Only Make-Believe - Gardens for the Winter Weary

and to make a dining tablecloth. My favorite find of all was lace woven with a pattern of jungle animals - and amazing find, and one that let us hang curtains in the so-called sunroom without losing what little light the trees let through.

Jungle is an easy theme these days - everywhere you look you find animal prints in everything from designer brocades and velvets to cotton. And in stores ranging from K-Marts to fancy design shops you will see props to help you carry out a theme. If you like the look, go for it now - unless, like me you want to spent 11 years trying to track down the right things.

But there are so many ways to create an indoor garden that you will want to keep looking until you find one that suits your own style.

Casual and Cottage-y
How about a sunny cottage garden? You can use a green carpet in a floral patter, or paint the floor green and stencil scattered flowers all over it.

Go to the local building supply store for some lattice. Lattice is incredibly versatile - frame it with 1 x 2s and it can be a room divider - hinge two or three panels together and create a screen. In our house it helps to disguise some pretty beat-looking walls in the dining room. I would love to extend the effect to the ceiling but haven't got the energy.

Paint the ceiling and upper walls sky blue and put lattice over them for an instant garden effect. If you're talented in art, paint flowers behind the lattice as though we were looking through the arbor at a garden beyond it. Or you can use an overhead projector to project a garden scene onto the wall and use that as your guide. There are also some great stencils around these days which are practically foolproof - I even found one for stenciling realistic looking clouds. If you don't want to buy a stencil, you can do wonders by using a natural sea sponge dipped on two shades of white paint to create a cloud-like effect.

Simplest of all - find wallpaper that gives the appearance of growing plants. Check out wallpaper borders - many of them ate now cut so that they outline the top or bottom of the flowers instead of being a straight cut. I recently found one in a wonderful botanical print of growing tulips - you can even peer below the soil line to see the bulbs. And then there are murals - many of the new ones

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