Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/711

 6«5 the creepers back to the wall by placing bamboo sticks horizontally over them at regular intervals. These sticks can be secured to the bricks by means of patent wall nails, which have a pliable grip for the purpose. The colour of paint for the boxes and woodwork is a matter of personal taste. For a town a dark green is perhaps the least likely to look dirty, or something of the shade of peacock blue is good and effective. Should the atmosphere be clear, bright red looks cheerful, and striped alternate white and dark green is pleasant. On the roof itself it is easy to have a little rock garden of stonecrops. The way to secure them firmly is this. Make a wet paste of cow manure and soil, place it where you want it on the roof, and whilst it is still wet, plant the stonecrops in it. Labour-saving Devices There are two rather important matters that must claim your attention. As this little garden is high up and out of very easy access, you will not want to be continually carrying heavy things up to it. Of course, the first few days you will have to do so, as the boxes, trellis, soil, manure, crocks, and a few pots must all get there. Once, however, arranged, it will not be necessary to carry more than an occasional trayful of fresh soil or manure to replenish the boxes and pots. You must, however, consider carefully how best you can be saved from the daily work of carrying water to the garden. And, too, you must think out how the water, when it has been given to the plants, can best trickle away from the tiled or lead floor of your garden. By means of gutters and pipes you can, no doubt, easily arrange to collect a good supply of rain-water'. Store this either in a galvanised tank or in several disused paraffin tubs. Then, by dipping in your small water-can each day, you are independent of having to carry a heavy can up- stairs. Now let us con- sider the matter of proper drainage for all this water, after use, to run quickly away and not lie in incon- venient pools about the floor of your piazza. No doubt, you will like to have, in addition to the wooden boxes for creepers, a lot of pots, pottery boxes, foreign quaint-shaped bowls or fancy ornaments for holding bulbs and plants. The water coming from these after heavy rain or after hand watering should be collected into a small channel, and can then be guided to a drain or pipe for exit. Consider, therefore, whether more than one Two quaint garden chairs fashioned from homely paraffin tubs channel will be necessary, and where you will have it, either in the middle of the floor or at the side. I would suggest the foreign way of grouping flower-pots. Arrange them in a little group or geometric pattern. Kven when standing pots in a frame yard preparatory to planting them out in beds, the Italians always group them in a pattern, and it looks so much better than our Knclish method of placing them higgledy-piggledy. Roof Qardcn Furniture As regards furniture for your roof garden, you will want chairs and a rough deal tabic painted the same colour as the flower-boxes. For comfortable, inexpensive chairs, I recommend paraffin tubs, which, when empty, are cut into the shape of an armchair, as is shown in the sketch. Any handyman can do this, and with a fresh coat of paint each year they stand and do service for a long time. A little bower or shadow house, or even a four or five foot high screen, can easily be erected, and thus a small furnished room is made on the top of the roof. If tall uprights are needed, use old disused gas piping, and have same firmly fixed or cemented to the floor. Horizontal cross- pieces of the same piping can be fastened with wire to the uprights. Against this lean and tie square-mesh trellis, and form a flat roof of same, as it is easier to make than a sloped roof. The boxes containing creepers will stand near the trellis, and, if carefully tended and watered, the top of the roof will soon be covered by them. Should you wish to make the little bower a real shadow house, line it inside with straw mats. It is quite easy, if space permits, to have all sorts of quaint designs upon your roof garden. A pergola can easily be achieved, leading to a rose bower, and fes- ~ toons ol ivy or roses are also easily made. It is somewhat difficult to advise alx)ut creepers and flowers, with- out knowing the exact locality and the amount of smoke in the atmosphere. As a general rule, however, any of the follow- ing do well in towns, and for the country choice is less limited. For planting in very large tubs or boxes, I recommend lilac, laburnum, almond, thorn. Of evergreens choose hollv, box, aucuba. bay privet. The best climbers are ivy, Virginia creeper, wistaria, forsythia susp.^nsa, jasminum nudiflorum. common jasmine, Crataegus pyracantha, roses. Irises usually do well if you can give them a sunny place.