78 GARDENING FOR PLEASURE. 



the amateur florist expect to do in the often unequal 

 temperature and dry atmosphere of a sitting room or 

 parlor ? If the plants are purchased from the florist in au- 

 tumn, to grow in the house, they are likely to be healthy, 

 and are usually in a condition to shift into a pot one size 

 larger ; instructions for doing this are given in the chap- 

 ter on "Winter Flowering Plants." But if the plants to 

 be cultivated in the house are such as have been growing 

 in your own flower borders, plants that were set out in 

 spring, and have now the full summer's luxuriant growth 

 still on them, then proper precaution must be taken in 

 lifting them and placing them in pots, or the result is 

 certain to be most unsatisfactory. "What may seem to 

 the novice a little singular, is, that the more luxuriant the 

 growth of the plant in the open border, the more danger 

 there is that it will wilt or die when lifted in the fall, and 

 placed in a pot. The reason of this is obvious, when it is 

 known that just in proportion to the top growth of a 

 plant is the wide-spread development of roots, and there- 

 fore when you lift a finely-grown Geranium or Rose in 

 October, it is next to impossible, if it is to be got into a 

 suitable sized flower-pot, to do so without such mutila- 

 tion of the young roots as will certainly kill it, if precau- 

 tion is not taken to cut off at least two-thirds of its 

 branches. If the plant is thus potted and kept as dry as 

 it will stand without actually withering, until it starts 

 growth, you may hope to have a fairly healthy specimen 

 by December, if the lifting was done in October. But 

 this practice, though often one of necessity, is never sat- 

 isfactory. If the plants that have done service in the 

 borders in summer are to be used as ornaments for the 

 parlor in fall, winter, and spring, they must have a dif- 

 ferent treatment. All plants that are intended for future 

 culture in rooms, should be potted in the usual way, 

 into 5 or 6-inch pots, when set out in May or June ; 

 these pots should be set in the flower borders, but planted 



