42 WINDOW OARDENINO. 
tropes, etc., etc., can be placed in boxes and vases on piazzas or balconies, or a 
garden can be made on the roof. 
Large strong boxes can be attached to the outside of the windows, and all 
the plants set into them. In this way much care is avoided, for the plants can 
be watered with a syringe or watering pot, and the debris of withered leaves and 
stems IS more easily cleared away. The plants can also be kept much freer from 
insects, and will grow more luxuriantly. Manure waterings can be given weekly. 
A tablespoonful of guano in a gallon of water, which should stand in the sun two 
or three days before being applied, is the easiest to procure, but all or any of the 
manures alluded to before, can be employed. When the flower buds appear, 
stimulants are much needed ; and if no other can be procured, try this. Put a 
teaspoonful of aqua ammonia into a gallon of water, and sprinkle it all over the 
leaves and surface of the soil. Cut off all faded flowers; this greatly helps to keep 
the plants free from mildew, and increases their healthy condition ; every yel- 
low leaf should be taken off as soon as perceived. 
If ever a plant becomes thoroughly dry from oversight or neglect, place it in a 
deep pan of rain water (if possible,) and let it remain for an hour or longer, until 
it is thoroughly soaked, but do not let the pot be entirely covered with the water. 
H it water will frequently revive faded cut flowers ; cut off a small bit of the 
ste n, and then immerse the end into very hot water; you can see the petals 
smooth out from their crumpled folds, the leaves uncurl, and tlie whole branch 
an 1 flower resume its beauty. Colored flowers revive the most completely. 
White flowers turn yellow, and the thickest textured petals come out the best 
from this hot foot bath 
For preserving flowers in water, there is nothing so good as finely powdered 
charcoal. It keeps the water from all obnoxious odors. As a general rule too much 
air and too much light can not be given ; yet when m full bloom the direct rays 
of the sun will cause delicate flowers to fade rapidly, wliile if they are shaded 
from the noon-tide heat, their beauty will be much prolonged ; but during the 
night the more fresh air they breathe is the better. 
If house-plants are plunged in pots into the borders, care must be taken to 
either close up the outlet at the botom of the pot, or else to put bits of plank or 
shingles under them, or set them upon small stones. This is needful on account 
of the tendency of their tiny rootlets to force their way out of the pot, and when 
the plant is removed, they must necessarily be cut off, thereby causing it to 
droop or wither, and greatly injuring its growth. 
It is not advisable to let your plants run to seed. You desire to secure flowers, 
and to do this you must not let the plant fulfil its mission of leaves, buds, flow- 
ers and seeds in natural order, but by cutting off all the faded blooms, stimulate 
it to shoot forth fresh branches and buds, and strive to do its duty. 
In order to secure seeds that are worth planting, it is needful to pick off al' 
the later buds, and throw the whole strength of the plant into forming seed th;»> 
will prove worth the raising. 
