Stream Corner

Encourage climbers to climb. Or conversely, allow them to hang downwards from a height, in which case many of them will attempt to fulfill their real function and will turn the ends of their long trails upwards in the most elegant manner.

Beside the little wine serving table in the dining-room stands a plant of Philodendron imbe, usually known as Burgundy because of the deep, rich, wine red of its lanceolate leaves and in the bedroom are several soft, intimate, dainty and delicate plants of African violets, seldom without flowers the whole year through. In the kitchen grow pots of quick growing and easily replaced chives and mint and the elegant cone of a little bay tree.

Too often an elegant, upright sansevieria or even aspidistra over years of careful tending becomes a bush or a forest of spears and loses its identity. Divide these crowded plants so that they retain their basic shapes.

Some of our easiest and most tolerant plants are climbers.

To train plants up a wall use canes, string, cotton, attractive plastic trellis or wrought iron. To cover a wide area separate the growing trails and tic or clip them gently to their supports, keeping the growing tips always pointing in the direction in which you wish them to travel. As these growing tips sometimes die off because of the lack of humidity in their solo space, give them an occasional gentle spray with clean, tepid water. If this is clone with discretion and care no harm will come to the wall behind or to soft furnishings in the area, for only the smallest quantities of moisture are required.

A great chlorophytum stands six feet high in the bowl of an old oil-lamp standard, its elegant green and white striped grass like leaves arching into the air and its long stems bearing the little white flowers and the young plants at their ends swooping outwards to hang in graceful clusters.