For larger vases, the Dicentra is always pleasing, coming close after the Lily of the Valley. Cut it with a good deal of foliage, and be careful to give each stalk ample room in which to adjust itself. A vase with a flaring top is what this flower ought to have, as its stalks have just the curve that fits the flare. A straight vase obliges it to stand up so primly that half the charm of the flower is destroyed.
For late fall cutting, there is no other flower quite equal to the Cosmos. The pink and white varieties are lovely when cut by the branch, and used in large vases. They seem especially adapted to church decoration.
"We want some flowers that will bloom late in the season. Are there any that can be depended on after early frosts?"
Yes. First on the list I would name the Aster. This sturdy annual is seldom at its best before the first frosts, and can be considered in its prime during the first half of October. And it will last until cold weather sets in.
Ten Week Stock—the "Gillyflower" of grandmother's garden—is a late bloomer. The snows of November often find it full of flowers, and are powerless to injure it. It is delightfully fragrant, and particularly adapted to cutting, because of its long spikes of bloom. It comes in white, rosy-purple, red, and sulphur-yellow.
The Marguerite Carnation deserves a place in every garden because of its great beauty, and its late-flowering habit. While not all the plants grown from seed will give double flowers, a large share of them will be so, and in form, size, and color they will compare very favorably with the greenhouse varieties of this favorite flower. Most of them will have the true Carnation fragrance. For choice little bouquets, for home use, or to give your especial friends nothing can be more satisfactory. You can expect a dozen flowers from each plant where you would get but one from the greenhouse sorts.
ARBORS, SUMMER-HOUSES, PERGOLAS, AND OTHER GARDEN FEATURES
EW persons who daily pass attractive homes in the suburban districts of our large cities and the outlying country, realize that much of their charm is due to effects which require a comparatively small outlay in dollars and cents. Good taste, combined with a degree of skill that is within reach of most of us, represent the chief part of the investment. And yet—these little, inexpensive things are the very ones that produce the pleasing effects we are all striving after in our efforts to make home attractive. Most of them convey an impression of being made for use, not show. They are in a class with the broad-seated, wide-armed "old hickory" rockers with which we make our modern verandas comfortable nowadays, and the hammock swung in shady places, wherein one may lie and take his ease, and forget everything but the fact that it is sometimes a pleasant thing to be lazy—frankly, unblushingly lazy. It is a healthy indication in our American life when so many persons go in for getting all the comfort they can from outdoors in summer. Every home whose grounds are large enough to accommodate them ought to have benches here and there, made for comfort, rather than looks, garden-seats, summer-houses—all suggestive of rest and relaxation. In this chapter I propose to briefly describe a few such home-made features, hoping that the man or boy who has the "knack" of using tools to advantage, actuated by a desire to make home-environments pleasant, may be led to copy some of them.