THE WINTER 



increases in size. A vigorous plant will often 

 have as many as a hundred flowers on it at 

 one time. After a while it is well to cut the 

 old branches back within a few inches of the 

 pot. Give the soil a spoonful of bone-meal 

 when you do this, and in a short time new 

 branches will put forth, and soon you will have 

 a plant which has entirely renewed itself and 

 begun to bloom again. Do not make the mis- 

 take of selecting double Petunias for winter 

 use. They almost invariably fail to perfect 

 their flowers in the living-room. If you have a 

 particularly fine single variety which you 

 would like to carry through the winter, root a 

 cutting of it in sand, or take up the old plant, 

 cutting it back to a mere stub at the time of 

 potting. You will have to do one or the other 

 of these things in order to make sure of getting 

 what you want, as we cannot depend on seed- 

 lings coming "true," as the florists say that 

 is, reproducing the exact characteristics of the 

 parent plant. Petunias are admirably adapted 

 for growing on brackets if their branches are 

 allowed to droop over the pot and train them- 

 selves. They are more graceful when grown 

 in this way, in the house, than when trained 

 over a trellis, or tied to stiff supports. 



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