36 WINTER GREENERIES AT HOME. 



2. Take only young, vigorous, and growing plants. If 

 well rooted before cold weather begins, they are more 

 likely to endure the inevitable hardships of the season and 

 situation, and you will have the pleasure of watching 

 their growth, if not their bloom. Youth and health, you 

 know, always bear the charm of an unfulfilled promise 

 are full of happy anticipations like yourselves. Besides, 

 full-grown plants take up more room than you can well 

 spare; or, if cut back, they present a rather unsightly 

 appearance. After flowering, they are generally used by 

 florists for the growth of " cuttings." 



3. Give the preference to plants which take little or no 

 rest during the winter, or have already passed their period 

 of rest. Some greenhouse perennials grow more or less 

 continuously, while others make a pause of weeks or 

 months, as if waiting for " better times." The latter, if 

 well treated, "hold their own," and many of them are 

 very desirable for their beauty of foliage. Nearly all may 

 be expected to start into growth before the winter has 

 passed. But here and there a plant seems to be very ir- 

 regular and capricious. For instance, I have a fine pot 

 of " Smilax " Myr.nphyllum asparagoides which has 

 had a lazy fit of more than ten months; and I was just 

 ready to throw it out, when its Asparagus-like shoots 

 once more began to appear. Perhaps it would have done 

 better in a different room; but it is hardly steady-going 

 enough for me. 



4. Make sure beforehand that your selections are not of 

 deciduous plants, unless you like the sight of leafless stems. 



.Near the beginning of my experiments I barely escaped a 

 mortifying failure by observing this caution at the last 

 moment. I was about to purchase for winter use several 

 attractive but unfamiliar plants which were in full leaf 

 among them the " Crape Myrtle" and Ampelopsis VeitcJiii 

 when I happened to ask if they were deciduous. You are 

 probably aware that many trees, shrubs, and vines drop 



