THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST. 69 



WINDOW GARDENING-REPOTTING PLANTS. ( 



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BY ''THEODORE JOHNSON." C Q 



Dear Sir: — 1 am delighted with your Journal, and will do my best 

 to support it — it was a much wanted work. As you invite contribu- 

 tions from practical gardeners, I will offer you a few leaves from my 

 experience occasionally. In the present, I aim at assisting the ama- 

 teur and young gardener in the management of their pot plants, while 

 it may give my professional brethren an opportunity of recording how 

 far their practice agrees with or differs from mine. After I had de- 

 cided to contribute the present article, I felt inclined to abandon it, 

 for in the towns and cities through which 1 occasionally pass, I see so 

 many well cultivated flowers in numerous windows that I doubted 

 whether their fair cultivators could be taught anything by one of our 

 cloth and cut. However, if my communication does only confirm 

 the pride and increase the interest which these gentle florists take in 

 their window pets, I shall be abundantly rewarded. 



Heat, air, and moisture are essential to plants , the roots feed upon 

 them, and in repotting it is necessary to provide for the admission of 

 these to the soil. Too much care can scarcely be given to procuring 

 a proper soil ; a soil which is too stiff or loamy becomes so solid that 

 air cannot penetrate it, while it dries very rapidly. A soil too sandy 

 admits air and heat too readily, so that moisture sufficient cannot be 

 retained, while a soil with a superabundance of vegetable matter re- 

 tains moisture too long and evolves injurious acids. A good soil, then, 

 for plants generally, is that which contains a proportion of loam, leaf 

 mould and sand. Practice only can show the exact proportion of 

 each for the perfect cultivation of each individual species of plant. 

 In that consists the art of cultivation — an oak or a chestnut will glory 

 in the stiffest loam ; the seakall, in its native shores, is at home amongst 

 the sand ; while the heath must be potted with the finest peaty vege- 

 table matter. Having at hand the soil to be used, and the pots ready, 

 the first thing to be done is to provide for the admission to the roots 

 of its necessary supply of heat, air and moisture ; this is accomplished 

 by drainage. A quantity of broken pots, bones, charcoal or bricks 

 are in readiness, a hollow tile placed over the hole, and about one- 

 sixth of the pot's depth filled with the broken material. Over this, a 

 thin layer of moss, leaves, or the like, just sufficient to prevent the 

 soil from getting amongst the drainage — otherwise its object is defeat- 

 ed. Few properly estimate the value of air to the roots of plants — 

 roots which have been growing near the surface, or around the edge 

 of the pots, are highly injured in repotting if the plant be placed too 

 deep, or the new pot be so large that the fresh air in the new soil be 

 r p exhausted before the roots have had time to penetrate through to the jp 

 f ^ sides — hence so many plants die after repotting, and hence the phi- G\ 



