Garden Ornaments

by Mary Harrod Northend

It is not always possible to have this piece of furniture placed under the shade of a tree or shrubbery. This necessitates the planning of a summer house, arbor or pergola. Over these, vines can be trained, so that in reality it is much more picturesque than if you had used simply the green shade.

Chairs can be used for this same purpose, in fact, they are very good as they provide a variation of the general theme. They are particularly advisable if it is a backyard garden where a settle might prove too overpowering. Like the garden seat, they can be made of wood. Cedar and locust are preferable if you wish pretty rustic effects. Cypress also is lasting, and if you prefer to give it a coat of paint, it will do service for many years.

For rustic chairs or seats, there is another idea for shelter that is practical. It is to roof it over and shingle the board. It has advantages over anything else in that it affords protection from the summer sun and acts as a windbreak on cold days, besides doing away with the dropping of insects from the leafy tangle of an arbor. No matter how charming a garden may be in its floral arrangement, it requires additions and accessories to display to the best advantage its worth. Just as a house is cozy or barren according to the style of furniture employed, so a garden is beautiful in proportion to the type of ornaments used.

Probably the coming into style of the formal Italian type of garden has done much to develop this feature. Until late years, scant heed was paid to fitness, and in consequence much of the old-time charm found in the Colonial garden was lost.

When planning for your garden seat or chair, take into consideration the planting. In your choice of colors you should vary the scheme to fit in with the particular seat. A white requires different surroundings from a gray or a rustic type. Wrong coloring brings about inharmonious effects and they should be carefully considered in the making a perfect whole. Another thing should be thought out and that is as to whether there is a shade provided by the over-hanging limbs of a tree or by the trailing of vines.

Vines are always interesting. You can use them in a mass, showing one general effect, or you can combine them. Nothing is so pretty in the early spring as the Wisterias, on account of their being not only hardy, but tall growers. Many people claim the best varieties are those grafted on to specially selected stock, thus making them sure bloomers. The soil should also be taken into consideration, for while they thrive in light, sandy conditions, yet deep, rich earth promotes stronger growth. The Magnifica is, perhaps, as vigorous as any. It is such a rapid grower that it shoots up from thirty to forty feet in a season. It blossoms rather later than some varieties which show soft, lavender blue blooms. Why not mix this with the Chinese white, whose pure white flowers show long, drooping clusters.

If you are looking for foliage in the early fall, the Vitis Henryana can be used. Its leaves are decorative in effect, being a velvety green with veins of silvery white. It is of Chinese origin and in the fall the foliage turns to a beautiful red. For July and August blossoming, there is the Bignonia Grandiflora or Mammoth-flowered Trumpet creeper. This is a splendid climbing vine, perfectly hardy, giving a growth of from eight to ten feet in a season. Its flowers, which are shown during July and August, are orange red and trumpet-shaped, following as they do after the Wisteria has faded, they bring about an entirely different color scheme. This makes it practical for one to plant a succession of bloom, making each set of flowers correspond with the coloring of the vines.

A very pleasing contrast can be brought out by combining the magnolia-scented White Moon Flower, with a beautiful Blue Dawn. The former is a summer climber, growing from fifteen to twenty feet in height. It makes a beautiful shade for trellises and bears in the season a profusion of large trumpet-shape snow-white flowers that are richly scented and very beautiful. There is also a heavenly blue that combines artistically with the white. One feature of this vine is its thick, overlapping, glossy foliage, and its nightly scores of immense silky blooms which are of rare fragrance. By actual count a strong vine will bear from one to three thousand blossoms in a season. There has within the last few years been discovered a new variety that opens early in the morning and remains so nearly all day.

The beautiful blue of the Paradise Flower is used when one wishes for this color in decorations. The clusters are large, showing from twenty to thirty at a time and it blossoms continually from the time it becomes established until frost.

For a rustic seat, why not try the wild grape or Crimson Glory vine? It is so strong and hardy, notable for its heavy foliage which makes a splendid shade and in the fall is a mass of rich crimson. We have grown to think of morning glories as a pretty, small flower that grew in our grandmother's garden. Many of us have not realized that they have been developed until now they show gigantic bloom as large as the moon flowers. They have wonderful coloring, marking and variations of indescribable beauty. As a flowering vine they cannot be surpassed, the flowers being borne by the hundreds and of enormous size, measuring often five and six inches across. Many show a rich combination of shading blended together in an enchanting way, being spotted, penciled, mottled, and variegated in every conceivable manner.