Gardening Indoors and Under Glass | Page 4

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.
[Illustration: If possible it is well to have the house plants in a place
where the moisture and temperature can be regulated for them alone]
[Illustration: In almost any house it is possible to arrange a wide sill
with a metal or tile bottom where house plants may be properly cared
for]
This is much better than the use of pot saucers, especially for small pots.
Where a bay-window is used, if cut off from the room by glass doors,
or even by curtains, it will aid greatly in keeping a moist atmosphere
about the plants and preventing dust from settling on the leaves when

sweeping or dusting is being done.
A window-box can readily be made of planed inch pine boards, tightly
fitted and tightly joined. It should be six to ten inches wide and six to
eight inches deep. If a plain box is used, it will be necessary to bore
inch holes every six inches or so through the bottom to provide for
carrying off of any excess of water--although, with the method of
filling the box described in a later chapter, those holes would hardly
ever be called into service. Plants in the house in the winter, however,
are as likely to suffer from too much water as from too little, and
therefore, to prevent the disagreeable possibility of having dirty
drainage water running down onto several feet of floor, it will be
almost as easy, and far better, to have the box constructed with a
bottom made of two pieces, sloping slightly to the center where one
hole is made in which a cork can be kept. A false bottom of tin or zinc,
with the requisite number of holes cut out, and supported by three or
four inch strips of wood running lengthways of the box, supplies the
drainage. These strips must, of course, be cut in the middle to allow all
the water to drain out. The false bottom will take care of any ordinary
surplus of water, which can be drained off into a watering can or
pitcher by taking out the cork. The details of construction of such a box
are shown in figure 1. It will be best to have the box so placed upon its
supporting brackets that it can be changed occasionally end for end,
thus keeping the plants growing evenly, and not permitting the blooms
continually to turn their backs to the inside of the room.
[Illustration: Fig. 1--Box for plants. AC--false zinc bottom; AB,
CB--slanting bottom to drain water out at hole B.]
With the above simple provisions one may take advantage of all the
light to be had in an ordinary window. Occasionally a better place may
be found ready to hand, such as the bay-window illustrated facing page
8 or such as that described in the preceding chapter, or those mentioned
in the first chapter of Part II (page 146). The effort demanded will
always be repaid many times by greater ease and greater success in the
management of plants, and by the wider scope permitted.
TEMPERATURE

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