INDOOR GARDENS 109 



2. You can gain a month or more on the outdoor season by 

 starting vegetables indoors. 



3. You can produce flowers for cutting. 



4. You can grow plants for decorating the house. 



5. You can grow flowers for exhibition and competition. 



6. You can use your greenhouse as a hospital for house 

 plants that are out of order. 



7. You can winter tender plants, such as geraniums, and 

 all bedding material. 



8. You can make your garden bloom a month earlier by 

 starting flower seeds indoors. 



9. You can make a collection of your favourite flowers and 

 go in for plant breeding. 



10. You can make the greenhouse a reminder of the tropics, 

 or at least a bright and pretty picture. 



11. And, finally, you can make the greenhouse, to some 

 extent, a living room. 



Not all of these things, however, are possible in any one house. 

 The first nine purposes are practical, the last two are artistic, and 

 the two groups conflict. If you want your greenhouse to be 

 a factory it cannot be beautiful all the time. If you wish your 

 greenhouse to be a living room, or a picture of the tropics, you 

 must not crowd it with plants. Indeed, overcrowding is the worst 

 feature of American greenhouses. They are rich in species, but 

 poor in pictures. The specimens do not have room enough to 

 develop and plants demanding radically different temperatures 

 and treatment are put into the same house. You cannot grow 

 roses and carnations together; they must have separate houses, or 

 separate compartments. Our besetting sin is attempting too 

 much. We do not give the gardener a fair chance. 



