The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-06-09

table where books or glasses may be
within easy reach of ones elbow. plen-
ty of cushions and perhaps a bright
colored fiber rug or two, will answer
for the porch furnishings. Swinging
seats of light wood or of rattan are
very artistic for those who can afford
them, and take up much less room
than a hammock strung across valua-
BILE space.
For porch decoration nothing can
equal growing vines and flowers and
there are quick growing vines which
if trained over wire cords or lattice
will in a short time afford a pleasant
shade. This matter of shade is very
important if the porch is to serve as
an out-of-door sitting-room through
the hot weather. Awnings are of course
the ideal means of shading the porch,
for they give a suggestion of space
and airiness, and while keeping out
the sun admit plenty of breeze and
light.
Flowers and awnings in combinl-
ton give a most delightful gayety and
suggestion of leisure to summer cot
little white house may be made quite
charming by red-striped awnings and
window and porch boxes filled with
red geraniums. Green and white
awnings with green vines or porch
plants are cool and restful in sugges-
ton, and the comfortable rattan porch
furniture comes in particularly soft
and pleasing shade of green.
An artistic porch flower box is
shown; the odd fern and foliage plants
filling the box being mixed with a
bushy plant covered with white ber-
ries. Boxes of this character are set
along the wide railing of the porch and
form an artistic screen and often trail
ing vines like wandering jew or dainty
green and white vines hang over the
edge of the box and the railing.
The rustic character of the box il
Illustrated will accord best with porch
of dark wood or with weather-stained
shingles or clapboards. The cottage
painted in white or light color should
have window and porch boxes to
match or in some wildly contrasting
shade like green or red which will
blend with the flowers or with the
stripes of the porch and window avn
ings. Growing ferns of the spreading
Scott variety are always charming on
the porch, and if a sufficiently large
jardiniere of porcelain be too expen-
sive, a wooden bucket robbed of its
handle and painted a dark green, Will
make a very satisfactory substitute
In fact plant jars of this sort are really
more satisfactory for porch USE for
h. ha ind ,irl,
for fear of pilferers.
Hanging plant stands of wicker
come from Japan, where so much i'm
portance is attached to floral decora-
tons of all kinds. These stands are
really only wicker circles depending
from long ropes, also of wicker or
twisted fiber. The plant jar sets down
into the wicker ring and swings about
three feet above the porch floor.
From Japan, also, come the GIeer
plant hangers in the forms of Tiny ami
mails and birds. These little affairs are
of iron and are very strong. There are
storks, frogs, monkeys and snakes
which hook one to the other by means
of crooked tails, bills or paws. As
many as a dozen of these all metal
links may be required to make a chain
long enough to hang a plant four feet
from the floor. China cornucopias are
another pretty Japanese notion for
porch decoration. These cornucopias
are designed to hang against the house
wall or on the porch pillars and they
come in various sizes; some just big
enough to hold a few drops of water
and a cluster of nasturtium; others
large enough to accom- mOdate a dozen
chrysanthemums.
Window boxes are such an attra ctive
and cheerful addition to the summer
home that one wonders at the rows of
bare hOusefronts on our streets. En-
glish folk realize to the full the value
of window box decorations and in My
smoky old London is abloom with gay
parterres of flowers, even the most un-
pretentious dwellings showing their
posy.