342 MANUAL OF GARDENING 



The window for plants should have a southern, southeastern, 

 or eastern exposure. Plants need all the light they can get in 

 the winter, especially those that are expected to bloom. The 

 window should be tight-fitting. Shutters and a curtain will be 

 an advantage in cold weather. 



Plants like a certain uniformity in conditions. It is very 

 trying on them, and often fatal to success, to have them snug 

 and warm one night and pinched in a temperature only a few 

 degrees above freezing the next. Some plants will live in spite 

 of it, but they cannot be expected to prosper. Those whose 

 rooms are heated with steam, hot water, or hot air will have to 

 guard against keeping rooms too warm fully as much as keeping 

 them too cool. Rooms in brick dwellings that have been warm 

 all day, if shut up and made snug in the evening, will often keep 

 warm over night without heat except in the coldest weather. 

 Rooms in frame dwellings exposed on all sides soon cool down. 



It is difficult to grow plants in rooms lighted by gas. Most 

 living-rooms have air too dry for plants. In such cases the bow- 

 window may be set off from the room by glass doors; one then 

 has a miniature conservatory. A pan of water on the stove 

 or on the register and damp moss among the pots, will help to 

 afford plants the necessary humidity. 



The foliage will need cleansing from time to time to free 

 it from dust. A bath tub provided with a ready outlet for the 

 water is an excellent place for this purpose. The plants may 

 be turned on their sides and supported on a small box above 

 the bottom of the tub. Then they may be freely syringed with- 

 out danger of making the soil too wet. It is usually advisable 

 not to wet the fiowers, however, especially the white waxen 

 kinds, hke hyacinths. The foliage of rex begonias should be 

 cleansed with a piece of dry or only slightly moist cotton. But 

 if the leaves can be quickly dried off by placing them in the 

 open air on mild days, or moderately near the stove, the foliage 

 may be syringed. 



