This is also a simple and effectual fertilizer: Get some soot from a
chimney or stove where wood is used for fuel, put it in an old pitcher
and pour hot water upon it✪ Soot Fertilizer, When cool, use it to water the plants
every few days. When it is all used, fill up the pitcher again with hot
water. The effect upon roses that have almost hopelessly deteriorated
is wonderful, in producing a rapid growth of thrifty shoots, with large,
thick leaves and a great number of richly tinted roses. Never despair
of a decayed rosebush until this has been tried.
CONSERVATORY CHAT.
A very pretty fence can be made for small gardens by a number of
stakes of equal length, pointed at one end to drive into the ground,
square at the top and painted green. Then place them at an equal dis-
tances around the garden and bore holes about six or seven inches apart
for the twine, which should be brown linen. Pass the twine through
the holes, in lines all around the garden. Plant vines which run rapidly,
such as cypress vine, Madeira vine, nasturtium, dwarf convolvulus,
mountain fringe, and by midsummer the fence will be very beautiful.
122 FLO WERS.
A novel flower-pot is made in this way : Take from three to four feet
of wire netting and bend it into the shape of a hollow cylinder until the
ends meet. Lace the ends together with flexible wire ; then tack to one
end of the cylinder a wooden bottom, and you have the pot. Now fill
nearly full of rich, loamy earth, and plant in the center a shrub or plant
of rapid growth ; then plant in the sides of the pot, through the wire
netting, fern or climbers ; water well, and in a little while the wire will
be covered with a rich mass of green.
If you wish something bright for your window as a screen for your
pots, make a wide but low screen to button to the window shelf — a
sort of border for the shelf on which they are placed. It can be made
of splints woven together with woolen cords ; or it may be made of a
thin board covered with chintz, or a border of heavy velvet wall paper.
A deep wine color, with a narrow gold border top and bottom, is very
pretty ; or else a lattice work made of walnut splints and lined with
scarlet cloth. Another pretty way is to use the tiled wall-paper ; or
the pots may be placed in a window-box, covered with bark and lichens.
Any of the above ways are pretty, and a bright color around the pots,
covering up their ugliness, will make the plants look doubly beautiful,
The color of flowers can be changed at will in this way. Pour a little
ammonia into a saucer and invert a tunnel over it. Place the flowers
in the tube of the latter, and you will find that blue, violet and purple
colored blossoms become a fine green ; carmine and crimson become
black; white, yellow; while parti-colored flowers, such as red and
white, are changed to green and yellow. If the flowers are immersed
in water, the natural color will come back in a few hours. If applied
in sufficient quantity, the smoke of tobacco will change their color, so,
also, will holding them over the fumes of burning matches.
PRACTICAL HINTS.
Page 108 · 1 recipe record on this page
Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
This is also a simple and effectual fertilizer: Get some soot from a chimney or stove where wood is used for fuel, put it in an old pitcher and pour hot water upon it, When cool, use it to water the plants every few days. When it is all used, fill up the pitcher again with hot water. The effect upon roses that have almost hopelessly deteriorated is wonderful, in producing a rapid growth of thrifty shoots, with large, thick leaves and a great number of richly tinted roses. Never despair of a decayed rosebush until this has been tried.
CONSERVATORY CHAT.
A very pretty fence can be made for small gardens by a number of stakes of equal length, pointed at one end to drive into the ground, square at the top and painted green. Then place them at an equal distances around the garden and bore holes about six or seven inches apart for the twine, which should be brown linen. Pass the twine through the holes, in lines all around the garden. Plant vines which run rapidly, such as cypress vine, Madeira vine, nasturtium, dwarf convolvulus, mountain fringe, and by midsummer the fence will be very beautiful.
A novel flower-pot is made in this way : Take from three to four feet of wire netting and bend it into the shape of a hollow cylinder until the ends meet. Lace the ends together with flexible wire ; then tack to one end of the cylinder a wooden bottom, and you have the pot. Now fill nearly full of rich, loamy earth, and plant in the center a shrub or plant of rapid growth ; then plant in the sides of the pot, through the wire netting, fern or climbers ; water well, and in a little while the wire will be covered with a rich mass of green.
If you wish something bright for your window as a screen for your pots, make a wide but low screen to button to the window shelf — a sort of border for the shelf on which they are placed. It can be made of splints woven together with woolen cords ; or it may be made of a thin board covered with chintz, or a border of heavy velvet wall paper. A deep wine color, with a narrow gold border top and bottom, is very pretty ; or else a lattice work made of walnut splints and lined with scarlet cloth. Another pretty way is to use the tiled wall-paper ; or the pots may be placed in a window-box, covered with bark and lichens. Any of the above ways are pretty, and a bright color around the pots, covering up their ugliness, will make the plants look doubly beautiful,
The color of flowers can be changed at will in this way. Pour a little ammonia into a saucer and invert a tunnel over it. Place the flowers in the tube of the latter, and you will find that blue, violet and purple colored blossoms become a fine green ; carmine and crimson become black; white, yellow; while parti-colored flowers, such as red and white, are changed to green and yellow. If the flowers are immersed in water, the natural color will come back in a few hours. If applied in sufficient quantity, the smoke of tobacco will change their color, so, also, will holding them over the fumes of burning matches.
PRACTICAL HINTS.
Records on this page
Soot Fertilizer