Parents who have only a hazy notion of garden-work may think themselves incompetent to teach their children. But if they set out to do so they will soon find that they are daily learning enough to make them safe teachers for the little folks. And the best of it will be that they themselves are getting quite as much good and pleasure out of it as the children are.
Give the boys and girls good tools to work with. Never ask them to make use of those you have worn out or found worthless. Something quite as good as you would provide for yourself is what should be provided for them. They will appreciate a good thing, be very sure, and the fact that they have it will be one of the best possible incentives to work. Supply them with good seed. And do not fail to encourage them by giving all the credit justly due them for what they accomplish. Children like to know that their efforts are properly appreciated. We grownups and the children are very much alike in that respect.
XVII
HOME AND GARDEN CONVENIENCES
There are many ways in which work in the garden and about the home can be varied in such a manner as to give a variety of comparatively new and pleasing effects with so little trouble and expense that the amateur gardener and home-maker who would like "something new" will, I feel sure, be delighted to undertake some of them.
One is a floral awning for the windows which are exposed to strong sunshine. A frame is made of lath, the width of the window and half its depth, by nailing four of the strips together in a square and then fastening other strips across it in a diamond or lattice fashion. Attach this frame to the top of the window-casing by door-butts. Then push the lower part of it away from the window until you have it at the angle at which a cloth awning would hang when dropped, and support it in that position by running strips of wood from each corner to the sides of the window-frame.
If such vines as morning-glory, flowering bean, and cypress are trained up each side of the window until they reach these supports, it will be an easy matter to coax them up them and from them to the awning's framework, which they will soon cover with foliage and flowers. Such an awning will be found quite as satisfactory as one of cloth, so far as shade is concerned, and, as for beauty, there is no comparison between them, for the ordinary awning of striped cloth is never ornamental. A floral awning is to the upper part of the window what the window-box of plants is to the lower portion of it, and the two can be used in combination with most delightful results. Indeed, they belong together, and one without the other only half carries out the scheme of window decoration.
Such awnings will be found as satisfactory for exposed doors as for windows. The boys of the family—or the women of it—can make them and put them in place, and the cost of them will be so small, compared with their ornamental and practical value, that one season's trial of them will make them permanent features of home-beautifying thereafter. I would advise planing the strips of lath and giving the frames a coat of green or white paint before putting them in place. Green paint will make them unobtrusive, and white will give a pleasing color contrast. If they are taken down in fall and stored in a dry place over winter they will last for a good many seasons.