THE GARDEN 



kept in pots when they realize that it is to their 

 advantage to so keep them. A plant in a pot 

 is always under control. You can encourage 

 it to grow, if growth is desirable, or you can 

 keep it practically dormant until the time 

 comes when you desire it to develop. 



Nor do I believe in sinking them in the 

 ground in their pots, as many do, arguing that 

 in this way they avoid the dangers which attend 

 the potting of plants from the open ground. 

 A plant in a pot, sunk in the ground, is almost 

 sure to suffer, and seriously, because its owner 

 labors under the belief that it gets all the mois- 

 ture it needs. She infers this because the 

 ground outside the pot seems moist. But the 

 fact is, the pot, while porous to a certain extent, 

 is not sufficiently so to admit moisture from the 

 soil about it freely enough to meet the require- 

 ments of the roots enclosed by it, and because 

 of this the plant suffers, nine times out of ten, 

 and completes the summer season in a condition 

 that is anything but favorable to good work 

 later on. This can be prevented by applying 

 water regularly, but in no other way. And the 

 regular use of w r ater on sunken plants is quite 

 sure to be neglected, therefore the probabilities 

 are that the plants we attempt to summer on 



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