120 Milady's House Plants 



Seeing, however, that the chief object now is to 

 train these plants to endure cheerfully the dark days 

 of Winter in the house, it is better to keep them in 

 moderate shade all Summer than to subject them to 

 a violent change both Spring and Fall. All the ferns 

 should be placed in "dense shade," and well sheltered 

 from wind. The flowering plants may be placed in 

 the full sunlight for reasons already explained. 



The Time for Lifting 



In the early Fall, say in the middle of September, 

 everything should be lifted out of the ground, the pots 

 washed and the drainage examined and if found to be 

 stopped up, should be cleaned. In order to do this 

 thoroughly, the plant should be taken out of the pot 

 in the manner before described and the mud that has 

 worked down among the drainage cleaned out by 

 hand. As this mud is mainly caused by the workings 

 of worms and as some of these creatures may still 

 be in the bole, one or two waterings of lime water 

 should be given to drive them out. The plants 

 should be grouped near the house so that they may 

 be quickly brought in at the first alarm of frost, and 

 should be set on boards or in saucers, having in mind 

 the aforesaid worms, which are always waiting for a 

 chance to hunt in new soil for decaying leaf mold, etc., 

 but not for live roots. 



