oughout the season should be
chosen in preference to shy and short-season bloomers. Geraniums,
Petunias, Verbenas, Fuchsias, Salvias, Heliotropes, Paris Daisies--all
these are excellent.

[Illustration: PORCH BOX]

If one cares to depend on foliage for color, most pleasing results can
be secured by making use of the plants of which mention has been made in
the chapter on Carpet-Bedding.

Vines that will give satisfaction are Glechoma, green, with yellow
variegation--Vinca _Harrisonii_, also green and yellow, Moneywort,
German Ivy, Tradescantia, Thunbergia, and Othonna. A combination of
plants with richly-colored foliage is especially desirable for boxes on
the porch or veranda, where showiness seems to be considered as more
important than delicacy of tint or refinement of quality. In these boxes
larger plants can be used than one would care to give place to at the
window. Here is where Cannas and Caladiums will be found very effective.

Ferns, like the Boston and Pierson varieties, are excellent for not too
sunny window-boxes because of their graceful drooping and spreading
habit. They combine well with pink-and-white Fuchsias, rose-colored Ivy
Geraniums, and the white Paris Daisy. Petunias--the single sorts
only--are very satisfactory, because they bloom so freely and
constantly, and have enough of the droop in them to make them as useful
in covering the sides of the box as they are in spreading over its
surface. If pink and white varieties are used to the exclusion of the
mottled and variegated kinds the effect will be found vastly more
pleasing than where there is an indiscriminate jumbling of colors.

A foot in width, a foot in depth, and the length of the window frame to
which it is to be attached is a good size for the average window-box.
Great care must be taken to see that it is securely fastened to the
frame, and that it is given a strong support, for the amount of earth it
will contain will be of considerable weight when well saturated with
water.

Veranda boxes, in which larger plants are to be used, should be
considerably deeper and wider than the ordinary window-box. Any box of
the size desired that is substantial enough to hold a sufficient amount
of soil will answer all purposes, therefore it is not necessary to
invest in expensive goods unless you have so much money that economy is
no object to you. If your plants grow as they ought to no one can tell,
by midsummer, whether your box cost ten dolla