PALM-CULTURE 



Palm does not require as large a pot as most 

 persons think. For plants with six or seven 

 large leaves, three or four feet tall, an eight or 

 nine-inch pot is quite large enough. The 

 writer has two specimens of "made-up" 

 Palms — three plants growing together as if 

 they were one — in nine-inch pots, and they are 

 as healthy as Palms can well be, and are con- 

 stantly developing new leaves. I feed them 

 with frequent applications of fertilizer — either 

 liquid, or in the shape of fine bone-meal — 

 rather than by putting them into fresh earth 

 every year. This does away with all disturb- 

 ance of their roots and answers all purposes 

 perfectly. 



So long as any plant gets all the food it re- 

 quires it is not very particular how it gets it. 

 It is not only easier, but safer, to give it in the 

 form of an application such as I have advised 

 than it is to repot with the risk of injuring the 

 roots. If repotting is done, do not attempt to 

 remove the old soil or to loosen the roots in any 

 way. Simply slip the plant out of its old pot, 

 set it in the new one, and fill in about it with 

 fresh earth, providing, of course, for good 

 drainage. Do not attempt to crowd the fresh 

 earth down with a stick, for by doing that you 



198 



