54 HOME FLORICULTURE 



when you want some material for drainage. Many 

 persons neglect to provide drainage simply because 

 they have nothing at hand just when it is wanted. Be 

 prepared for such emergencies. 



Keep all plants requiring support tied up neatly 

 and firmly. If you neglect this, quite likely you will 

 regret it, for sometime when you are at work among 

 them the unsupported plant will get a twist or turn by 

 which it will be seriously injured. Then you will wish 

 you had attended to the poor plant at the time you 

 discovered its need of attention. 



If your window is crowded with plants thin them 

 out. Keep only as many as you can accommodate 

 without crowding. If you have too many all individ- 

 uality is destroyed ; you can never expect satisfactory 

 development where there is lack of room. Where 

 plants have to elbow each other in their efforts to 

 get to the light some of the less aggressive ones 

 must remain in the background, and suffer in conse- 

 quence. If you are not willing to dispense with any, 

 change them about every week, so that all may have 

 a chance at the light. Place the taller ones at the 

 sides of the window, and farthest away from the 

 glass, as they can get light over the heads of the 

 lower growers. 



Never arrange the plants in your window in such 

 a manner as to make an effective display from the 

 outside only. You do not grow plants, I hope, to 

 please the passer-by, but yourself and the members 

 of your family. Arrange them in such a way as to 

 make the window a beautiful sight when looked at 

 from the room. Act on the principle of making home 

 beautiful to those who are in it first of all. If some 

 of its beauty overflows and gladdens the eyes of those 

 who are not members of the household, well and 

 good. But let it be "home first, the world afterward." 



