.--HOW TO ARRANGE SEA-MOSSES.
While our young friends are enjoying the pleasures of the sea-shore, there is no more delightful employment than gathering and preserving the beautiful flowers of the sea.
September is the time to collect the finest varieties of sea-mosses. Before you commence to arrange them, procure two pieces of deal board, about twenty inches long and twelve inches wide; some light-brown paper, and blotting paper, and white drawing paper. You will need camel’s-hair pencils, long, slender darning-needles (or common needles mounted on lucifer matches), a small piece of alum, and old cotton or linen cloth.