158 GARDENING BY M YSELF. 



less than when it is in full wakeful vigour. 

 Choose your opportunity, make calculations 

 about the time. Is it likely that this small 

 fuchsia, or geranium, or heliotrope, will 

 start so suddenly and grow so fast as in any 

 way to distinguish itself before you are 

 close upon frost ? If not, I counsel this : 

 Have good compost ready, and fresh clean 

 pots (they can be soaked and scrubbed out 

 when foul) ; then take up your listless plants, 

 pot them carefully, water them well, and 

 place them in an airy porch or piazza ; or 

 if you like, after a few days shading, just 

 plunge them in the very beds where they 

 were before. The fresh earth, the free sup- 

 ply of water, give the plant a start instead 

 of a check ; and it will perhaps not drop a 

 leaf, but just begin to grow and bloom and 

 look lovely ; and then it is all ready for re- 

 moval to the house at the approach of frost. 

 Of course if the weather is dr}^, you must 

 keep the pots well watered, wherever they 

 are. 



If other plants that were turned out or 



