Flowers For Window-boxes

Source: What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games And Pastimes
Category: GARDENING



Nasturtiums and canary creeper can climb up a little trellis made of
sticks at each end of the box, or they can cling to strings fixed to
the box and nailed high up at the side of the window. Wandering Jew or
ivy-leaved geranium will fall over the front of the box and make it
look very gay. Bulbs, such as winter aconite, squills, snowdrops, a
few daffodils, tulips and irises, will grow well in boxes. These
should be planted rather deep. Then primroses and forget-me-nots can
be planted, and in May a border of lobelia, one or two geraniums,
pansies, fuchsias, a plant of lemon verbena, and some musk.
Mignonette, Virginia stock, collinsia, should be sown in spring in
little patches or lines.

Keep the leaves of all the plants as clean as possible by gentle
watering with a rose. Never let the earth get dry from neglect, or
sodden from too much watering; yet water well, for driblets only
affect the surface, and it is the roots far down in the box that need
moisture.


Cutting Flowers and Packing Them--Flowers for Post

It is best, if possible, to pick flowers the day before you want to
send them off. Pick them in the afternoon, sort them and bunch them
up, and then stand them in water right up to their heads, and keep
them there over night. A basin is the best thing to put the flowers
in, unless the stalks are very long, and a jam-pot or two in the water
will help to keep them from tumbling over and drifting about. Be very
careful that the blooms do not touch the water. Keep the flowers in
water until you are ready to pack them. Tin boxes are best to send
flowers away in; but generally one has to use cardboard ones. Choose
the strongest you can find and line it with two sheets of paper, one
across and one long ways, and each long enough to fold over when it is
full. Then line again with some big cool leaves or moss. Dry the
flowers and pack them as tightly as possible, taking great care not to
crush the petals. Cover them with a few more leaves and fold the paper
over. Then wrap up the box, remembering to write the address on a
label tied at one end of the box, so that the postmark will not be
stamped on the box itself and perhaps break it.


Next: Picking Flowers

Previous: Window Boxes

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