TEMPERATURE - Garden

Next in importance to light, is the matter of temperature. The ordinary
house plants, to be kept in health, require a temperature of sixty-five
to seventy-five degrees during the day and fifty to fifty-five degrees
at night. Frequently it will not be possible to keep the room from going
lower at night, but it should be kept as near that as possible;
forty-five degrees occasionally will not do injury, and even several
degrees lower will not prove fatal, but if frequently reached the plants
will be checked and seem to stand still. Plants in the dormant, or
semi-dormant condition are not so easily injured by low temperature as
those in full growth; also plants which are quite dry will stand much
more cold than those in moist soil.

The proper condition of temperature is the most difficult thing to
regulate and maintain in growing plants in the house. There is, however,
at least one room in almost every house where the night temperature does
not often go below forty-five or fifty degrees, and if necessary all
plants may be collected into one room during very cold weather. Another
precaution which will often save them is to move them away from the
windows; put sheets of newspaper inside the panes, not, however,
touching the glass, as a "dead air space" must be left between. Where
there is danger of freezing, a kerosene lamp or stove left burning in
the room overnight will save them. Never, when the temperature outside
is below freezing, should plants be left where leaves or blossoms may
touch the glass.

As with the problem of light, so with that of temperature--the specially
designed place for plants, no matter how small or simple a little nook
it may be, offers greater facility for furnishing the proper conditions.
But it is, of course, not imperative, and as I have said, there is
probably not one home in twenty where a number of sorts of plants cannot
be safely carried through the winter.


MOISTURE

It would seem, at first thought, that the proper condition of moisture
could be furnished as easily in the house as anywhere. And so it can be
as far as applying water to the soil is concerned; but the air in most
dwellings in winter is terribly deficient in moisture. The fact that a
room is so dry that plants cannot live in it should sound a warning to
us who practically live there for days at a time, but it does not, and
we continue to contract all sorts of nose and throat troubles, to say
nothing of more serious diseases. No room too dry for plants to live in
is fit for people to live in. Hot-air and steam heating systems
especially, produce an over-dry condition of the atmosphere. This can
be overcome to a great or complete extent by thorough ventilation and by
keeping water constantly where it can evaporate; over radiators, etc.
This should be done for the sake of your own health, if not for that of
the plant.

Further information as to watering and ventilation will be found in
Chapter VII (page 45), but before we get anxious about just how to take
care of plants we must know how to get them, and before getting them we
must know what to give them to grow in--the plant's foundation. So for a
little we must be content with those prosaic but altogether essential
matters of soil, manures and fertilizers, which in the next chapter I
shall try to make clear in as brief manner as possible.

LIGHT - Garden

In the first place, almost all plants, whether they flower or not, must
have an abundance of light, and many require sunshine, especially during
the dull days of winter. Plants without sufficient light never make a
normal, healthy growth; the stems are long, lanky and weak, the foliage
has a semi-transparent, washed-out look, and the whole plant falls an
easy victim to disease or insect enemies. Even plants grown in the full
light of a window, as everyone with any experience in managing them
knows from observation, will draw toward the glass and become one-sided
with the leaves all facing one way. Therefore even with the best of
conditions, it is necessary to turn them half about every few days,
preferably every time they are watered, in order that they may maintain
an even, shapely growth.

As a rule the flowering plants, such as geraniums and heliotropes,
require more light and sunshine than those grown for foliage, such as
palms, ferns and the decorative leaved begonias. It is almost
impossible, during the winter months, to give any of them too much
sunlight and where there is any danger of this, as sometimes happens in
early fall or late spring, a curtain of the thinnest material will give
them ample protection, the necessity being not to exclude the light, but
simply to break the direct action of the sun's rays through glass.

A great variety of plants may be grown in the ordinary window garden,
for which the sunniest and broadest window available should be selected.
There are two methods of handling the plants: they may be kept as
individual specimens in pots and "dishes" or "pans" (which are nothing
more or less than shallow flower pots), or they may be grown together in
a plant box, made for the purpose and usually more or less decorative in
itself, that will harmonize with and set off the beauty of the plants.

The latter method, that of growing in boxes, offers two distinct
advantages, especially where there is likely to be encountered too high
a temperature and consequent dryness in the air. The plants are more
easily cared for than they are in pots, which rapidly dry out and need
frequent changing; and effects in grouping and harmonious decoration may
be had which are not readily secured with plants in pots. On the other
hand, it is not possible to give such careful attention to individual
plants which may require it as when they are grown in pots; nor can
there be so much re-arrangement and change when these are required--and
what good housekeeper is not a natural born scene shifter, every once in
so often rolling the piano around to the other side of the room, and
moving the bookcase or changing the big Boston fern over to the other
window, so it can be seen from the dining-room?

If the plants are to be kept in pots--and on the whole this will
generally be the more satisfactory method--several shelves of light,
smooth wood of a convenient width (six to twelve inches) should be
firmly placed, by means of the common iron brackets, in each window to
be used. It will help, both in keeping the pots in place and in
preventing muddy water from dripping down to the floor or table below,
if a thin, narrow strip of wood is nailed to each edge of these shelves,
extending an inch or two above them. A couple of coats of outside paint
will also add to the looks and to the life of these shelves and further
tend to prevent any annoying drip from draining pots. Such a shelf will
be still further improved by being covered an inch or two deep with
coarse gravel or fine pebbles.